Spanish Adventures Under the Franco Dictatorship

It was in 1967 that I made my first trip outside the UK, a short holiday to Majorca with a mixed bunch of us, seven guys and two girls. We were all in our teens, between 18 to 19 years old. Spain had decided in about 1965 to open up their tourist industry, and for many of us rebellious baby boomers, it was an exciting opportunity to expand our horizons.

Since the end of their civil war in 1936, Franco had been in power, appointed by his fellow Generals. Under his authoritarian rule, he sympathized with Hitler’s Germany and Mussolini’s Italy during World War 2. After periods of brutal repression of anyone who opposed his regime, Spain came close to a famine in 1940. Still, the reality of world politics changed their economic system until 1953, when they allowed the US access for the staging of 4 military bases on Spanish soil and when they were allowed into the UN.

By 1966 they had begun to change the laws to allow limited freedom of the press and some easing of the economic situation by increasing and encouraging their tourist industry.

Thinking back to those days, it must have been quite a shock to their quiet catholic society when so many of us British began invading them on our annual summer holidays. Their authoritarian symbols were to suddenly come up against all these arrogant teenagers full of the rebelliousness of the “swinging sixties” of music, free love, and the birth control pill.

Both countries have had their controversies, we were fighting our way out of what we considered too many rules and regulations, and the authorities in Spain suddenly had to handle the corrupting influx of young Brits. I think that our generation had a small role in contributing to the gradual changes in democratic government after the death of the Generalissimo in 1975 up until 1978. It was like something was in the air, a loosening of international parental bonds.

Boys & Girls Come Out to Play

Our Majorcan vacation started out well, especially with introducing the “Spanish spirit measures” in drinks like the Cuba Libre, Bacardi Rum and Coke, or the Lumumba, a local Brandy and Chocolate drink. As a boisterous crowd of Londoners, we generated a lot of attention, and we soon found our group growing daily as other girls latched onto us. The sun, sand, and Sangria, well-known on Spanish holidays, took hold, and we were seen as ‘faces’  in many clubs and bars across the seaside resort of Arenal. Naturally, when things got too loud, we were asked to leave some. (see pic above)

Our hotel had an annex section across the road which was ideal for our crowd as it kept us from prying pious locals and allowed many comings and goings of unmarried teenagers—the freedom made for holiday romances in abundance. One evening, I was perched at the hotel bar waiting for some friends when a Barman and two British youths developed an argument. I believe it was over a misinterpreted joke that had upset the Machismo of the large barman. The Spaniard flew quickly under the flap and reached for a bar stool that my feet were resting on, pulling it out sharply and raising it behind his head, nearly knocking me over in the process. He shouted something about a knife fight with the two jokers and swung the stool, ready to hit his tormentors. It was too easy for me; I snatched the stool legs as he raised his arms, yanked it out of his possession, and bashed him over the head and back hard enough to take him down and stop the fight. It seemed the sensible quick-thinking thing to do at the time!

Things calmed down, and we enjoyed the rest of our holiday until the day designated for leaving. That morning we all gathered together after breakfast, laid all our excess coinage on the table, and kept ordering drinks, paying for them with those coins. We couldn’t take them home as only paper money was exchangeable.

Our time had come to get on a shuttle bus to the airport, but three of us were singled out and ordered suddenly at gunpoint into the manager’s office by a large Spaniard claiming to be Polizia. Our friends had no option as they were hustled onto the coach, not knowing when they would see us again. In the office, the cop, with the manager acting as interpreter, quizzed us about whence all the coins had come. They had some cock and bull story about someone breaking into a pinball machine and taking coins, which for them, proved our guilt. All the time, this cop was making a point of spinning his revolver toward us. Threatening us was the order of the day, but we were giving as good as we got. We were cocky, east-end kids and stood our ground until they eventually had to let us go. They had no proof, just their threats.

When we got away from the cop and the manager, two lovely girlfriends who were staying on at the hotel paid for a taxi to rush us to the airport. We arrived just as the travel company courier waited, having already seen our pals through to the check-in desk. We got onto the plane and sighed in relief once we left Spanish airspace.

The week following that departure, the girls sent us a message informing us that we were framed because of the barman’s humiliation. The hotel later fired him when he tried to break into one of the girl’s rooms; apparently, there was some hurt ego because she preferred us, and he was later caught stealing from other rooms and was arrested by the same cop.

Many Brits Defy the Oppressive Guardia Civil

Six of us decided to take a longer holiday across France and Spain a couple of years later. We hired a six-berth campervan that slept all six with two pull-out beds below and two hammocks above. We packed a large tent also for when we might stay for more than a couple of days. The motor caravan was an old Commer Highwayman. (https://www.flickr.com/photos/46529088@N05/13120037994)

That model gave a new meaning to “Rock & Roll,” as that was how the ride felt when driving across the Pyrenees via Andorra and around the mountain passes into Spain. It was scary but fun, loaded with six young guys, luggage, and as much booze as we could carry along the way. We eventually ended up in a small Costa Brava town called Tossa de Mar. We found a campsite on the edge of town and set up our pitch.

On an adjacent pitch was another gang of British youth whose camping car was just a plain workman’s van and some pup tents, which they spread haphazardly. It was fun bantering with them as they were from south London, and we soon became a gang of drinking buddies out for a laugh and to see which girls would latch onto us for some evening parties. So we all hit the town together one night but were constantly followed, it seemed, by two of the local Guardia Civil, that harsh, arrogant semi-military, part political, Spanish cops who held sway over everybody. They were renowned for throwing their weight around and were never impressed with young Brits who never gave them any respect.

No matter which bar or club these two were always around, they often bullied staff for free drinks, waved their pistols, and laid them on the bars to intimidate the bar owners and staff. This night while most of us laughed at them, some cat-called them, but we never gave them much notice other than that we were all witnessed in the same places all night. They hadn’t noticed that one of the South London gang had stolen their moped while they were drinking. It must have been hard pedaling that bike without the keys to start the engine, but the cop had gone apeshit when he looked for his bike, but could not blame us as we were still in the bar. It was hilarious watching him pace up and down; even the bartenders laughed. The moped was hidden in the woods, covered with dead leaves next to our pitches. As soon as daylight came, though, around sixteen British guys were in those woods frantically digging a massive hole with their hands and any other implement until we got that hole deep enough to bury his bike without a trace. We took his ID badge off it and buried that further away. Very soon after, we all hit the road again as two different parties, never to meet again, but I often wonder whether the Guardia ever found that bike. We certainly never gave the political police any respect.