About the Author

Terry Dillon has led a successful life in education as a

headmaster, one of Her Majestys Inspectors of Schools,
and as an international educational consultant, advising
national governments in Romania, Montenegro, the
Caribbean and South Africa. He was born in a mining
village in the West Riding of Yorkshire, where he started to
play the cornet. His military service was spent as a
musician with the Band of Her Majestys Welsh Guards.
He began his teaching career in Skipton and now lives in
the Cotswolds, where he is a member of Creative Campden
and a governor of the local primary school, St Catharines.
His other books include Light Me a Candle, The Kings
Beacon, Quarry Lane, A Long Way Home, and
Justice.

To my wife, Aurora

Te r e n c e D i l l o n

AURORA, ME AND
SARDINIA

Copyright Terence Dillon (2015)

The right of Terence Dillon to be identified as author of this
work has been asserted by him in accordance with section 77
and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be
reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any
form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying,
recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the
publishers.
Any person who commits any unauthorized act in relation to
this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil
claims for damages.
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the
British Library.
ISBN 9781785545269 (Paperback)
ISBN 9781785545276 (Hardback)
www.austinmacauley.com
First Published (2015)
Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd.
25 Canada Square
Canary Wharf
London
E14 5LQ

Printed and bound in Great Britain

Acknowledgments

My thanks go to my wife Aurora for all the help she gave me

in writing this book and to the people of Sardinia, whose
friendship made this book possible.

Chapter 1

Sardinia, sitting as it does in the Mediterranean Sea, is a

beautiful island. Blessed with long sandy beaches, the warm
waters which surround it, a central core of mountains and
building restrictions which have succeeded in resisting the
introduction of beach-side multi-storey hotels, Sardinia retains
the charm of centuries. Aurora and I saw it as providing the
ideal location in which to set up a second home. We have
lived partly in England and partly in Sardinia ever since.
When we bought the house in 2005 I could not speak Italian
and almost ten years later, to my shame, I still cannot speak
Italian. Despite doing exercises regularly from a course
promising fluency in Italian in three months, a series of video
tapes on which the only spoken language is Italian, attendance
for a few months at an evening class in England, and regularly
watching television programmes in Italian when in Sardinia, I
remain confused and mostly speechless when among a group
of Sardinians. I know how to say Buongiorno (though, as I
write, it has taken me three goes to spell it and confirmation
from my wife Aurora, a fluent Italian speaker, before I spelled
it correctly), say Arriverderci, ask for a coffee (un caf, per
favour, oops should be favore), a beer (una birra), directions
to the supermarket, how to find a castle and Dove la fermata
per lautobus? (Ill leave the reader to translate the phrase).
Everything seems stacked against me. The Sardinians I
meet speak at a great rate, one word seeming to slide into
another, leaving me confused as to when one word started and

the other finished, (this is particularly true, I find, when they

sing hymns or say prayers in church. I have an aid to the Mass
in Italian, but Im usually about halfway through the Credo
when they are finished, as I try to pronounce the words as
written with a beginning and ending) or they speak in a dialect
not taught through the traditional courses, so as I try to
understand the meaning of one word, several others requiring
translation have flooded into my mind, untranslated, and the
whole conversation, therefore, becomes, for me, totally
impenetrable. Fortunately for both of us Aurora does not have
that difficulty, though she finds the different dialects tricky
and on her worst days she says they seem to add up to a
different language. I dont know the difference between
classical Italian and dialect- Why should I? I ask myself,
One day I will, though, I add mentally, confident regular
contact with Italian will suffice. Little do I know!
It was almost ten years later, with my Italian little
improved, before I was told I was doing it all wrong, and
unless I changed my approach, I would never progress. I was
told I shouldnt try to translate word by word, which I was
trying to do. As I always fail to understand what is being said,
I thoroughly agree. The most recent advice I have, and we are
now into 2015, is to listen intently and pick out the words I
recognise, concentrating more on the pattern than on trying to
mentally translate all that is said. Its a new approach for me,
but so far, and it is now a couple of months since I first tried
this new approach, and I have been listening to a lot of Italian,
I have made little progress. I will persevere, but with doubts,
hoping for the lightening flash which could precede the
thunder of applause as I hold my first real conversation with
Petro, a neighbour who visits us regularly and spends his time
first shouting for Aurora because he cant understand me and
then talking to her, hardly noticing my presence.
I studied languages when I was at school, learning Latin
and French into the sixth form, (but please, dont test me in
them), mainly because I wanted to study history at university.
But for some reason it has not prepared me for what I now

