Vejer de la Frontera day by day:

Returning to Vejer after a stay in London, I was happy to catch two Vejer events on my first day back, the re-opening of La Palomita delicatessen and Kath Hockey’s new show at Chokolata. Beauty needs no adornment and you might think that adding art to history and natural beauty is gilding the lily, but these two artists have contributed to the town's attractions in very different ways.

Gaspar Sobrino with his latest project.

La Palomita (Los Remedios), a popular delicatessen and supermarket for many years, closed last autumn, causing speculation that the business had been abandoned or sold, a disappointing prospect for those who relied on it as a convenient source of wine and gourmet foods in the centre of the old town. The news that it was not only to re-open, but to be reborn with a new design and layout by decorator Gaspar Sobrino, was very welcome.

Sobrino, whose long career as a interior designer includes contracts with fashion chains Zara and Massimo Dutti, has already made his mark on Vejer with his gloriously inventive designs for the restaurant Las Delicias and the remodelled Mercado de Abastos. His own Vejer house was featured on this blog a few months ago. Now he turns his attention to a retail space where he has created a practical design which nevertheless bears the unmistakable Sobrino stamp, a welcoming blend of fantasy and organized clutter where every inch of space is utilized and every glance reveals some

fascinating detail.

La Palomita has morphed from a small supermarket with a wine shop and a good choice of local hams and cheeses into a stylish delicatessen where shoppers can sit at window tables to sample the produce and watch the world go by on Los Remedios outside. Gone are the yoghurts and the frozen foods – the shop now focuses on the best of local and regional produce, served by attendants in smart new kit, complete with bow ties, and the meat-slicer is a focal point of the design. The shop will delight visitors and residents and adds yet another feature to Vejer’s unique profile.

The owners of Chokolata, which opened its new tea-house earlier this year, are well aware of the importance of good design, and the space is currently hosting a new exhibition by local artist Kath Hockey. Kath is a largely self-taught artist who also trained at Chelmsford College. Her calm townscapes, some of which are available as picture postcards, are now part of Vejer’s iconography, but Kath works in a variety of styles, often featuring animals or everyday objects in vibrant designs, notably the ubiquitous orange butano canister. Her strutting cockerels have been stencilled onto several Vejer walls. The work is well-priced, with prints from 20 Euros, and Kath’s designs are also available on cushions in two sizes.

Kath’s work will be on display for the next few weeks and visitors who visit Chokolata to see it will have the benefit not only of seeing some interesting art, but of ordering from a wide range of specialist teas and coffees and enjoying them in beautiful surroundings.

The streets of Vejer are alive again this weekend, this time with photographers and fashionistas.

The action will be concentrated around the Church and the Arco de la Segur, where a purpose-built catwalk has been constructed.
The weekend began on Friday with a street market around the church area, and continues today with more market stalls, a catwalk fashion show from 8.30 at the Arco de la Segur and a street party at 11.30 in the same location, featuring DJ Carmen la Hierbabuena.

One of the most interesting features of the weekend will be a series of public interviews with different designers, including interior designer Gaspar Sobrino.

Vejer weekend fashion is a lively addition to the town’s summer calendar, but it’s not the only street event today. The monthly Rastro will take place as usual along Juan Relinque from 7 p.m. and the two events together provide a unique opportunity to experience our summer street life at its most vibrant. Entertainment can also be found at Las Delicias restaurant, Chokolata tea shop and La Bien Pagá bar, as well as at the Peña Flamenca, where the annual cante completion completes its first round.

There’s a lot happening in Vejer this weekend. Concerts, a candlelit parade, a flamenco show at the Aguilar de Vejer. But if you only see one of them, please make it Sol Muniain’s exhibition at Ya En Tu Casa on the Corredera.

Sol is one of the most charming of Vejer’s adopted children. Bilingual in English and Spanish, she once lived a glamorous life, travelling the world as the international sales director of a London-based publishing company before settling here with her husband and children and dedicating herself to making art.

Her love for Vejer is reflected in her words as well as in her art:

‘Part of the pull towards this beautiful place,’ she writes, ‘is the people - everywhere you turn you are greeted with a smile, and a sense of authenticity and purity - a million miles from the fast pace of life in a big city. They’re the kindest, happiest, warmest, most beautiful people I’ve known’.

But this is more than just words. In the five years since she’s been here, Sol has thrown herself into the life of the community. She founded Vejer Sketchers, has a multitude of friends from every walk of life and this year won the local council’s coveted ‘Pintura Rapida’ award.

Sol’s work reflects her passion for landscape and the brilliant light of the area. Her work is detailed and sensuous, revelling in the generous contours of a scene which unfolds itself daily beyond her windows. Her paintings roll like a dancer’s hips, and her palette, soft greens and browns, serene blues, detailed with tiny buildings, is simply delicious. Her frequent and exuberant use of pen and ink lends something of the wit of a cartoon by Gerald Scarfe and her work is perfectly finished.

With all these assets, you might expect an original Sol Muniain to be rather expensive. In fact, for the moment, her prices are surprisingly modest. Take advantage while you can - it isn’t going to last.

‘Vergel Suspendido - paintings by Sol Muniain’ will continue at Ya En Tu Casa until August 8th. Meet the artist on Sunday July 27th at 8 pm.

With the summer season in full swing, there have been more events in Vejer this last month than one blog can cope with. Now, as August begins, we’re looking forward to the annual Velada, though if you live in the area of the Plaza de España, Los Remedios or the Corredera, your anticipation may be tinged with foreboding. Meanwhile, I was delighted to read a short while ago that the Mayor has signed a document which will eventually bring the Castle into the ownership of the people of Vejer.

Although the oldest architectural remains in the castle date from the Islamic era, the Castle almost certainly dates back to pre-Roman times. Its prominent position on one of the highest points of Vejer would have been a natural choice for any community’s defences.

Many ancient legends concern the Castle, the most enduring of which is the story of the underground passage between the Castle and La Barca. Because Vejer has no natural water supply except that which falls from the sky, the town and castle were susceptible to sieges when, surrounded by their enemies, they could do nothing but pray for rain.

The legend says that a secret underground passage was therefore constructed to provide a water supply. Since underground chambers and even cities have existed since the Bronze Age, this claim is not impossible, especially if the tunnel engineers followed a natural fault line or even a system of interlinking caves.

One legend claims that in the 13^thcentury, a beautiful young woman called María discovered the tunnel during a Moorish guerilla attack. However, although she later married the bandit chief, she never put her home town at risk by revealing the existence of the secret passage.

True or not, the underground passage has a large place in Vejer’s folklore, though no trace of it has ever been discovered. The Romans almost certainly carried water over the valley from Santa Lucía, using a system of aqueducts still visible today, and presumably had no need of a tunnel.

After the Islamic era ended in the 13^thcentury, incoming occupants made radical changes to the building, destroying the Islamic façade and increasing the fortifications. During the first years of the Reconquista, the Castle saw much bloodshed as Moorish retaliations were repelled, or as sometimes happened, Moorish guerillas temporarily regained control.

However, by the 17^th century, the Castle had been adapted to residential use, and became the Vejer home of the Dukes of Medina Sidonia. During this era, living accommodation was situated on the first floor, with kitchen, stables and other utilities on the ground floor. The living accommodation was on the two sides above the archways, and the rooms looking out onto the military enclosure would have been formal apartments.

All this changed in the mid 19^thcentury when an act of parliament withdrew the property rights of the church and aristocracy. The Castle was converted into apartments and a covered walkway on the first floor gave access to the different dwellings. By the beginning of the twentieth century, the Castle was in the hands of three different private owners.

The first steps towards acquiring the Castle for the people of Vejer were taken as early as 1914, when the Ayuntimiento bought a third share from Don Pedro María Muñoz de Arenillas Narváez Cabeza de Vaca. These rooms were used for many years as a school.

In 1931, the Castle was declared to be a ‘National Treasure of Spain’ and in 1985, a ‘site of national interest’. The living accommodation is now empty, but in recent years, the Ayuntimiento has established a dance school on the ground floor and the stables have been restored and put to use as a museum of everyday life in the mid 19^th century. There is now a gift shop in the old kitchen and the patio has been opened as a place of refuge and relaxation.

