Spanish Shilling

The day would start with a small libation in the plaza. Late, perhaps, but it had been a long night.

There were two bars, facing each other across the square decorated with a few mangled orange trees, a couple of old cars, several corrugated-sided Citroen vans, as often as not an orange dumper-truck - Spain’s motorized pack animal - and, when not in service, a giant Chrysler from the fifties painted egg-shell blue which served as the village taxi.

No one ever went to the smaller establishment, which sold ice-creams and was run by a succession of daughters from one of the local Families. We would instead use the old Indalo: hotel, restaurant and bar - the clubhouse, assembly room and social hub of the pueblo.

We had stayed there for several months – the price was a hundred pesetas a day for the three of us, rooms, food and drink included – when we had first arrived, and still regularly used the services of the upstairs restaurant where culture-shock and chips were served with a bottle of gritty red wine. We'd all dine there together. Tabs Parcell, the retired air vice marshal, would take his plate and put it under his shirt, next to his skin to ‘warm it’. Sammy, the flamboyant Italian-American homosexual from the merchant navy would handle the translation, under the impression that his bad ‘brooklinése’ would be comprehensible to a mojaquero waiter. Norma, another American expat, who ran an antique shop under the arch, would mutter ‘no, no’ to herself as we kept her glass filled. My dad, tall, freckled and red, known locally as ‘El langostino’, the lobster, would be sticking to whisky – he said the wine gave him gallstones. My mother, practical and in charge, would wander into the kitchen and pick up the lids on the various cauldrons to organize lunch.

The morning session, starting round about twelve, would place the small foreign community, British, French, American and a few others, around the wobbly metal tables of the Indalo, outside on the pavement, or inside, if the weather was bad, at the high marble bar. The inside bar was gloomy, dark, painted in shades of brown and stain, with a big mirror behind the bar together with a few bottles of strange cheap versions of better known brands.

Diana, a retired nanny who had taught generations of children how to say ‘please’ and ‘thank you’, appropriated the Green Fish, an unfortunately named Spanish gin, as her own. Diego, whose grand-son these days has a bar on the beach, El Rincón de Diego, where there’s a large photograph of the bar from the old Indalo, would serve his motley crowd with a suggestion of pride. At a few pesetas a drink – a very large brandy cost just a five-peseta ‘duro’ – the foreign customers soon got high-spirited and only the blistering sun managed to maintain any kind of order. Turkey Alan, a youthful cockney pick-pocket, might be telling a story about his dog, a grateful looking greyhound, or perhaps old Cicero, a pungent American professor who lived by himself and spent his money on ‘whiskey and putas’, is noisily standing a round. Tony, a friend of my dad’s, drones on about women while nobody listens and Fritz, the dapper artist with the beard and the terrible laugh, might be sketching an approximation of the party while smoking a ‘dookeedoo’, the strong local cigarette. David, a bald anthropologist who could speak several different North African languages, would be rubbing his short goatee gleefully and telling obscure and very filthy stories about his subjects in the Rif while his wife, Ursula, she of the gravelly voice, is asking me about school in a rather threatening manner as if she was seriously considering the job of ‘Matron’. Another round of drinks arrives. I take a Fanta.

Perhaps, if it was a hot day – it usually was – there would be a move towards the beach; not to swim, in particular, but rather to drink in one of the few places that existed in those days. Beach-land, traditionally inherited by the younger or dumber or less greedy members of the Families over the decades and centuries, was worth nothing. In 1967 we heard of land going for one peseta for ten metres. There were few takers.

There was one really good restaurant on the beach, however, run by French Algerians (they were known as ‘pied noirs’ and Franco smiled favourably on them). This was the Rancho del Mar, where Maxime’s quality food went for McDonald’s prices. Cheaper places, with simple menus, were the Puntazo, the Flamenco and the Virgen del Mar. Salad. Crotchmeat and chips. Sangría.

By three in the afternoon, the group would be building up again outside the Indalo. The post-office, ineptly run by Martín, who couldn’t read or write much, but spoke a bit of French, was open from three to five. I’d be sent to collect the letters, which would be passed to me with their stamps wrenched off by the old man, with the instruction to bring back the ones I couldn’t deliver, ‘…or throw them away’.

