May festivals as they were yesterday and as they are today

May festivals were a beautiful time during my childhood and even afterwards. I was born in a small country village where there is a shrine dedicated to Our Lady. In fact, it is said that where the shrine now stands, the Virgin Mary appeared many, many years ago to a shepherdess, and not only made her find a sheep she had lost, but also showed her the edge under whose vegetation she would find her image.

In the mid-16th century, a chapel was built to house the stone on which Our Lady had appeared and the image of the Holy Icon to which many miracles are attributed.  In May, the Marian month dedicated to Our Lady, this shrine sees pilgrims and devotees arrive from all over Italy.

For us in the village, it is a very lively time, especially when I was a child.
Back then, I'm talking about 50 years ago, this feast, or rather these feasts were very different because Our Lady was celebrated every Sunday from the second Sunday in May.

And there is a tradition that has unfortunately been lost for a few years now, that of the bonfire that used to be made in every farmyard and in every square and square in our village on the Saturday evening of the second Sunday.

Olive branches were used to make these bonfires. In fact, the olive trees were pruned at that time and so every farmer had very large piles of olive branches. And the bonfires were all made at the same time and you could see all over the valley many of these fires, both small and very large. The biggest was made in the square of the Sanctuary, which is the main square of the village.

For us children it was a magical moment. And I also remember the processions that were made on Saturday evenings, where the statue of Our Lady was carried around the village on our shoulders and we all followed the procession with lit candles.

There was no public lighting then, so this procession was very atmospheric. But the most exciting thing, the thing that made us leap out of bed on Sunday mornings, was that both in the avenue leading to the sanctuary and in the street before it there were so many stalls set up along the sides of the road.

Stalls selling sweets, toys, plants, costume jewellery, etc. In short, a real market. And a lot of people came on foot from the city, because tradition wanted people to get to the sanctuary on foot, even though on Sundays at all hours there was a bus shuttling between Pistoia and the town. And masses were celebrated at all hours.

I remember that as a child it never rained on the first May festival, and we would impatiently have breakfast and ask permission to go to the festival to see what was on the stalls and maybe buy a few toys with the little money we had set aside for the occasion.

When we got to the boulevard there were so many people that you could hardly walk, people going to Mass or wandering around the stalls shopping. And so many were returning to the city and so many were arriving. It was like this all day long.

And at midday in the fields and meadows near the village you could see lots of people eating sitting on the grass, fully equipped with tablecloths, food and drink. It was all very lively and the cheerfulness was palpable in the air.

Over the years everything gradually changed. A car park was made next to the boulevard and the stalls of the Sunday market were placed there and no longer on the street. People used to arrive by car, and in fact you had to leave them at least one kilometre from the village to find parking space for as many as there were.

And for many years things remained like that. Many people, especially the older generations still came on foot. Maybe people would arrive by car, go to Mass, walk around the stalls and then come back, and gradually the people who ate in the meadows disappeared.

Then the stalls also started to disappear, fewer and fewer came. In recent years, the tradition of bonfires on the Saturday of the festival has been lost; I saw them until about fifteen years ago, then nothing. And now I'll tell you what I saw last May.

I went to the village and in the car park there were only two or three stalls, very few people, and the Holy Mass was not at all hours, but only at the usual time. I hadn't been to the festival for years and I was really disappointed, the festival is no longer there, perhaps people don't believe in anything any more and it's really sad that really beautiful traditions are being lost in this way.