How Lovely To Ride A Bicycle

Iside Calascibetta Di Altamirano

Two schools, two sisters, one bicycle and a lie-in; Iside risks all to get both her little sister and herself to school in time!

Further Info | Transcript | Credits

Further Info

This story was made at the Theatre Orchard “Storyshed” workshop with young people from Priory Community School, Weston-super-Mare, and adults from Somerset Racial Equality Council’s Friendship group with funding from www.media-box.co.uk

The workshop was led by Liz Milner, Clodagh Miskelly and Paddy Uglow (CreativeMedia.org.uk), and was supported by Watershed.

A parallel Design/Technology project at Priory School to make ‘story gadgets’ for the Storyshed installation was led by Tarim from the Pervasive Media Studio – www.pmstudio.co.uk/collaborator/tarim

For further information on the Storyshed project please see www.theatreorchard.org.uk/

Transcript

Depending on age and experience, everybody has their own way of solving problems that life presents us.
This is my own way of solving a little problem, taking into consideration that I was only 10 years old at the time.

Time: October 1965

Characters:
Me, almost 11 years old,
My younger brother, almost 6
My youngest brother, aged 3
My sister, 8 months old.

Setting: Brescia, a town in the North of Italy.

Subject: First day of school and how to get there.

“Iside, get up, it’s late.” My mother pulled off the bed covers. “ Don’t go back to sleep! Today is the first day of school. I’m already late for work and I can’t take you to school. I’m sorry but you’ll have to take your brothers and sister to school before you go to your school. After school you must go and collect them and take them home.
“Ciao! Be a good girl!”
My mum gave me a big kiss and left quickly.
OK! I’d been set up nicely.
Already, school was something I wasn’t happy about but now having to be a nanny too was not helping things at all.

Brescia is quite a big town, the schools were too far apart for me to be on time!
However, I found a solution! I had a bicycle of which I was very proud. It was a beautiful green bike and I was very good at riding it.

I couldn’t sit on the saddle because the bicycle was very big, if I sat on the saddle I couldn’t reach the pedals.
So, I stood on the pedals, with my sister in the basket on the front, one brother on the saddle and the other one on the back mudguard!

OK- all ready? We left. At the beginning I was a little worried but slowly I began to gain confidence. I passed between the cars without wobbling and nobody tried to stop me, or if they did I didn’t hear them!
We got to some traffic lights. I was worried about stopping without falling off. Phew! Everything went OK. The more I pedalled the more I was in control of the bike.
After about 10 minutes, I was in full control of my load and I lost all my fear.
Only one thing remained for me to be careful of: the urban Police!
I knew it was forbidden to do what I was doing – a bicycle is for one person not 4!
If the police had seen me it would have been a big problem for my mother! But I was lucky! When I saw a policeman I got off, and so did my brother on the back, and I pushed the bike so they couldn’t say anything!
Finally I got my brothers and sister to school, safe and on time. It was then that my problem started. Almost every day, the school gate was shut by the time I reached it, often only by a matter of seconds.
In the evening when my mother got back from work, she asked me how I had got on. “Don’t worry mum” I said “Everything was fine”.
My mother never knew what I was doing!
If I now think about how big the risk of having a serious accident was, I feel worried!

I am sure everybody has an angel watching over them. However, in this case, I think I had a host of angels watching over my bicycle!

Credits

Boy angel created by jglsongs (flickr.com), used under Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 licence.

A green bicycle created by TimoOK (flickr.com), used under Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 licence.

Bici in divisa created by Giuseppe Nicoloro (flickr.com), used under Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 licence.

Brescia minutes after sunset! created by Karthick R (flickr.com), used under Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 licence.

Brescia created by alphaorionis (flickr.com), used under Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 licence.

brescia created by Marco Ciaccia (flickr.com), used under Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 licence.

Brescia created by netNicholls (flickr.com), used under Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 licence.

Brescia created by Olaf_S (flickr.com), used under Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 licence.

Brescia: Castello created by mauroPPP (flickr.com), used under Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 licence.

Brescia: Castello: Torre Mirabella created by mauroPPP (flickr.com), used under Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 licence.

Brescia: Palazzo del Broletto created by mauroPPP (flickr.com), used under Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 licence.

Brescia: Via delle Battaglie created by netNicholls (flickr.com), used under Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 licence.

Green Bike Means Go created by Infidelic (flickr.com), used under Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 licence.

Inquinamento, Pollution created by Ricardo Francone (flickr.com), used under Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 licence.

Laos Style Bicycling ~ The Pearl created by LaValle PDX (flickr.com), used under Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 licence.

Attraversamenti created by zabriensky what? (flickr.com), used under Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 licence.

Vintage Christmas Postcard Angel created by riptheskull (flickr.com), used under Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 licence.

Vintage Christmas Angels Postcard created by riptheskull (flickr.com), used under Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 licence.

The Thinker created by Metal Chris (flickr.com), used under Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 licence.

Sunset in Brescia, Italy created by bornin78 (flickr.com), used under Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 licence.

Polizia Municipale created by vladimir.frolov (flickr.com), used under Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 licence.

Polizia municipale in Piazza della Rotonda created by gioanola (flickr.com), used under Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 licence.

Locomotiva (castello Brescia) created by fremat (flickr.com), used under Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 licence.

Le Penseur, Musee Rodin created by jemartin03 (flickr.com), used under Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 licence.

Tombstone Angels created by Steffe (flickr.com), used under Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 licence.

Segnali stradali created by sara y tzunky (flickr.com), used under Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 licence.

Police created by sunshinecity (flickr.com), used under Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 licence.

Old Order Mennonite children riding on a bicycle created by mjd2678 (flickr.com), used under Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 licence.

Light Bulb No. 2 created by Caveman 92223 — On the 2010 US Tour (flickr.com), used under Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 licence.

Le Penseur, Musée Rodin, París created by paola.farrera (flickr.com), used under Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 licence.

Le Penseur - Auguste Rodin created by Landahlauts (flickr.com), used under Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 licence.