The old kitchen is now a gift shop

Despite this, however, on taking office, the current council agreed that it was inappropriate for the majority ownership of a resource of the importance of the Castle to remain in private hands and it was decided that the bulding should be purchased by the Ayuntimiento as a public resource for use as museum and cultural space. In June, 2014, an agreement to purchase a further third of the property was signed with Don Joachím Pastor Pérez, with every intention to purchase the final third as soon as it is available.

Calle Escudero. Manuel Torres is on the left, the other side of the bread shop.

It's been a hectic summer here in Vejer, and I take my hat off to the Ayuntimiento for their persistence and efficiency in managing a virtually non-stop programme of events and entertainment. Variety of pace is one of the delights of living here, and after the crush and squeeze of the August Velada, it’s pleasant to find the town a little quieter as the first days of autumn begin. I’ve started my early morning walks through the town again and am relishing the morning mists, my friends, the street cats, and the first signs of life as the town wakes up to another day.

One thing I couldn’t ignore is the work being done on Calle Manuel Torres, which rises to Lanería from Juan Relinque, turning upwards opposite Altozano. This part of town developed in the 18th century, when tradesmen and wealthier artisans began to move out to the suburbs beyond the Convento San Francisco. Several large houses survived the earthquake of 1773, but new building continued throughout the 19th and 20th centuries.

The current project will repair and renew the cobbled street surface, making it more accessible to disabled users, improve the pavements and lay down pipelines for utilities and future fibre-optic cable. This will make it safer and more comfortable to use and provide better access to services for all its residents.

Calle Manuel Torres now contains several large and impressive residences, which once would have housed big households including servants and members of the extended family. Several of these, alas, have fallen into disrepair, though others have been restored. It was in one of these houses that a tragic event occurred in August 1869.

Until recently, Calle Manuel Torres was called ‘Calle Yeseros’ after the members of the plastering trade who once congregated there, and the old street sign is still visible, a piece of Vejer’s history that we can read right off the walls. In the twentieth century, however, it was named after a famous Vejeriego who lived and died there - the crusading rebel turned politician, Manuel Torres.

After the proclamation of the Constitution from Cadiz in 1812, Spanish politics polarised into liberal and conservative factions. Confusingly, these became known as the moderate liberals, the conservatives, who did not support the Constitution, and the progressive liberals, who did. For the next century, control would oscillate between these two factions, and many violent and lawless acts ensued in the process of maintaining the balance of power. Between 1823 and 1874, there was a rebellion somewhere in Spain on average every ten months.  

Manuel Torres was very much a progressive. A lawyer by profession, in March 1831, he was one of the young rebels who supported the attempted revolution led by Cristóbal Jurado and his associates, and spent several months in prison for his pains. By 1840, however, he had become the leader of Vejer’s progressive liberals and the Mayor of Vejer, in which role he quickly acquired heroic status for his efforts on behalf of the people. During his time in office, Vejer’s council transferred much of its property into the hands of the poor, and about a thousand country people received a holding of some kind. He was soon being described as ‘the father of the poor’.

By 1869, however, the balance of power had shifted in the other direction, and a conservative mayor was in power in Vejer. Torres, now in his sixties, continued as a councillor on the opposing side, causing untold annoyance to his opponents. At 11 o’clock on August 26th of that year, he was resting at home when his wife, Carmen, answered a knock on the door of their home at 8 Calle Yeseros (now number 20). She received two visitors, who asked for her husband, and left them to talk in the patio while she attended to a request from the maid. A few moments later, she heard her husband call out ‘Carmen, they are killing me!’ She ran downstairs to find her husband doubled up in his chair with blood pouring from his side. He stood up, took two steps towards her, and collapsed.

The two visitors were arrested the following day, and one of them admitted responsibility for the murder. He was imprisoned, but released almost at once on payment of a large sum of money collected by the town’s conservative community. The maid was bribed and Carmen was declared to have been so unbalanced by her ordeal as to be unable to make an identification. Despite his confession, he murderer took his place in society again as though nothing had happened.

Carmen never recovered from the shock of the event and the injustice of its resolution, and for years, she could not bring herself to move Manuel’s bloodied clothes from where they lay in the patio. The motivation for the murder, however, was probably not political. Historian Antonio Muñoz discovered evidence that Manuel Torres had angered the two men by acting against them in the matter of a will. The political element probably only emerged in the manner in which the murder was dismissed and the murderer absolved by the current administration.  

Manual Torres' house, now number 20 on the street named after him.

Manuel Torres' house still stands on the corner of the street which bears his name, though it is now unoccupied and neglected. It seems a shame that a site so significant in the history of Vejer should not be better loved.

Sol Muniain

It’s been a while since I added to this blog. The busy summer, several trips overseas and the loss of my camera, not to mention my novel ‘The Three Witches’ have all kept me away from my page. Now it’s time to come back with some exciting news about a new community association which will benefit anyone who is interested in the visual arts in our town.

Walking around the town on a Saturday morning, you might have noticed a posse of artists sketching one of our many beautiful buildings or fascinating corners. These are the Vejer Sketchers, a group of artists linked to the international ‘Urban Sketchers’ movement, who devote their Saturday mornings to creating art from the street. One of the sketchers is Vejer artist Sol Muniain, who last year held a successful exhibition at the shop ‘Ya En Tu Casa’ on the Corredera.

For some time now, Sol has had a dream. A permanent space where artists could meet to share their skills and show their work, where contacts could be made, information exchanged and the profile of art in the area could be raised. The contribution of Vejer’s informal exhibition spaces, The Tetería del Califa, the Tetería Chokolata and Ya En Tu Casa, as well as the Casa del Arco gallery and the Ayuntamiento’s Casa de la Cultura can’t be underestimated, but there was a need for a permanent centre, somewhere which would act as a focus and a point of reference for art all the year round.

Sol’s dream took a big step forward this autumn when she had the chance to tell the Mayor of Vejer, José Ortiz Galvan, what she had in mind. He was enthusiastic about her plans and offered the support of the Ayuntamiento, including the possibility of using premises owned by the local authority to kick-start the project.

Since then, plans have moved forward rapidly. Five individuals have united to create a steering committee for the project, and documentation has been prepared to make a formal presentation to the Mayor and council. This will take place on Wednesday December 3rd. The project has been named ‘Arte Vejer’ and an application has been made to register the project as an official community organisation.

‘Arte Vejer’ already has a well-supported Facebook page and will shortly appear on Twitter and email. Its aims are two-fold: to create networks and display spaces for artists and to provide access to art education for the whole community. The project has already attracted support from local artists and will make its debut at the Casa de la Cultura on Sunday December 7th, as part of the Vejer Open Town day, when an exhibition of work by the Vejer Sketchers and a open art workshop will be offered as part of the event. For anyone who is interested, it’s a great opportunity to find out more and maybe get involved.

The Zambombá

Like many refugees from the more materialistic British Christmas, I love to spend the season of goodwill in Vejer. Rather than struggling to heap up extravagant gifts for ever more demanding youngsters, or toiling over a giant turkey roast, it's relaxing to be in a place where Christmas is a bit more about community and family. The little town is bright with lights and Christmas music will play throughout the Christmas season. These are things we can all share, and the streets are crowded with people, not stressing about finding that final gift but enjoying a celebratory outing with family and friends. Gifts are not exchanged until January 6th, leaving Christmas itself free for socialising.

Two street event occasions dominate the run-up to Christmas: the Zambombá and the Living Nativity. The Zambombá is a social event which often takes place in the late afternoon. The traditional format includes a brazier to keep participants warm, food, sometimes complimentary, and live performance of popular Christmas songs. If you are lucky, you could even see the eccentric musical instrument the event is named after, the Zambombá, a kind of friction drum which in German-speaking countries is delightfully named the Rummelpott. The up-and-down action of this instrument can cause hilarity among foreign visitors, but it's fascinating to visit a traditional zambombá where this unique sound can be heard.

The other big public event, the Living Nativity, takes place on the Sunday before Christmas day, and it is only one of several nativities which can be seen around town. If you are lucky enough to get an invitation to one of the schools' nativities which are held at the end term, you'll be charmed by the inventiveness of the event, not a theatrical one, as in the UK and the USA, but a series of tableaux in which every child gets to take part.