In the square, an elderly platinum blonde called Franny and her son Eddie, a semi-retired fifty-year old female impersonator, might perhaps have joined the group, both insisting on drinking Manhattans which they had long ago taught Diego how to make. Roger, who opened the first British bar, La Sartén, in 1968 could have shown up as well, together with Pop-eyed Peter (who was to run away with a mojaquera girl), Alan the Tin Miner and ‘Friggit’, a Swedish woman of doubtful morals. Giggling into his brandy, here's Chris with the long hair and moustache, a pink Mini Moke and a Danish girlfriend called Gitte. As the drinks continued, the group might have felt persuaded to sing, initially simple songs accessible to both the British and the Americans (‘I wonder whose kissing her now’, for example) followed, in the fullness of time, by numbers like ‘My Little Sister Lily’ and ‘Cats on the Rooftops’ (both also available in Spanish upon enquiry thanks to Gerry, who was meant to be studying at Granada University).

The evenings were more of the same. In La Sartén, where Roger would companionably allow you to ‘help yourself, Sport’, or the Zurri Gurri, a sensuous cave-bar run by a couple from Madrid, or the Witches Brew (captained by an American lesbian called Pat and her German friend, the scorching Rita) which also sold leather goods. Today, it’s the ‘Time and Place’.

In those far off times, when the Guardia Civil came in to a bar, conversation died. You had your papers ready. They could hand out some rough and ready justice. We were all a little worried to see them. My dad used to bribe them. ‘Have a drink with me’, he’d say and they’d have a brandy or a whisky and affably call him by his surname.

Later, after the bars closed at one, the only place open was the Pimiento, a disco run by Felipe, another pied noir. Drinks were slightly more expensive, but you could always dance to his collection of scratchy imported singles.

Far into the night, there was only one bar that had a license. It opened at four in the morning in the next-door village of Garrucha for its fishermen. Thanks to its neon lights and white tiling, it was familiarly known as ‘the Lavatory Bar’. Pedro ran it and sold carajillos - black coffee with brandy - to the fishermen and, as often as not, the same thing for the surviving foreigners. I stayed with the Fanta. As the last members of the Mojácar Jets downed their drinks and raised their voices in song, while the municipal cop looked through the door and Pedro went ‘Shhh!’, an age slowly and drunkenly made its way to its final bow.

The British residents in Spain are usually politely ignored by the media, so a fallout from the sad passing of Elizabeth II last week brought us – briefly – to the fore. The local paper says that there are so and so many Brits living in our province and then launches into an article involving the bowlers at some club looking glum and dropping platitudes.

What else can one say on an occasion like this?

In all, we may be 282,000 or so resident here (just to make the point – that’s considerably larger in number than the population of the city of Granada which rests at 232,000), but we aren’t noticed much. How many of us Brit residents are household names to the Spanish? James Rhodes, Tony King, the late Michael Robinson, two or three obscure British hispanophiles who writes books about Franco, Ian Gibson (who’s Irish anyway) and then the fellow on the TV who teaches English (Richard Vaughan, who is from Texas apparently).

And let’s throw in Mr Bean, who was very popular here in his day.

My friend Andrew Mortimer (who teaches English to the Spanish Legion) penned an article which appeared in our local paper: Adiós a mi Reina (in English with Spectrum here).

I got interviewed on Canal Sur radio.

Plus a mention in La Voz de Almería where, once again, they spelled my name wrong.

The Canary RTVC produced a report about the reaction from the Brit residents.

La Razón has an article called ‘The Little England of Alicante, in mourning for Elizabeth II’. Again, we start with the numbers (know that there are 69,728 Brits registered in Alicante).

Several Anglican services were held in various resort towns, reported or not by the media.

Some books were made available to write down one’s thoughts. I expect the British Embassy in Madrid had a nice leather one.

El Confidencial says that some of the British tourists in Magaluf got pissed and a little lachrymose.

Sur in English had a full front cover (The Queen died on the Thursday, thus giving the editor time to shout: ‘stop the presses!’, but – alas - too late for its English-language rivals).