need. Indeed, my confusion with Italian is best explained

when, having rehearsed mentally the question I wanted to ask
several times as I crossed the road, I approached a lady
carrying a well-filled shopping bag and stuttered, Scusa,
dove il supermercato, sil vous plait? She was not the only
one who burst out laughing as I stood bemused, not realising
what I had said. It took me until I had gone back across the
street to re-join Aurora to realise I had merged Italian and
French. The whole experience demonstrated how the lack of
confidence in using a new language can result in panic, the
panic which had engulfed me as Id approached the Sardinian
lady. In comparison, an old school friend of mine who was
staying with us, versed in French rather than Italian, had the
confidence to sit by an aged Sardinian in Mussolinis special
village, Fertilia, and endeavour to carry on a conversation.
What the Sardinian made of it, Ive no idea, but my friend
demonstrated clearly how to develop communication skills in
a foreign language take any opportunity offered and do your
best, even though you may not understand him and he may not
understand you, which Im pretty sure was the situation on
that particular occasion.
The knowledge and ability to use the Italian language, we
found, is critical when in the process of buying a house.
Without it, and, in particular, without Auroras excellent
knowledge of Italian, the unravelling of the conditions of sale
would have been impossible. There is a whole procedure to go
through before a foreigner, who is not already resident, can
buy property in Sardinia, and Im pretty sure, for that matter,
any other country. To complete a sale is a painstaking job
even for an Englishman in England, but in a country like
Sardinia it would definitely have been impossible for someone
like me, with my more than limited knowledge of Italian. I
used to stand next to Aurora with as conversant an expression
on my face as I could, trying to show I completely understood
the essence of the conversation as she discussed with
Sardinian civil servants, whose ability on the computer, Im
pleased to say, was as sprightly as my Italian, what was
needed before we could complete the process. Its amazing
3

how the eyes of those with whom we were dealing would fix
themselves in the first place on my eyes, wrongly assuming I
was understanding and would be the one in charge, the
decision-maker, the one who needed to know all the facts,
then on Auroras, then back to mine, before realising that the
blankness which had by that time swept away my earlier
knowledgeable expression indicated all was lost on me and it
was safer to return more permanently to Aurora. Their
discovery is usually confirmed when I quietly ask Aurora in
English what is happening, or she turns to me and tries to keep
me abreast of the conversation. Thats how it is. One minute
looking in charge, the next looking like a speechless wimp.
Needless to say, Auroras experience as a teacher of
Italian in Romania and more recently in England, where she
taught in a high class private school, evening classes, as well
as marking Italian advanced Baccalaureate examinations,
served us well. She understood what we had to do, but I dont
think even she knew how circuitous our journey to house
ownership was going to be. At a pace designed, it seemed, for
tortoises who didnt know where their next step was likely to
take them, we followed instructions and started on what
reminded me of my attempts to find my way out of the
Hampton Court maze many years previously. Having got lost
somewhere in the maze I had to rely on the help of a keeper to
get me back to safety. In Sardinia I relied on Aurora, who has
almost become my personal keeper, to help me through what
became a Sardinian maze. Before we could even consider with
any seriousness the purchase of a house, we discovered, (well,
Aurora did), we needed to report to the police so that we could
officially establish our identity, acquire the appropriate papers
confirming us as residents and giving us the equivalence of a
British national insurance number. All this had to be done
before we could enter the housing market. Can you imagine
how I would have fared without Aurora? The Italian I knew
would have allowed me to ask for un tabachi, la polizia, la
banca, and when meeting up with an official, not much more
than, Buongiorno. Come sta? Sono Inglese. Parlo solo un po
Italiano. And there the conversation would probably have
4