The main event, however, involves the streets of the old town and most of its inhabitants in a recreation of the entire town of Bethlehem, with its craftspeople, animals, and of course, its Holy Family. King Herod, accompanied by a bevy of dancers, Pontius Pilate with his Roman soldiers and the Three Kings are all depicted, despite the fact that they don't appear in the accounts of Christ's birth which appear in the gospels of St. Luke and St. Matthew.

The tradition of the nativity seems to have started in the thirteenth century, with St. Francis of Assisi. The saint deplored the materialism and commercialisation of Christmas celebrations and wanted to
put the emphasis back onto the spritual meaning of the Christian festival, suggesting that nothing much has changed in seven hundred years. The first nativities were, as Vejer's, living nativities which involved animals and children, mobilising most of the resources of the medieval village.

Since then, the nativity has become a popular event in every Christian country, though its form has evolved differently according to the cultures which presented it. While northern countries adopted the theatrical tradition of the medieval mystery plays, the living nativity has remained popular in southern Europe and the Spanish and Italian versions are regularly presented on television.

Both Vejer and Medina Sidonia present living nativities and both are well worth seeing for anyone, religious or not, who wants to experience the rich and vibrant culture of out town and to enjoy the wit and creativity of its inhabitants.

Andalucian women, covered and uncovered.

La Cobijada - a beautiful impostor

I was taking a walk in Vejer a little while ago when I met Eric and Barbara, a lovely couple from Canada. They told me how much they enjoyed this blog, and asked me why I hadn’t posted recently.

When I began the blog, I intended to continue for just one year, covering the main social and cultural events in the town. These don’t change very much year on year, and so I decided that one year would be enough. However, thanks to Eric and Barbara, and several others who have missed the blog, I’ve decided to carry on for a while, and there is certainly plenty to write about.

This time, I’d like to discuss the iconic figure of the Cobijada, Vejer’s covered lady. One of the town’s ceramic plaques describes her as ‘a glimpse of old al-Andalus’, and many observers have instinctively connected her flowing black costume with the burqa worn by some Moslem women. In fact, she is an impostor, with no real connections to Islamic Spain.

Covered women, 1926

The burqa, which came to our attention with the ascendency of the Taliban in Afghanistan in the 1990s, has been worn by Afghani women for about 100 years, though the practice of veiling upper-class women dates back at least 4000 years in some parts of Arabia. However, most women had to work in the fields, where a burqa would be an impediment, and to wear it was a sign of upper-class status, denoting a woman of importance.

'Preparation for a wedding' Frederick Arthur Bridgman (1847-1928)

Veiling women became important to Islam in the 11th century, but there is no evidence that the women of el-Andalus wore any garment resembling a burqa. Most of the images available to us now were created in the 19th century and express the prejudices of their time.

When I write about topics like this, I sometimes feel like a real party pooper, because there is no doubt that Vejer’s Moorish heritage has become an important part of the narrative the tourist industry has created around the town's history. As often happens, this tells us more about the present than the past. Since the nineteenth century, when the poet Lord Byron introduced the idea of Romantic orientalism to an admiring public, we Westerners have been attracted to the idea of the Mysterious East, and this fascination culminated in the architecture of the Moorish Revival in the late nineteenth century.

It wasn’t always like that. After Vejer was reconquered in the thirteenth century, every effort was made to eradicate the remnants of the Islamic occupation. Compared with the Roman occupation, and even the two thousand year old Tartessian culture, there are minimal physical remains of the Moslem era, and this clearly did not happen by accident.

Dark and modest clothing was obligatory
for Spanish women

After the area was reconquered in the mid thirteenth century, Moslems were expected to leave or convert. Most chose to leave, and it is calculated that by the 14th century, only 1% of the population was of Moslem origin. About 30% of the post-reconquista population left town when the area came under retaliatory attack from Moorish fighters between 1264 and 1300. For about half a century, Vejer was a military garrison, populated mainly by men, before the area was repopulated by families from northern Spain.

By the end of the Reconquista in 1492, hatred of Jews and Moslems had already descended into racist paranoia. ‘Conversos’ were mistrusted, and ‘limpieza de sangre’ (purity of blood) was enforced from 1449, prohibiting those of non-Christian heritage from taking public office. Commoners who could show descent from the Visigoths were raised to the nobility, and in the days before DNA testing, pedigrees were hastily assembled, or invented to support claims of racial purity. ‘Purity of blood’ continued to be a criterion for entry into the Spanish armed forces until the nineteenth century.

A Spanish lady goes to Mass with her maid.

The emphasis on racial purity had enormous implications for women. Racism brought with it a terror of inter-racial sexuality, with its consequent ‘pollution’ of blood. Women were responsible for the family honour, and their men were expected to control them. They were closely guarded and ‘modest’ clothing was regulated by law as in some Islamic states today.

All this means that rather than a gradual evolution from Islamic to Christian culture, the breach was violent, sudden and comprehensive. By the sixteenth century, Spain was asserting itself as a bulwark of Catholicism. The Inquisition was set up to police religious correctness, and people would do anything within their means to refute claims that they had Moorish blood. Spain became defiantly and even belligerently Christian. Nobody was about to announce Islamic cultural affiliations by wandering around in a burqa. Not even in a quiet backwater like Vejer.

Christian nuns - The Sisters of
Mary Immaculate Queen

So where do the Cobijada coverings originate, and why do they so closely resemble the burqa, chador or niqab worn today by some Moslem women? The answer lies in our shared religious heritage. Jewish women in ancient times were expected to cover their heads whenever they left their homes: according to the Law of Moses, a woman was regarded as immodest ‘If she goes out with her hair unbound, or spins in the street, or speaks with any man.’

This principle survived into the Christian and Islamic faiths which developed from Judaism, and was strongly stated by the Christian evangelist St. Paul in his first letter to the Corinthians: ‘For if the woman is not covered, let her also be shorn: but if it is a shame for a woman to be shorn or shaven, let her be covered.’

Covered woman, Tarifa, 19th century

The custom of women covering themselves, whose roots are probably cultural rather than ideological, was adopted by the emerging Islamic faith in the 7th century, though ironically, the Qur’an is less specific about this than the Bible, stating only that ‘they should not display their beauty and ornaments except what must ordinarily appear thereof; that they should draw their veils over their bosoms and not display their beauty except to their husbands.’

Right into the twentieth century, it was customary for women in all Christian countries to cover their heads and their hair. My mother was one of the rebel post-war generation who dared to go bare-headed in the street, though no woman of her generation would have gone hatless into a church.

This is why Christian nuns cover themselves with wimple and veil, many Moslem women wear the burqa or the niqab and Orthodox Jewish women dress modestly and cover their heads. ‘Modesty’ is also required of men, but it takes a different form.

The coverings we now associate with the Cobijada became fashionable in Madrid in the eighteenth century, and the fashion spread south to Andalucia. Soon, they became the customary outdoor wear of ordinary women, not just in Vejer but all along the coast from Tarifa to Cádiz. This style was also popular in other parts of Spain.

La Cobijada survived longer in Andalucía than in other parts of Spain, because the area was very poor. Clothing was passed down from mother to daughter, patched, pressed and altered for each new generation.

Modern coverings lined with red satin.

The Cobijada coverings consist of two parts - the manto, which covers the upper body, and the saya, a long, pleated skirt, gathered at the waistband. The garments were made of gabardine, and like the burqa, provided ‘instant respectability’ for any woman who needed to leave the house for while. It was a smart and useful outfit, and could be lined with satin make it more comfortable. Its fitting waist and sensuous folds, emphasised a feminine shape while maintaining a certain touch of mystery.

The manto could be loosed from the woman’s top and allowed to hang over her skirt when she needed to use her hands and arms, and she could also pull it over her head and hold it closed with her teeth, one eye peeping out as in the standard depiction. In many ways, it was a useful flirting accessory. But the Cobijada clothing was banned in the early twentieth century when civil unrest made it useful for disguising weapons, and the outfit began a steady decline. It was initially discouraged by the Franco regime which opposed regional culture, and in the austere first years of the regime, the garments were cut up and made into other things.