Two regions of Spain declared days of mourning – one day for Andalucía, and three for Madrid. Furthermore, both Felipe VI and his Queen, and old (‘after all, I am the oldest royal that’s alive today’) Juan Carlos and Doña Sofía and all due to attend the State Funeral next Monday in London. From France, President Macron said that the British thought of Elizabeth as their Queen, while the rest of the world thought of her as ‘The Queen’. Nice.

Even Putin was solemn and called her passing ‘a heavy, irreparable loss’.

Everyone is sad, except of course the Argentinians.

Sigh!

See – we’ve forgotten about the British residents living in Spain already… 

Okupas (squatters), says the journalist Pepo Jimenez Moltó in a short video, are those who occupy empty houses without any services connected. These dwellings will usually (if not always) belong to the bank or to a vulture fund. Otherwise, that’s called illegal entry (allanamiento de morada) and the police will remove them at once. Even if it’s your second, third or fourth home. Spain is one of the safest countries in Europe – yet it is Nº 4 in the worldwide ranking for the number of alarms installed. Don’t be taken in, says the video, by panic, or by politicians, or (above all) by alarm salesmen.

Indeed, a judge from Tarragona is on record as saying that in ten years, he has only had one case of someone returning home to find it occupied. He had appeared on a TV chat show called Espejo Público (a program which likes to create worry and indignation among its viewers) and – to the surprise and mortification of the producers – explained that most of the okupa story is a myth. Yes, of course the police can remove them.

We often see the police doing precisely that, removing people (following a judge’s order) who have not paid their mortgage in what is known as un desahucio. This is the bank acting to evict the tenant (who loses his money paid so far) in order to resell to another. Conversely, empty unfinished bank-owned apartments, with squatters, are left in peace – unless the bank needs the property for some reason. Otherwise, it sits on its books with an apparent accruable value.

In an apartment block, the comunidad de propietarios may be frustrated to find that some of the unsold apartments have been taken over by squatters – who will not be paying their dues and thus the shared services will be either abandoned or unfairly financed. They may have installed illegal connection to the electric or the water. One may find in such a block an empty swimming pool and trashed gardens. That’ll be the squatters.

Squatters themselves will usually take an easy answer – an apartment that simply doesn’t have an irate owner waiting behind the door with some tough hombres. They squat because they can’t afford to rent. They’re poor and unemployed. Perhaps they take drugs.

Yes, there are mafias. There is opportunity, and there are those who will take advantage. These include those who seek to find empty homes and (presumably) sell the information to potential illegal tenants.

And there are almost three and a half million empty dwellings in Spain, built by investment funds, banks and – occasionally – by a speculator hoping to turn a profit. Maybe he should rent it out... or lower his asking price

So, why the fuss? The first reason is to be sure to keep one’s possessions safe, and who better to help than a sturdy front door and a good alarm company? Indeed, normally about now with an article like this, there’d be a brief commercial interruption to sell you one. The fact is, the baddies are more likely to break in, wallop the TV and any jewels on the bed-side table, and be out again in under three minutes.

They won’t be staying.

…

Spanish Property Insight here: ‘Squatters in Spain are a serious threat to property owners in a country where the authorities appear more on the side of squatters than of owners, especially in areas where squatters enjoy high-level political support, like Catalonia’.

Right Casa here: ‘Squatters are a huge problem in Spain, and a blight to legitimate Spanish property owners’.

The BBC here: ‘Squatting has a long history in Spain, often fuelled by high rates of homelessness. But there is now a darker phenomenon too - squatters who demand a "ransom" before they will leave a property’.

The Olive Press here: ‘Contrary to popular belief there are no laws in Spain that grant squatters the right to illegally occupy a house’.

Wiki here: ‘Squatting in Spain’.

From a thread on Facebook:  ‘Squatters don’t choose only empty properties or bank owned ones. They’re really taking advantage of the legal loopholes creates on purpose from this communist government to generate chaos and misery. The truth there is no way of preventing squatters from your property because the law only protects the squatter. It’s any property in danger even luxury ones. I’m located in Marbella and people are always worried if their property may be the next one’.