ended, because it would be unlikely I would understand his

response, and what Ive learned about the Sardinians whom I
have met is they dont always do much to help you understand
nor do they speak much English.
But I had Aurora and so we were able, like the amateurs
we were, to follow through the process knowing we could
always ask again for advice if we needed it. We were staying
in an agriturissmo, in England we would call it a bed and
breakfast, though with the Italian approach to breakfast it was
more bed than breakfast, just outside Sassari, which was a
good base to do what we had to do. Our first destination was
to a special type of police station, a Questura, identified as
Ministero DellInterno, to obtain a foreigners permit of
stay. After navigating the long queue, a regular hazard in
Sardinia, we eventually reached the officer. We handed over
the form with the range of questions answered as accurately as
we could, and then watched as the answers were entered onto
the computer with one-fingered care. Duly recorded, the form,
complete with photographs, was ready for filing. We had
visited a photographers that morning to have our photographs
taken. I hesitate to say how long it took the photographer to
get a smile on my face. He was as stubborn as I was as I kept
reminding him, through Aurora, that on a British passport
photo I needed to look as miserable as possible. He didnt see
this as an issue as he was determined to take a photograph
which pleased him rather than an anonymous official and did
all he could, waving his hands, smiling, winking, anything to
get a crease in my face. Credit to him, he eventually
succeeded and took a photograph which showed me enjoying
the experience and which, to my surprise, was accepted by the
police and the Ministero DellInterno. From the Questura,
which Aurora had dutifully translated into police station for
me, we went to what was called the Agenzia delle Entrate,
which I rightly took to mean the agency for new entrants into
Sardinia. Having travelled across the regional city of Sassari,
which is an old walled city located in the North West of
Sardinia, we arrived to find the large room of the Agenzia
crowded. The jabbering of different languages and mixture of
5

colours as people from different nations sought permission to

stay in Sardinia was fascinating. It was my first real sense of
the range of nationalities which can be found in what is, in
reality, an off-shore island. On an earlier visit to the island,
one which gave us the opportunity to behave as tourists, we
had been struck by the number of Africans, with Italian no
better than mine, displaying a whole range of wares as they
moved along the Stintino and Platamona beaches and through
the towns of Sassari and Porto Torres in search of a sale. It
was obvious that the room in which we were standing
provided them with the possibility of access and some
permanence on the island, along with the Chinese, Indians and
Eastern Europeans, who were also patiently queuing for allimportant signatures. What I found surprising was the story
being depicted through the Italian news agencies that many
from North Africa were crossing by boat to Southern Italy and
using the country as a jumping off point in their search for
access into other countries in Western Europe. There is no
doubt mainland Italy offers such an opportunity but it was
difficult to see how easy it was going to be for those who had
reached the island of Sardinia to jump off for anywhere. Had
they been misled by some money-grabbing North-African,
had the Italian government simply dumped them on the island,
or had it been their intention to find a new life in Sardinia?
Who knows?
I sighed as I looked around, muttering to Aurora, We could
be here for hours.
Just wait and see, she answered. You never know.
And she was right. For once we were in luck. I hadnt
noticed the big signs which divided the applicants into
sections by country, but one, prominently displayed over a
section with no more than three couples waiting, said EU
Candidati. I didnt need to be a professor in Italian to realise
that was the queue for us. It took time for all our papers to be
meticulously checked by what I took to be a civil servant, but
once that was done I breathed relief. But it wasnt over. We
were directed to yet another office, (its the Sardinian way),
6

where the process of becoming a resident was finally

completed. It had taken a whole day to go through the
different procedures, but I suspect it would have taken longer
without Auroras skill in Italian.
On the following day, with all the papers intact and
signed, it was a journey across town again to do the obvious
open a bank account. We knew we needed a bank account if
we were to carry out any financial transactions and so we
went along to the Bank of Sardinia to open an account. We
came across a situation which we were to grow used to we
found a queue in which we saw lots of despondent faces,
patient and bored, awaiting their call. We followed the
practice of taking a ticket from the dispenser which gave us
our number in the queue and sat in one of the rows, our faces
no doubt soon reflecting those around us. The movement of
people was slow, a characteristic of banks and post offices in
Sardinia which we have now come to accept as being the
norm. It seemed as though the bank tellers knew everybody
and were more interested in hearing as much as they could
about them and their families as they were in attending to their
business. They could have been at the corner shop,
exchanging their news like sparrows in a tree rather than
attending to the serious matter of banking. The ticket we had
collected from the dispensing machine at the entrance to the
bank had given us a number of 142, which didnt mean much
to us until we saw number 61 flash up on the board which
signified which customer was next. And so we had to wait,
our mood varying from patience, through impatience all the
way to damned annoyance. But it was no use getting annoyed
because in these early days we were simply learning
something about the pace of life in Sardinia, a pace we have
now, after ten years or so, grown used to. Time does not seem
to matter, whether youre standing in a post office, a queue at
the supermarket or simply wanting to pay the water bill. What
makes things worse and slows down movement even more is
the infatuation with the desire to find the exact amount of
money when paying for anything, especially in supermarkets.
Its not enough to put down a ten Euro note for something
7

