Adriano, the master straw maker from Piglio who 'started working before he was born'. At ninety years old he is still in the workshop, after having spent a lifetime building donkey saddles: at Bosco di Paliano he will teach children the art of straw making
“If I tell you, you won’t believe it.” Adriano Noro, a ninety-year-old from Piglio, answers with a smile to those who ask him how long he has been working. “I started working before I was born,” he says, “because my mother, when she was pregnant, would press the straw with her feet. When I was born they put me to sleep on the straw to compact it, then at three or four years old they gave me a hammer to straighten the nails.”Since then Adriano has never stopped working and is still active today in his laboratory in via della Circonvallazione, in Piglio, in the province of Frosinone.
Now he works as a straw weaver and next Sunday, at Bosco di Paliano, he will teach that art to the children who want to learn it. But his current job has not been the only one in almost a century of life. He learned to work as a child in his father Francesco's workshop: until twenty-two years ago he was one of the very few craftsmen who made the "basti", that is, the saddles for loading pack donkeys.
The family workshop was so reliable and punctual that it had customers from all over Italy. Francesco and Adriano Noro's pack animals reached Savoy and Trento, with large loads especially during the world wars. Then the use of animals for transporting goods decreased and at the beginning of the nineties Adriano began making mattresses and upholstery. For some years he has been dedicating himself to the caning of chairs.
“I started one day not being satisfied with the timing of some repairs – says the ninety-year-old –, so I learned in between jobs and turned it into a new business.” On Sunday afternoon, at 14.30:XNUMX pm at Bosco di Paliano, he will teach his art to children in a workshop dedicated to ancient crafts.
“I will use straw paper – explains Noro – because the marsh grass, which was once used, is no longer collected on the banks of the Sacco river since those lands were closed off”. In an hour and a half he will show the children who will go to the Bosco di Paliano how to make a loom and then how to straw a chair, which the little straw workers can then take home. All this on a day in which there will also be a magic show for the little ones (at 12) and two educational falconry demonstrations (at 11 and 16).
Article published on 6 October 2022 - 16:58
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