Although Cobijada women could still be seen in Vejer in the 1970s, these women were older, and in general, they kept their coverings for certain special occasions. Nowadays, there is a resurgence in the popularity of the costume, and an annual competition to find the senior and junior Cobijadas of the year. La Cobijada has become a Vejer icon, and one of the things which give the town its special identity.

Moorish and Christian women play chess in Islamic Spain

A pre-reconquista image shows a Moslem and a Christian women playing chess together. Their clothes are surprisingly similar, but there’s one important difference. While Christian women were expected to wear long skirts, the Moslem woman wears baggy trousers under a tunic. This is the real difference between Christian and Moslem dress. While a Christian woman could be punished and even burned for wearing trousers, many Middle Eastern women were expected to wear them, and they are still normal wear for some women in the region.

Blanca Gortari's colourful Cobijadas.

Nature is slowly taking over the old mill.

Some time last year, I saw this photo by my friend María Muñoz Melero of the old water mill at La Barca, and was fascinated by a relic of Vejer’s past which I had neither heard of nor seen. María remembers playing around the old mill with her sister in the 1970s, surrounded by all the beauties of nature.

Before long, I made my way to La Barca, and found the mill

The La Barca well

, nestling amid weeds and branches, an evocative reminder of a past age. It was purely by accident that I also discovered the old well, a little way along the road towards Barbate. Though disused, it was obviously once a cause of pride as well as utility, and I can easily imagine the gossiping and courtship that must once have taken place as the water was drawn.

La Barca in the early twentieth century, as motor vehicles began
to replace river transport.

La Barca (Ferry) is now a rather quiet place, with a long-distance bus stop and a couple of restaurants, but until the early 20th century, it was a thriving river port, which had been in existence since before Roman times. At its height, it boasted a population of 700 and a church dedicated to St. Nicolas. When the river port closed in 1928, the church closed and the community shrank.

The water mill and its cousin, the public well, are two examples of local water engineering which you don’t hear about at the tourist office, but they are important symbols of a time when natural resources were used to carry out agricultural processes, and piped water was unheard of in most of Andalucía.

El Poniente restaurant.

Here at the top of the hill, we’re used to the sight of Vejer’s windmills, now mostly restored and preserved as museum items or used as locations for restaurants. El Poniente and El Macinino are popular with residents and visitors alike.

The mill seen from La Cuesta de la Barca.

We tend to associate water mills with the preserved examples in Santa Lucia, which have also been restored and can be visited via the footpath which is signposted at the top of the village. The mill on the river was only one of a number of mills which harnessed wind and water to ensure a measure of prosperity, first for their owners, the Dukes of Medina Sidonia, and subsequently for the more middle-class owners who acquired them after the middle of the nineteenth century.

Water now barely flows through these graceful arches.

The production and grinding of wheat into flour were the main source of Vejer’s wealth in the nineteenth century and the mills were kept busy. The mill at La Barca is not very accessible, and its immediate surroundings are marshy and overgrown. It is situated on the South bank of the river, and can be reached via a track which runs past the car repair workshop. It isn’t safe for young children, but adults might like to take a peek.

Though it may be difficult to imagine, looking at the overgrown and silted-up waterway, tons of goods were once transported via La Barca to the overseas port at Barbate. The port

A view of La Barca in the early 20th century,
with the river Barbate still clear

reached its height in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, when it was administered by the Dukes of Medina Sidonia as a sorting depot for their imports and exports.

La Barca was a place of crucial importance to Vejer because it was the main source of fresh water, which was carried up the hill on the backs of mules, to be sold for drinking, and the public fountain appears to have been a place for gathering and recreation, as well as for hydration.

In 1904, Vejer became one of the first towns in Andalucía to acquire piped water, though this service was only available to the wealthy. The majority of the people had to continue bringing their water up the hill until 1949, when a public fountain was created on the Plaza de España. The well at La Barca soon became redundant, and fell into disuse, though piped water did not become universally available in Vejer until the 1970s.

'The public well of Our Lady of the Olive'

Vejer: the 'piconero' delivers coal, while Maria 'la Gabonilla' passes by in the background.

Most people know about the Spanish system of nicknames in which first names are shortened, combined or adapted, so that Juan Pedro becomes ‘Juanpe’, Francisco is ‘Paco’ and José is ‘Pepe’, among a multitude of others. Nachos, Quiques, Chanos and Chemas abound throughout Spain and these shortened forms are recognised everywhere, but there’s another system of nicknames, local and personal, which you only understand when you know the people and live in the place.

Conil: on the extreme right, Juan Muñoz Leal 'Perragorda', literally 'fat bitch'.

An early reader of this blog pointed out, quite correctly, that nicknames have existed and continue to exist in all human societies, and without wanting to write an essay on social anthropology, I should explain that I'm talking here about a phenomenon which ethnologists describe as a 'nickname system'. In other words, the use of nicknames has a distinct social function and follows certain rules, which have evolved over time. Nickname systems are typical of the kind of traditional society which has now almost died out in most of Western Europe, and it's interesting to find evidence that some of these customs persist in our part of Spain.
One of the things which intrigued me when I lived in a Cornish seaside town was the rich fund of nicknames the local people used for their friends and family, which almost amounted to a parallel naming system. It’s often been argued that these local nicknames are given when many people share the same name. Naming traditions were often very conservative, with sons named after their fathers and daughters after their mothers, and so within a few generations, a new method of distinguishing different individuals was required. Nicknames were therefore used to differentiate different famiies with the same surname, so for example, if you belonged to one branch of the Stephens family, you were a ‘Cush’, if to another, you were a ‘Blue’.

This explanation is very appealing and undoubtedly explains in part the widespread use of nicknames which, as I soon discovered, is a feature of all societies, and not limited to Cornwall, or even to Europe. However, as nicknames are also used in communities where a range of surnames exists, it’s clear that they are also related to an older naming tradition than the one we are use now.

One of Juan 'Camacha's' remarkable photographs of

Conil fishermen.

  Writing in 1892, John Hobson Matthews declared that ‘They (nicknames) are a relic of a primitive state of society, and flourish only where primitive ideas still prevail’, and though his dismissal of nicknames as ‘primitive’ is inaccurate, he is probably right to say that the roots of the custom lie deep in the past.
Just as in other countries, nobody in Spain chose to have an official family name or names. The necessity to find one was imposed by law at the end of the 16th century, when the population was growing fast and the Council of Trent judged it necessary to register every individual.
Faced with this requirement, the Spanish people drew on a number of traditions to equip themselves with a legal identity. Many people had previously used the patronymic system, adding an ‘ez’ to their father’s name and writing it after their own. This tradition, which dates back to the Visigoths, meant that Gonzalo, son of Alvaro, would be Gonzalo Alvarez, and that his son, named after the grandfather, would be Alvaro González. After the law changed, Alvaro would  have had to give the name González to his own children.
Other traditions included naming people after physical characteristics, (Calvo - bald headed), place of origin (de Córdoba) or occupation (Herrera - blacksmith). All these surnames persist today, among many others, and some were clearly based on nicknames which had been awarded to an individual, only to be passed on to his children when surnames became compulsory. And as Spanish naming customs require that every child is baptised with first its father's and then its mother's surname, and religious custom involved adding at baptism the name of the parish patron saint, official names were often lengthy and cumbersome, as in the case of the painter Pablo Picasso, who was baptised Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso. In cases like this. some kind of simplification is both desirable and inevitable.
  Nicknames arose from speech, not from legislators or bureaucrats, and so they form part of the oral tradition which is an essential part of every culture. Not surprisingly, once surnames became formalised, they lost their power to express close identity and personal knowledge, as well as their usefulness as a vehicle for wit and invention. In a culture which was already rich before writing and reading became universal pursuits, nicknames expressed both individuality and social cohesion.
I first became aware of the existence of local surnames in this part of the world when my friend Adrián, from nearby Conil, told me that his father, Sebastián Brenes, was known among his friends as ‘El Plancha’ (an iron, grill or metal plate). Intriguingly, the surname ‘Brenes’ is of Celtic origin, referring to a site where metal is worked. The British equivalent is ‘Baines’. Yes, Adrián confirmed, his grandfather had also been ‘El Plancha’. And while it’s a stretch to imagine a nickname enduring from as long ago as the Iron Age, the connection is intriguing.