which is costing seven Euro and forty three cents; the shop
assistant will wait for the customer to produce as close to the
actual price as she can, which means going through all the
change in the customers purse and counting it out cent by
cent. Then the situation is reversed as the assistant counts out
any small change and places it on the counter rather than in
the customers hand, slowing the process down even further as
the customer needs to pick up the change coin by coin. I
suspect we have all stood in an English supermarket queue
behind some elderly person and had our patience stretched.
Well, add to that the same person trying to find the four Euros
and fifty four cents she requires in the tiniest of purses, her
hands shaking like leaves in a breeze, and not leaving her
position at the end of the counter until she has picked up the
change, put it in her purse, zipped it tight shut, and then put
the purse back into her handbag which is hanging from her
shoulder. Add to that the time the customer is going to take to
put what she has bought in her bag and you get the message.
In Sardinia it seems everything concerned with
officialdom is done manually and by queuing. Unlike in the
UK, nothing works through Internet. In those early days, we
learned about the need to pay bills over the counter, go to the
appropriate office for insurance and pay at the tabachi for a
tax disc for the car. The reason, we have deduced, for such a
laborious system is the lack of confidence the Sardinians have
in the Internet and the general fear that their private details
would be available to hackers.
Eventually, the number 142 lit up over a rather pretty, fair
haired, youngish lady teller. Although she didnt know us, she
began by showing an interest in whom we were and even
greater interest when she learned we were from England. As
she went through the process of creating an account for us the
questions and answers flowed between her and Aurora. I
guessed she was asking about where we lived and what we
hoped for in Sardinia, and then, to my surprise, she looked at
me and in broken English asked Why? Why are you wanting
to live in Sardinia? The way she looked at me, her eyes wide

and seeking an answer, indicated an element of surprise in an

Englishman wanting to live in Sardinia. I could only answer
with a question, How many English have been here to open
an account?
Well, none, she replied, a confused look on her face.
I couldnt resist. Thats the answer, then. I left around sixty
million back in England. I didnt need to say anymore, as she
took on board the humour and we all had a quiet chuckle.
What the customer with number 143 was thinking as he sat
waiting his turn and watching us chatter I am never likely to
know, but I am well aware of how Id felt when we had been
in the same position, awaiting the disappearance of number
141. Not surprisingly, we exchanged, or should I say Aurora
did, stories with the same teller on subsequent visits to the
bank and very occasionally she would bring us forward in the
queue as though there was something important she had to
attend to, just to have the chance to talk to us. She wanted to
know where we lived, what sort of house we had and how
often we came to Sardinia. Aurora answered these questions, I
assume, my Italian limiting me to understanding the
occasional word such as Oxford, machina, casa, villagio. The
tellers response to an invitation to visit us in England led to
the answer and the pretence to shiver, Fa troppo freddo per
me. Non ho vestiti. I understood freddo, vestiti and non,
and through Aurora got the message she was unlikely to come
as it was too cold and she did not have warm enough clothing.
She was probably right, because she was the sort of young
lady who would love to impress and she was obviously of the
opinion she would be unable to do so in what she regarded as
typical English dress. I thought maybe she was right as I
walked back into the boiling sun and made my way with
Aurora along the high street. With residency established and a
bank account in our joint names opened, we were now in a
position to go house hunting and hopefully find a house we
would like to buy. We visited estate agents to see what was on
offer and bought the local newspaper, Il Giornale, in the
hope of finding something which matched our budget. All was

