201. Italy and Back Part 2: Loos and Paper “Coins”
The Fountain of Trevi- Rome in the 1970s
If losing one’s identity is not enough, there were more joys to come. Having a weak bladder in England is no problem, because be it the High Street, the park, the bus station, a public convenience was always to be found. In Italy, at least in 1976 when two planks over a cess hole in the bushes was still the norm in most country houses, a public convenience was “unknown” terminology for the local administration of any town.
The Public Conveniences are just next to the statue of Sister Dora in Walsall (1970s)
Another piece of “unknown” terminology in 1976 was coins, they had disappeared from the Italian currency system completely. The popular explanation was that the clergy was hording them from the church collections. Personally, I believe it was the usual furbezza (slyness) of Italian Mafia who never missed an opportunity to make a buck even speculating on short change like 10 lire which isn’t worth a farthing or a quarter of a cent nowadays. If it stopped at the 10 lire mark, one can even slide over it but before long I noticed that this process was extended to the 50 lire and even the 100 lire.
Since most goods are marked, for example, at nine thousand and nine-hundred lire, people would obviously give a ten thousand lire note, (yes indeed, it was all in thousands in pre-euro days), you never got your hundred lire change- and in those days, you could buy an expresso coffee for 100 lire and get 20 lire change- if you ever got the change. It didn’t take me long to catch on why the big bowl of sweets beside the cash desk was there for- and it certainly wasn’t because you had been a good girl- you’ve guessed it- it was in lieu for change.
A year or two later however, someone had the brilliant idea of printing paper “coins” and the whole country was inundated with cheap paper “coins” which forced the powers that be resurrect the tin coins and lo and behold, the 5, 10, 50 and 100 tin coins all reappeared overnight as if by magic... the big bowls of sweets by the cash register disappeared too.
Can you imagine anything like this actually happening in Canada, Britain or the US?
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