Vejer: Antonia 'la Matea' Mateo

I wanted to find out if local nicknames were as common here as they are in Cornwall, and I was lucky to find ‘Conil en la Memoria’, a collection of photographs taken in that town over the past 130 years. Early pictures revealed very little. Local nicknames are the speciality of the working classes, many of whom, in the early years of this century, still did not read or write. Only the wealthy could afford to have their photos taken, and the first images show well-dressed people, formally posed with both surnames, father’s and mother’s, respectfully attached. It isn’t until the nineteen sixties that a photographer called Juan ‘Capacha’ arrives on the scene to document the lives of working people.

‘Capacha’ doesn’t feature on any list of famous photographers, but he was clearly passionate about recording the day-to day life of Conil. For the first time, we see María, ‘la Cubana’, Ramón ‘Cacho’ Nuñez, the gardener, Juan ‘el Sillero’, Juan Alba, ‘el Chato’ and ‘el Guaqui’, the ice-cream maker. In a beautiful picture from the 1970s, Tomás Pareja ‘Boquerón’ and Antonia Caballero ‘La Matea' haul ropes during the Jábega fishing season.

'Boqueron' and 'La Matea', an unusual example of a woman working in the fishing industry.

Some of these nicknames simply describe occupations and are easy to understand. There’s no mystery about why Chana, who made churros, should be ‘la Churrera’, though why her husband, Sebastián, should be ‘el Chulo’ is less clear. The word means ‘cute’, or, nowadays, ‘cool’, though the noun form also means ‘pimp’. A ‘cacho’ is a little piece, and this is a common nickname in Spain, but ‘Guaqui' is not in the dictionary, unless it relates to the town of the same name in Bolivia, a distant, though not inconceivable possibility. Less exotically, it's probably a diminutive of the Christian name 'Joaquín'.

I half hoped that ‘La Matea' would mean ‘killer woman’, but it seems that this is a common nickname for women with the surname ‘Mateo’. ‘Chato’ means snub-nosed, or possibly short-sighted. In other words, a nickname can derive from almost anything that marks you out as an individual, for good or bad.

After making these discoveries, I had no doubt that nicknames would be as prevalent in Vejer as in Conil, and so it proved to be. I quickly found the butcher Pepe ‘el Perlino’ (pearly) Tello, pictured at a social occasion, Alfonso ‘La Tila’ (‘lime blossom’, but possibly referring to a site in Vejer) Melero, still at school and Antonia ‘la Matea’ Mateo. There was Morillo ‘el Curricán’ (fishing line) Basallote, José 'el Burra' Domínguez, José el Mozo, (lad) Maria 'La Lobita' (presumably from nearby 'La Lopita', though 'loba' is also a slang term for a prostitute), the young footballer Manolito ‘el Mono’ (the monkey), Joselita 'el Penumbra' (the shadow)... Interestingly, those who remembered María ‘la Gabanilla’ spelled her nickname in several different ways, a clear indication that these nicknames proceed from a spoken, rather than a written tradition.

Vejer 1973: Manólito 'El Mono' is on the bottom row, second from the right.

The list could go on and on, and there is scope here for serious research. Some names are specific to one individual, but as John Hobson Matthews said, ‘some names cling to these families through generations’. The system of nicknames can involve the past history as well as the present situation of every individual.
Nickname systems have been described by ethnologists as a means of expressing relationships of power and trust; 'to place people but also to put them in their place'. Nicknames are rarely used by families or outsiders, and so provide a mechanism for establishing new social circles outside the family group. Where nicknames are predominantly used by men, the intention is usually to exert control through verbal aggression, and though in this area, they are generally used equally by both sexes, the existence of 'apodos' like 'perragorda' - fat bitch - suggests that not every nickname is awarded in a spirit of kindliness and social cohesion.
It’s clear that the tradition of the local nickname plays an important part in marking different levels of intimacy in a community. A visitor may know your first name and even your surname, but only an insider knows your nickname. The tradition is under threat now, as universal literacy and movement of people from the pueblos to the cities undermines so many local customs, but with luck, the nickname tradition will survive for a long while yet.

Juan Relinque's protest, acted out in music and song during Carnival.

This weekend, Vejer will celebrate one of its heroes. Juan Relinque was a fifteenth-century campaigning lawyer who took on the wealthy Dukes of Medina Sidonia, and despite suffering insult and imprisonment, secured the ancient right of the people to the lands which had been allocated for public use after the Reconquista. The following is an edited extract from my book, 'Vejer de la Frontera: A History', first published in 2011.

Calle Juan Relinque was named after the town's hero

The story begins after Vejer was liberated from Islamic rule in 1264. King Sancho IV granted land to the incoming Christian population in order to help them survive in their new home. In 1307, King Fernando IV granted jurisdiction over Vejer to Alfonso Pérez de Guzmán, the first Duke of Medina Sidonia, on condition that the law regarding the hazas was respected. This condition was initially respected. However, as time went by, the nobility began to abuse their privileges. Although agriculture was the main source of income in the 15th century, much of the land granted by the Crown to the people of Vejer for pasturage had been appropriated by the Dukes for the cultivation of wheat. Much of the profit from local fisheries also went to the ducal house.

Juan Alonzo, Duke of Medina Sidonia

As the 16th century advanced, Vejer's economy came under increasing pressure, until in 1535, the situation became unbearable. The people of had repeatedly requested the return of the rights originally granted them by the Crown, but their demands were ignored. Meanwhile, Juan Alonzo, the current Duke of Medina Sidonia was busy enclosing public land for his own private use, imposing levies on agricultural production and monopolizing public utilities such as ovens and mills. Worst of all was the limiting of public access to farmland which had been enjoyed as communal ground since the repopulation of Vejer – the Hazas de Suerte.
Matters came to a head when a tax on wine was announced. Juan Relinque was a talented individual who had been appointed to the position of trustee procurator the previous year. He quickly realized that the Duke was not recognizing the rights the people were entitled to according to the royal charter by which the Dukes of Medina Sidonia administered the town. Juan Relinque officially expressed his rejection of the new demand, but the estate dismissed his document. Supported by a number of fellow citizens, Relinque took his complaint to the Royal Chancery at Granada, requesting protection for his plea against the Duke.

A royal decree was issued, instructing the seigniorial authorities to respect his right of appeal. In December, Relinque presented his first demand, denouncing the Duke for the tax on wine, and challenging sales taxes on other goods, such as linen, on the grounds that since the Repopulation, Vejer had been entitled to the privilege of free trade. The citizens of Vejer argued that having paid the statutory ten percent to the estate, they were not liable for further charges, and claimed that Relinque had been unjustly dealt with by the authorities. The Duke, apparently prevented by arrogance from seeing the writing on the wall, continued to maintain that the estate was his, and he would do what he wanted with it.

Nevertheless, support for Relinque and his followers continued to grow, and the Duke appealed to Granada for the right to punish the rebels. On Corpus Christi day, 1536, the town crier announced on behalf of the estate that communal lands were to be sold to pay estate expenses. Relinque and some of his supporters, meeting on the Plaza de España, confronted the estate office, causing ‘scandal and commotion’. Relinque and his people were removed to Sanlúcar de Barrameda and imprisoned there.
In November of the same year, the Duke’s Procurator requested that the prisoners should remain under lock and key. However, Relinque was permitted to leave jail in order to plead his case, and far from being intimidated, as the Duke presumably intended, took up the cause with renewed enthusiasm. In May 1537, a royal decree recognized six separate abuses which had been carried out by the Duke.
Not yet satisfied, Relinque continued to press his case, despite an attack of cold feet on the part of some of his supporters, and obtained permission to proceed with a demand for fiscal equality, on the understanding that his case would be prosecuted for the general good, and not for the benefit of any individual.
During this period, several attempts were made to intimidate Relinque and his followers. Faced with the unaccustomed expenses that Relinque's demands inevitably involved, some powerful families in the town found themselves out of pocket, and attempted to resist the changes. The authorities, however, were prepared to make no exceptions, and ordered them to pay. Finally, the Mayor, Tebedeo Velázquez, and several other wealthy citizens, surprised Relinque as he was walking through the churchyard, and threatened him. Relinque replied coolly that he merely sought justice, and Velázquez retreated to his house in a fury.

