Quién te puso Salvaora

Quien te puso Salvaora

qué poco te conocía.

El que de ti se enamora

se pierde pa toa la vía.

Manolo Caracol, La Salvaora

The first years of my life were spent in the Sant Francesc neighbourhood, specifically on the estate of the old cemetery. There I spent my childhood and experienced first-hand the growth of the neighbourhood, driven at that time by the great success of the famous brick industry.

Although almost all the factories are now closed and in an unfortunate state of abandonment, their memory lives on in the chimneys that we can still appreciate today. Oliva preserves a good handful of these chimneys, used at the time for the evacuation of the smoke generated by the furnaces, and which are, without a doubt, the most significant element of the entire process of industrialization.

Tile manufacturing became a productive activity that led to the creation of many jobs and the consequent arrival in the village of dozens of new families who sought to improve their lot in the wake of the growing industry. Most likely, its success lies in the fact that the tile-making process depended on the significant participation of workers and professionals, who ensured the quality of the final product. Even today, neither architects, riggers, engineers nor builders have been able to invent anything that replaces that building system, that is, the arrangement of a line of bricks on top of another to build a building.

In this way, the men and women laid the foundations of a neighbourhood that allowed them to build their future. Nowadays almost nothing remains of all that business infrastructure that made the neighbourhood and the town so dynamic. Factories such as those of the Tubero family, the Pons family, the Navarro Brothers, the widow of Pons, Tercera brothers, Benimeli, Arlandis brothers, Salvador Tercera, Sempere brothers, Luis Chorro … not forgetting, just outside the nucleus of the Paseo de Els Rajolars on the Pego road, Miguel Arlandis’ factory. In some cases, their old buildings have been converted to house other types of industry, in others they lie in ruins or have simply disappeared.

My father, Enrique Escrivà, from 1965 until his retirement, was the driver of a Pegaso Comete truck at the Navarro Brothers factory, popularly known as La Salvadora. The origin of the name is, perhaps, one of the most peculiar but least well-known anecdotes of all those surrounding the history of Els Rajolars in Oliva. It would appear that in 1956 Oliva received a visit from Manolo Caracol and Lola Flores, who were triumphing throughout Spain at the time with their hit song, La Salvadora. The couple put on an immensely popular musical performance in the Lyric Cinema, also known as the Cinema Leonardo, owned by the Navarro Mas family, following which they visited the industrial building, which was pending inauguration. Upon hearing that the future factory was as yet unnamed, “La Faraona” (as Flores was popularly known) was unwavering: “What is it going to be called, if not La Salvadora!” And so it was that the business owned by the Navarro brothers, Antonio and Vicente, was baptised and has been called ever since.

During those times, I spent the summer driving the Pegasus Comete, with its Madrid license plate, going up and down to the mine to collect the soil used to manufacture tiles in the summers and winters. And from time to time, I made the trip to Valencia with the truck loaded with bricks; my father used to put the wind up me, telling me that at the entrance to the capital they would make me nibble on the bone.

They were unforgettable summers because at night, around my street, Caballo Bernat, near the gate of Can la Tía Asunción, the locals brought out a refrigerator and we all shared fresh lemon-water. Meanwhile, the little ones played and played until their legs hurt with bottle caps and at the popular game, “el caballete al amo.” In the morning, we heard the sirens of the factories as they started up, and the trucks coming up to load tiles. It was a hustle and bustle that didn’t stop until nightfall. Indeed, the neighbourhood as a whole was busy with commercial activity everywhere. I particularly remember the route that I used most to go to high school. Iconic places such as Paris bar, New bar, Los Angeles bar. Pascual and Lola’s butcher shop, and that of the Currutaques family. The Remediets store and that of Maria la Barreras. Sevillo’s dairy farm, Francisquet’s carpentry workshop and the truck workshop at Pons’ factory. Dorita and Augusto, who sold wine. Angel Cuesta, Alcaraz and Beltrana’s baker shops. The light shop, and that of Maria la Mesa. Iris dry cleaners and Aunt Pura’s too. Miguel de la Ensortija, who made tiles in Calle del Niño. Emilio, fixing radios, and his amateur radio antenna. The little hotel on the road where you could buy the paper or exchange cowboy novels by Marcial Lafuente Estefanía … In short, shops of all kinds that played an essential role in the revitalization of the neighbourhood.

Almost nothing remains of all that today. I often go to the neighbourhood, my neighbourhood, where I stroll without haste, and it still seems to me that I can see people sitting in the middle of the street, enjoying the cooler evening air in summer. My grandmother selling beans, melons and tomatoes; my grandfather sleeping at his front door, leaving it wide open, on a straw mattress. Don Fernando Tur, Sant Francesc’s rector, whom I served as an altar boy, giving communion to the sick. In short, many memories, and so many feelings as to fill a book, to thank the streets for what they gave us.

The chimneys no longer smoke, but in me, and especially with my friends, the memory of the people with whom I shared so many good things and from whom I learned many more continues to live on. Sant Francesc continues to be a living neighbourhood and those of us who love it treasure it greatly.