left to Aurora. I didnt understand the estate agent and the

newspaper presented me with words which made me feel like
a child of four.
The language continues to leave me at a loss. I keep trying
to learn it, but still with little success. Aurora, the former
teacher, insists on my learning the grammar, and I see the
point. But to my small aging mind, what I take to be Italian
grammar always seems to be changing. I suspect it is not as
difficult as the grammar you need to learn English, but for me
it is a problem I have yet to overcome. So, in my confusion, I
use di instead of del, a instead of in and never know
whether to use il or la with chiave because it doesnt end
with either the feminine a, as for instance tavola, or the
masculine o, as for example giorno, and is the word for
only one key rather than the several suggested by the ending
e, as in machine, the plural of machina, the word for cars.
My confusion reminds me of an occasion when I was
lecturing in South Africa and during a break in the
proceedings one of the participants took to the stage and using
my overhead projector proceeded to make fun of the English
language. He simply tested out his colleagues with words like
bow and bough, flower and flour, leaving us all in
stitches by the time he had finished. No wonder our children
are among the slowest in the world when it comes to learning
to read. Back to my Italian, totally confused, I use il or la
or simply omit them willy-nilly and to the amusement of the
Sardinians. But I have to stick at it, even ten years on, because
without the language I am speechless of course, there are
those among my friends who would say that is a good thing.
There is no dodging the truth. I have to learn how to speak
Italian. To be able to converse with government officials,
builders, bus drivers, shop assistants, waiters, police,
parishioners waiting to go into church, it is important to have
at least a smattering of the language. These are all people,
whether we expected it or not, we have had to deal with at one
time or other and be in a position on occasions to explain both
simple and complex issues. The truth is, no matter how Ive

10

tried to prepare, if Aurora is not by my side Ive invariably

been at a loss when coming face to face with people who
ripple off their tongues a language I do not understand.
Although, wait a minute. Being a non-Italian speaker has
occasionally worked to my advantage. Take the occasion
when the police stopped me when driving the car through the
outskirts of Sassari, (and non-Italian speakers need to take
care with the pronunciation of Sassari. Note the double S. It
has implications for how it is pronounced, as do all double
letters if youre not going to offend your Sardinian friends.....
I remember my sister being insistent on emphasising the
middle sa instead of the first Sa and so putting the
emphasis on the end of the word, pronouncing Sassari as
Sassari giving the city a completely different sounding name).
We had absolutely no idea why we were being stopped, but I
responded to the small red circled indicator which the
carabiniere held out as I thought I should. I drew up beside
him and lowered the window, unfortunately on the opposite
side to the one the officer expected.
His first action was to take out his notebook and prepare
to write as he stood by the window on the left of the car. To
make things easier for him, I lowered that window also.
Trying to look in charge of the situation he said something
which, from the inflection, I took to be a question. I learned
later he was about to charge Aurora for using the telephone
whilst driving, which I took to be unusual as the practice
seems a very common one among Sardinian drivers, even
though it is illegal. I only knew what he was concerned about
because she told me afterwards, although I thought I had
heard the policeman say telefono, or something like that, and
I knew Aurora had been talking to her daughter; of course,
knowing me, I could have imagined the word telefono. I
suspect it was the expression on her face and the way she
looked at me which led to his taking off his cap and scratching
his head. He had suddenly realised we were in a right-handdrive. Seemingly undaunted, and no doubt thinking what he
could now say to justify his stopping us, he came round to my

11

side. Panic. We had just left a party where we had enjoyed the
best Cannonau di Sardegna (note I used di and not del
hope I got it right) and a Sardinian lunch with six starters,
followed by pasta with lobster and a main course of steak with
fennel. The thing about eating in Sardinia is to be prepared to
eat a lot. The starters keep on coming and when you are full
and think youve finished they bring the main course. But
thats Sardinia.
The policeman said, with a stern voice, something which
included the words documenti signore, which I guessed to
mean driving licence. Keeping my mouth shut and looking
straight ahead rather than at the officer in the hope that he
would not get a chance to smell my breath, I felt for my
wallet. As soon as I opened it I knew I was in more trouble. I
had had to submit my driving license to the licensing authority
in England as it was due for renewal. I had used the internet to
submit my details but they wanted the licence, presumably to
take off my photograph and attach it to the new one. All this
had been done a few days before we left home for this househunting trip. Aurora, following my instructions not to speak
Italian if challenged by the police so as to continue the pretext
that we were simply English tourists in Sardinia for no more
than a few days, stayed shtum. Quick thinking led me to
handing him an old identification card related to my work as a
schools inspector which I carried in my wallet at all times,
mumbling the words sono Inglese. The card bore a photo,
not too outdated, and a good deal of small print describing the
job and giving me permission to enter a school. He looked
mystified, turned it over a couple of times and then went to
consult with his partner, who was obviously no wiser as to
what had been handed over. Eventually, overcome by his
difficulty in understanding the language on the card, which,
for once, I understood better than a Sardinian, common sense
prevailed; the officer handed back the card, said grazie, a
word I understood, and signalled us to drive off. Relief all
round, and the recognition that, occasionally, being unable to
speak the language can work in ones favour.

12