Juan Relinque's story is told on this ceramic plaque over the Arco de la Segur.

During the next four years, Relinque and his supporters pressed for comprehensive reforms and a definitive shift in the balance of power. Their strength was the legality of their claims. Although in 1307, Fernando IV had given the administration of Vejer, with its castle and fortifications, and its existing and future population, to Alfonso Pérez de Gúzman, this did not imply that Gúzmán had proprietorial and seigniorial rights over the town. As part of the agreement, Gúzmán had been bound to observe existing property rights and privileges. In 1539, Relinque presented the courts with a demand for full restitution of all rights. expressed in fifteen different points. The Duke responded with bluster, repeating his assertion of ownership, and showing complete ignorance of the law. Evidence of Fernando’s decree was produced, and the Duke’s arguments were dismissed. Years later, he was still muttering about ‘time immemorial’ and ‘ancient laws and customs.’
The Duke’s party, aware that the point was lost, attempted to stop the process by an agreement with the people of Vejer, and collected some signatures in their support. In 1542, the people of Vejer went back to court to challenge the agreement, which, as Relinque pointed out, was divisive. The court agreed that no agreement could cancel out the rights of the citizens of Vejer, but the issue rumbled on until 1565, when Relinque's interpretation of the law was finally ratified.

The Tourist Office has devised a walking route devoted to the Hazas de Suerte.

By this time, both Duke Juan Alonzo and Relinque himself had died. In 1566, the judges of the King’s court issued a condemnation of the ducal house of Medina Sidonia, and ratified all fifteen points of Relinque’s plea of 1536. Although the Dukes dragged their feet when it came to putting the decrees into effect, making further rulings necessary in 1569, and even as late as 1627, the point was won.
The Dukes of Medina Sidonia were not financially ruined by the new arrangements and continued to be the richest family in Spain, with significant influence on the monarch and his government. Alfonso’s grandson, Alonzo, commanded the Spanish Armada in 1588, and was disgraced when it failed; his subsequent withdrawal from public life had a negative effect on trade in the area.

Alonzo was disgraced after the defeat of the Spanish Armada

Juan Relinque García died in 1554. He comes down to us as a Robin Hood of his time, one who used the law to defend his people’s rights against a grasping aristocracy. Little is known about him, but what we do know suggests a man of conscience and a firm will. Although he seems not to have had children of his own, in 1541, he adopted a foundling child, a girl whom he named after his wife, Leonor. The girl is not mentioned in his will, suggesting that she died young.
Juan Relinque was clearly a man of parts, a skilled and intelligent interpreter of the law, and an obstinate defender of justice. He was also a man of religion, whose final wish was that he should be buried in the parish church of El Divino Salvador. His bequests were small, but included a few vines, some land, an ass and eight doves. His legacy, the freedom and prosperity of the people of Vejer, is incalculable.

The Hazas are allocated via a sorteo (lottery), which takes place on December 22nd every four years. The next one will take place next year, in 2016. The sorteo might have disappeared when the Church and nobility lost their privileges in 1835. Administration of local lands fell to the local authority, and might have produced a handsome income. However, the Mayor, José de Luna, recognised that the sorteo was an ancient tradition and part of the town's patrimony, and insisted that the sorteo should be retained as the most equitable way of allocating the Hazas among Vejer's citizens.

The sorteo of 1988, Antonio Morillo presiding.

Nowadays, Vejer possesses 232 hazas, distributed between thirteen areas, amounting in total to 3,489.80 hectares. These are administered by the Hazas Committee, which consists of 17 councillors and 17 representatives of Vejer society, presided over by the Mayor. The current administration is seeking recognition of the sorteo as an example of the Intangible Heritage of Mankind. Tour group 'Las Marimantas' run a walking tour of Vejer which includes the story of the Hazas de Suerte.

The link below shows one of Vejer's Carnival groups' representing the story of the Hazas in song:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wVu0g0bytX0

View from the Mayorazgo Tower. Before the houses were built, the whole coastline was visible

When I’m asked to take visitors on a historical tour of Vejer, I like to begin at the top of the Mayorazgo tower. This building, which was not originally associated with the house in whose patio it stands, is a permanent reminder of the white slave trade, and explains in concrete terms why the town exists in the form it does today.

Before the houses to the south-west were built in the twentieth century, it was possible to survey the entire sweep of coastline, including, on a clear day, the North African coast on the other side of the water.

The far coast of Africa is visible from Vejer

Nobody could approach during the hours of daylight without being seen from afar. When intruders were sighted, the watchman would ring the bell, alerting the town’s residents, both inside and outside the wall, and all the other town bells would join in the clamour. Vejeriegos had time to get inside the walls before the invaders arrived, and once the gates were sealed, the watch was in prime position to repel unwanted visitors. The pirates never got into Vejer.

For this reason, the town’s walls were carefully maintained, and with their protection, Vejer was able to grow and thrive as an important country town. Most of the suburbs outside the walls did not develop until the pirate threat abated in the eighteenth century, and the convents and bigger houses outside the walls were sturdily fortified.

Other settlements in La Janda were not so fortunate. All along the southern european coast, the threat from pirates was so great that it was not worth developing the coastal areas beyond the minimal resources needed to bring in catches of fish and deal with the traffic along the rivers.

Barbary Corsairs - 19th century woodcut.

This is why towns like Conil and Barbate, despite being long-established and possessing some impressive fortifications, seem relatively modern, with few historic buildings. As long as the Dukes of Medina Sidonia controlled the area, Vejer, Barbate and Conil were regarded as a single unit, all fulfilling different functions, with Vejer as the La Janda residential and administrative centre. All the business of importing and exporting goods and passengers was done at the river port of La Barca, hidden behind the hill and supplied with a good selection of caves to hide in when the bells rang out.

The local authorities did not rely on the walls and towers alone to keep the town safe from pirates. The Dukes of Medina Sidonia, perceiving a threat to their income, funded a system of horseback patrols, and land was sold to strengthen the town’s defences. The Juderia gate was closed for several centuries to secure the Castle area from attack via the Barranco de Almarez.

The Judería Gate, closed for centuries to keep pirates out.

Piracy has existed since Roman times and before, but the conditions of the sixteenth century turned an irritation into a plague. After the conquest of Granada, the last Moorish stronghold in Spain, many North Africans expected a fightback and armed themselves accordingly. When the call failed to come, they turned to guerilla warfare and piracy. There was always something of the jihad in the corsairs’ attitude to Spain.

Although the pirates were happy to plunder cattle, money and jewels, their main objective was to obtain slaves to trade in the southern mediterranean countries. They made themselves a nuisance all over Europe, and one raiding party reached as far away as Iceland. It has been calculated that around one and a quarter million Europeans were traded by North African and Turkish pirates between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries. Many slaves died, and many males were castrated and could not reproduce, so the demand was steady.

Galley slaves of the Barbary pirates:1799

Vejeriegos did not always escape the Corsairs’ attention. Some were taken while away from home and put to work as galley slaves, sex workers, soldiers or manual labourers. When they arrived in Morocco or Algeria, they often found fellow-citizens, with whom they formed groups offering mutual support.

The wealthy were usually ransomed, and Vejer families were often hard put to to find enough money to buy back their family member. Ironically, some Spaniards mortgaged or sold their own slaves to do this. Piracy caused psychological damage to whole communities. When the King’s inspector, Luis Bravo, visited Vejer in 1577, he was horrified to discover that Vejeriegos were so afraid of the pirates that they were only willing to leave the town’s walled enclosure at the height of the afternoon.

Mrs. Bradley, unfortunately conveyed into captivity by the Arabs

Although the corsairs were universally hated, there is plenty of evidence that some merchants were willing to do business with them for commercial advantage. In June 1478, Antón Bernal, a Cadiz merchant, was found guilty after attacking and looting a cargo of provisions destined for Vejer. Bernal, who was an alderman of Cádiz, was not punished, merely required to repay the value of the cargo, suggesting that piracy was regarded as sharp practice rather than criminal behaviour.

