Jim Lawley

In a little village on the Spanish Meseta, I once asked an old lady about the next village some three or four miles away. She shook her head as if considering a hopeless case and said, ‘Oh, the people there are very different.’ To me, those villages seemed like two peas in a pod. But

In the 50-kilometre walk at the 1948 Olympics, the gold and silver medallists were aged 28 and 33 respectively. The man who took bronze, Britain’s ‘Tebbs’ Lloyd-Johnson, was 48 years old. Still the oldest person ever to win an Olympic track and field medal, Tebbs is now more famous than the men who finished ahead

There are hundreds of mass graves dotted around the Spanish countryside. In roadside ditches, down hillside gullies, dumped in pits and down disused wells lie thousands of bodies: civilians murdered in cold blood by Franco’s death squads during the civil war that convulsed Spain between 1936 and 1939. Over the nearly forty years of Franco’s

In one of his adventures on the highways of 17th-century Spain, Don Quixote encounters a gang of prisoners ‘manacled and strung together by the neck, like beads, on a great iron chain’. Undeterred by Sancho’s protestations that these are criminals on their way to serve as galley slaves in just punishment for their crimes, Don

In Tuesday’s regional elections in Madrid, the right-wing Partido Popular emerged as by far the most successful party, more than doubling its representation to win 65 of the 136 seats in the assembly. Isabel Díaz Ayuso, the 42-year-old local Partido Popular leader who was seeking re-election, won more seats than the three left-wing parties combined.

Michael Bakunin, the 19th century revolutionary Russian anarchist, identified Spain as the place where his creed was most likely to take root. In 1868, to get the ball rolling, Bakunin dispatched his disciple, Giuseppi Fanelli, to Spain. After some difficulty in raising the money for his train fare, Fanelli finally arrived in Madrid where he

‘Scotland,’ declared the Times in 1856, is ‘manifestly a country in want of a grievance.’ The same could be said of Catalonia, which held regional elections this week. Catalonia spent much of the nineteenth century adding to its store of grievances. In 1885 a deputation of politicians travelled to Madrid in a fruitless attempt to

According to ancient Moorish legend, when the world was created each land was given five wishes. Spain’s first four wishes – for clear skies, seas full of fish, good fruit, and beautiful women – were all granted, but the fifth, for good government, was denied on the grounds that to grant that too would create

A few years ago, when I was in the queue to catch a plane, a Spanish lady caught me watching her as she surreptitiously removed a sticker from her hand luggage, which meant it would have been stored in the hold. ‘Los españoles somos muy pícaros’ (we Spaniards are real rogues) she told me with

‘Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.’ Philosopher George Santayana’s dictum is starting to look more relevant than ever in Spain, the country of his birth. The political temperature in Madrid has risen sharply in recent weeks and the language politicians are using has become unmistakably bellicose. The casual observer might

Sancho Panza’s long-cherished ambition was to become a politician. He wanted to be installed as governor of an island; Don Quixote had led him to believe that this was the reward a loyal squire could expect to receive from the knight errant he had served. Attractive opportunities to move into government increased dramatically for Spain’s

In 1714, after a long siege, Spain managed to regain control of Barcelona after the War of Spanish Succession. Catalan nationalists point to the day Barcelona fell, 11 September 1714, as the point when Madrid began to strip their homeland of its ancient privileges, and three centuries of subjugation and repression began. To remind everyone

In villages and cities throughout Spain, the annual Fiesta of The Assumption is celebrated in great style on 15 August. But not this year. This year in most places the processions through the streets, the communal meals, the street theatre, the romerías (excursions to the local shrine), the craft fairs, the bell-ringing, the open-air dances,

In the ‘bad bank’ model, a bank protects itself by dumping its toxic assets onto a second, newly-created institution. By taking the problems off its books, the first bank hopes to restore its reputation and financial health so that it will be able to carry on business as usual. The Spanish monarchy has just carried

The north tower of Malaga cathedral stands nearly 300 feet high. The south tower doesn’t. According to the plaque at its foot, the funds originally destined for its completion were instead diverted to help the rebels fight against the British in the American war of independence. Whenever I look at that south tower – well,

With a huge Covid-induced economic crisis looming, many Spaniards are wondering if, through no fault of their own, they are about to lose their jobs. Among them is King Felipe VI. It’s not that Felipe has done much wrong in his brief reign. Indeed in many ways he has been that historical rarity – a

Eladio’s bar on the outskirts of Avila in central Spain has splendid views of the ancient town’s medieval walls. It also has a remarkable collection of Francoist memorabilia. Indeed, the whole bar is a shrine to the memory of the dictator who ruled Spain with an iron fist from 1939 until his death in 1975.