Piracy along the coasts of Europe disappeared during the eighteenth century, as navies grew more powerful. After the Napoleonic Wars, the Congress of Vienna in 1814–15, agreed to co-operate in suppressing the corsairs. The practice was finally ended by the French conquest of Algiers in 1830. Since then the Barbary Corsairs have been featured in hundreds of films and books, the idea of the White Slave Trade sending a delicate shudder through the bodies of many refined readers. Cruel and ruthless though they were, these pirates have nevertheless been accepted into the myth of the Romantic East, which has fascinated Europeans and Americans for almost two centuries.

The Barbary pirates and their enslaved victims have been romanticised and even sexualised for almost two centuries.

Vejer's church is the ultimate landmark

This blog doesn’t aim to be controversial, but something has been preying on my mind for a while, and maybe this is the place to voice my doubts.

Half way through last summer, feeling exhausted and in need of peace, I decided to pay a visit to Vejer’s beautiful church, La Iglesia del Divino Salvador. I can see the church from my roof terrace; its bells chime melodically through my day, marking the passing hours. I love the interior, and find something new there to enjoy every time I visit.

A calm interior

But this time, something was wrong. Instead of the comfortable smell of old incense, my nostrils were assailed by the odour of fresh paint. My favourite painting, ‘The Martyrdom of San Sebastian’, was missing. Worst of all, through the air came the sound, not of psalms or plainsong, but of muzak, the kind of sickly, anonymous music we hate when we hear it in lifts or shopping arcades. Unexpectedly, I found myself weeping with disappointment. My refuge from the world had been cheapened.

The Martyrdom of San Sebastian

I’m lucky enough to have a choice of refuges and half an hour’s reflection was enough to tell me that I’d been overdoing things and needed to take it easy. Still, some doubts persisted. Churches must be painted, of course, like other buildings, and my friend San Sebastian had probably been whisked out of harm’s way while the work continued. Yet I couldn’t help wondering why piped music had been allowed so inappropriately into a place of worship. Could it be something to do with that more modern religion, ‘El Turismo?’

Vejer’s church has survived many centuries and seen far worse things than tourism. It’s very likely that there has been a place of worship in that spot for millennia, and some of its stones have no doubt seen service as temple and mosque before regrouping in the late 15th century into a new and specifically Christian edifice. Within its walls, there is evidence of Christian, Gothic and Arab art, and it is commonly believed that the first phase, in Mudéjar style, the Islamic-influenced architecture of medieval Spain, was constructed on the site of a former mosque.

Image of the sun on the church ceiling

The demolition of the mosque is a clear sign that the old Moorish culture was now thoroughly vanquished, and the new construction was probably inspired by the fall of Granada in 1492, the final phase in the Reconquista. A second phase, in Gothic style, was added in the seventeenth century and had hardly been completed when the tower was destroyed in the earthquake of 1773.

Old pictures show the taller and more elegant church spire

The tower was subsequently rebuilt on a less ambitious scale, and though early images show the original as a more elegant structure than it is today, the replacement has proved durable. In 1936, the church was raided and desecrated by Republican protesters at the start of the Spanish Civil war. Compared with all this, a little muzak seems insignificant.

Damage caused by Republican protestors

And yet, as TS Eliot wrote, ‘This is how the world ends - not with a bang, but with a whimper.’ And now, suddenly, I’m wondering how far we can take the pursuit of the tourist euro before we begin to destroy the very thing that brought visitors here in the first place. When I first came to Vejer in 2001, I was enchanted by the purity of its white streets, the tranquillity of the summer afternoon, the sense that here was a community, complete in itself, calm beneath its ancient walls. It was manna to the soul.

Ancient attempts to deface Christian imagery

I wasn’t the only person to think so, and over the years, I’ve watched as cafes and hotels have opened and visitors have continued to arrive, bringing their own kind of life and vitality. In the last few years, the streets have filled with cafe tables and a bustling, optimistic brightness has prevailed. I love Vejer in all the phases of its year, from the elegant silence of winter to the crowded excitement of the summer Feria.

Now, though, I’m beginning to notice some false notes. Not too many, but enough to produce a frisson of discomfort. A row of ugly cafe tables. Nasty purple ‘for sale’ signs which project into the street. Beach-style straw umbrellas in the Parque Los Remedios. Hints of a casino on La Corredera. And though the ‘pergolas’ along La Corredera are convenient for diners and restaurateurs, the old-fashioned parasols had more charm. Now, muzak in the church. And I wonder where it will end.

The answer, of course, will always be that we have to attract visitors - the town needs the money. Even to say these words is to stifle all argument, and very few people ask about the real profit and loss of tourism.

In general, tourist income is classified as either ‘direct income’ or ‘leakage’. Leakage is the amount of money earned by tourism which does not remain in the town, and in some developing nations, as much as 90% may be lost, not merely to other areas, but to other countries. Tourism demands investment, and we have to balance what we spend with what we actually get in return.

It means that a tourist who flies RyanAir (Ireland), hires a vehicle from Europcar (France) and stocks up at Carrefour (France) on the way to their holiday home rented via Airbnb (USA) from an owner in London (UK) doesn’t bring as much profit into Vejer as we might think. And leakage doesn’t stop there. Whenever a tourist consumes something that isn’t produced in the area, the imports required to meet their needs eat into the profits. That Bacardi (Bermuda) and Coke (USA) aren’t as profitable for Vejer as we might like, and even the ingredients for the ubiquitous Tinto de Verano usually come from elsewhere. Some local businesses work hard to counteract this effect; the Califa Group, for example, has its own market garden, but that’s not the norm.

Least profitable of all are the groups which visit from the cruise ships in Gibraltar and Cadiz. Their expenditure is carefully managed by their tour operators, and we’re lucky if they buy so much as a cup of coffee in Vejer. They’re the classic ‘tomato tourists’, passing through, but contributing very little.

Towns like Vejer benefit from tourism by charging tax on hotel rooms, which is spent in part on maintaining the infrastructure, severely tested by the influx of summer visitors, as well as providing facilities and opportunities for tourism. Andalucia has also promised legislation to raise taxes from self-catering accommodation in the near future, though this may be difficult to enforce.

But most tourist money is made by businesses both large and small. Some companies own more than one business, while others are based outside Andalucia, contributing further to the leakage of revenues. For those who don’t have the opportunity to start and run a business, the benefits are not so easy to spot. While work is available through the summer, it’s heartbreaking to see the unemployment figures soar again in September, with no recovery in sight until the job vacancies begin to creep up again in April.

The church is a significant part of the town's iconography

Nevertheless, most potential entrepreneurs believe firmly in the powers of tourism, as much as a matter of blind faith as of economic planning, and those involved in rural development assure me that it’s almost impossible nowadays to persuade anybody to invest in anything outside the tourist industry. This would be more understandable if tourism delivered all-round wellbeing, but as things stand, at 48%, Vejer has the sixth highest rate of unemployment in the whole of Spain. If the money’s coming in, it certainly isn’t going around.

The rush for the tourist euro has already led to some unfortunate results locally. Though Vejer has some beautiful shops and now, two art galleries, it’s already difficult to buy anything useful in the old town. The Post Office has migrated to the new part and the library will soon follow. Our two small supermarkets have disappeared, one closed and one so beautified and poshified that I hardly dare enter it for fear of what the prices might be. The electrical goods once so usefully available in one local shop have given way to the tourist trinkets and summer dresses which now seem to be on sale in every other doorway. And, if the everyday shops all close, what’s it going to be like in winter, when the souvenir shops close their doors and the old town becomes a ghost town?

It hasn’t happened yet, and maybe that day will never come. Spain’s native culture is remarkably vibrant, after all. None of this is intended as criticism of our local tourist industry, which has done so much to enliven Vejer. I’d love to see an extended tourist season, maybe with a high-prestige arts festival in Spring or Autumn. But every town needs a balanced economy, and with all eyes fixed firmly on tourism, it seems unlikely that we’ll get one. The new business centre, planned to open this year, may help, but only if some of its users can be weaned off the tourist habit and onto something which offers year-round employment.

Seasonal unemployment has become more exaggerated in recent years

It all seems a long way from where I started, with the music in the church. But let’s be careful, too. Vejer’s selling point is its beauty, it’s dignity, its ancient heritage, and if these go, who’s going to struggle up the hill to find what’s already available in nearby Conil, and so much closer to the beach? Tourism, the biggest industry in the world, is a good servant, but a poor master.

Hawaiian style beach umbrellas in the park

I don’t forget that Vejer is not really my town. Most of its summer visitors are Spanish, and the Spanish presumably know what the Spanish want. But as Coco Chanel said, ‘elegance is refusal’. Let’s just be ready to refuse the ugly and the inappropriate. Nobody will blame us or keep away because we don’t have muzak in the church, a casino or Caribbean style beach umbrellas in the park. Nobody asked for them and most probably, nobody wants them. Or do they?

The proclamation of the Republic on the Plaza de España, February 1936

Since I’ve been writing about the history of Vejer, people have often asked me for information about what happened here in the Civil War (1936-1939). After Franco died, most Spanish people preferred to concentrate on building a new, democratic nation, and avoided dwelling on the past. In recent years, however, a new generation has insisted on knowing more about their grandparents' war.

The facts are fairly simple. On July 18th 1936, General Franco’s Nationalist followers instigated a rebellion again the elected Republican government. The cities of Cadiz and Seville declared their support for the Nationalist rebels. The government retained control of Málaga, Jaen and Almería. Control of the smaller towns east of Cadiz, including Vejer, was established over the following few days.

Bernabé Muñoz Brenes of Conil, one of the many who disappeared during the Civil War

Writing in the early 1970s, with the Francoist régime still in place, though in its last throes, Antonio Morillo’s poetic history ‘Vejer de la Frontera y su comarca: aportaciones a su historia’ (1974) is magnificently informative about many aspects of local history. Morillo believed that ‘the knowledge of history is currently a desire awakened more in the visitor than in the resident’. He stated that ‘the history of Vejer and its surroundings is a simple and straightforward story’, but bemoaned the loss of important records ‘owing to the ignorance and carelessness of past generations’.

Morillo, who became Vejer’s Mayor and remained in office for many years, wrote an evocative description of the events surrounding Vejer’s subjection by Nationalist forces. What follows is a translation of his account:

‘In the first months of 1936, the situation was chaotic. The elections of February, with the triumph of the National Front, hardened opinions on both sides. Quarrels were threatened between the parties in the coalition. The atmosphere breathed menace. On April 14th, 40 people from Vejer and Barbate were imprisoned in Chiclana, though fortunately they were set free within a short space of time.

‘Passions began to overflow on 18th and 19th July, when the first alarming news was received of an invasion from Morocco. Groups of people armed with sticks and stones began to gather on the streets, breaking windows and terrifying the people trapped inside. Fear and distress prevailed as everyone braced themselves for worse violence.

The hated Guardia Civil, a paramilitary police force which enforced Nationalist control

‘At dawn that Sunday, the first bell rang for Mass. As the sound died away, several men entered the church. As the priest began the service, they demanded to search the church for hidden weapons. Don Angel Caballero tried to persuade them at least to allow the mass to be concluded, but they did not consent and the church was closed.

‘The following night, the priests and the sacristan were imprisoned in the town jail, and a heated debate was held about which to burn - the church or the houses of the rich. The first was decided upon. That same night, the altars were sacked and defiled, the parochial archives thrown out onto the street, sacred statues flung onto the floor and images torn up in the street. A bonfire was lit to burn it all.

‘The church of Vejer was a sad sight, with its magnificent images and works of art destroyed, including many antique paintings like the priceless ‘Virgen de Gracia’, along with ornaments, gilding and all the books in the archive. Everything was lost in the flames. ‘It’s been a busy night’, as some commentators remarked, emerging sweating from the ransacked church.

‘It was a doleful picture, which, out of respect and shame, I will not dwell on in all its details. In telling this history, I prefer to take the position of a bystander, and not to allow opinion to cloud the facts. But it was a degrading spectacle and leaving ideology aside - religious ones included - works of art always deserve respect. They are not the property of any time or place and under no circumstances should they be destroyed. The same goes for the archives, an authentic amassing of history over centuries, destroyed for the sake of the resentments of a single moment in history.

‘Once the burning was over, a meeting was held in the usual place, the patio San Francisco. The most enthusiastic participants wanted to continue with the looting, but Don García Pérez, the local head of the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (CNT), managed to calm the crowd down, assuring them that they had achieved their objectives, and they returned to their houses.

Falangist women collecting cigarettes for Nationalist rebel fighters

‘The following day, even the nuns joined in ringing the bells when, from the bell tower came the shout ‘¡the Moors, the Moors!’ Thanks to a telephone operator from Vejer, news of the conflagration in the church had reached Cádiz.

‘A lorry had been sent immediately with twenty four Moroccans soldiers, which at the command of the lieutenant of the regulars, drove up the hill towards Los Remedios. However, anticipating their arrival, the extremists had felled a giant Eucalyptus tree across the road and the way was blocked. The soldiers turned around and ascended via San Miguel. They arrived in warlike mode, commencing their advance through the town with weapons at the ready for the least suspicion of resistance. They met with no more than a few isolated shots.

‘The rioters and incendiaries, who had apparently vanished into thin air, lurked around La Barca like souls awaiting the Devil. The ‘Moors’ continued to advance through the town, firing into every balcony and open window, most of which were protected by woollen blankets. Five people died, one of them shot through the keyhole by which she was observing the spectacle. Several people were wounded, but only one seriously, and these were brought to the building which is now the Hotel San Francisco on the Plazuela.

‘Meanwhile, the streets were patrolled and order was restored, Residents were asked to open their windows, and the call ‘¡Abrir, Abrir! was heard all over town. The priests were released from jail and did their best to calm the people.

'The soldiers left at four in the afternoon the same day, having organised patrols of volunteers to mount guard at the most strategic points in the town, such as the belltower of the church, using the few weapons they had. Three days later, new rifles arrived, together with some old revolvers. José Mera remained in Vejer as head of the militia and Antonio Muñoz as head of the Falange.

‘Voluntary and novice guards continued to police Vejer, and as the tragedy faded, regular soldiers often made jokes at their expense. One day, while on watch, the regulars threw a cooking pot into the Plazuela, where the casino once was, and in a panic, the volunteers dispersed the crowd, believing it to be a bomb.

‘A little later, the same volunteers were on guard when they heard voices crying for help. The chief of the guard, believing a severe military emergency to be at hand, mobilised his men, covering the square as far as the street Nuestra Señora de las Olivas. from where the cries came. Investigating a little further, however, they discovered that all the cries came from one window, and were the lament of a woman whose brother had just died.

The Falange maintained authority with a powerful military presence

‘While the situation gave rise to some comical situations like these, some of the families of the town were overwhelmed by tragedy. Many of the former extremists had been jailed, filling the municipal prison to its limits. Some were shot in subsequent expeditions made by lorry between the outskirts of Chiclana, or along the highway to Medina. Every morning, prisoners' wives took coffee to the jail on Calle de la Fuente only to find that their menfolk had been shot and buried at dawn. They returned to their houses inconsolate and tearful, announcing to their neighbours the sad news. Many died in this way, whose only crime had been ignorance or the recklessness of youth.

‘The nationalist rebels continued their northward march, conquering territories as they went. The first Vejeriegos to be recruited to fight in the Nationalist campaign were enlisted into the ‘Lions of Benamaoma’ battalion in August 1936. On September 11th, an expedition left for Algeciras, encountering its first armed conflict at Manilva. The first Vejeriego to die in action on the Nationalist side was José Castrillón Shelly.'

The Civil War was ‘won’ by the Nationalists in 1939, though many historians believe that Franco deliberately delayed the conquest of Madrid until he had the rest of the country under control. Franco did not need the support of the people. He believed he ruled 'by the will of God'. Over the next three years, many Spanish people would lose their lives in the conflict. However, Republican resistance did not end there, and until well into the 1950s, the ‘Maquis’ guerillas put up a spirited resistance, a topic which I will explore in my next post.

Local youth was indoctrinated with Nationalist ideology. Here seen drilling on the Corredera.

The Sierras - a harsh sanctuary

‘Maquis’ is a term which describes the guerrilla fighters of the French resistance. During and after the Spanish Civil war, it was also applied to the fighters who opposed Franco’s fascist régime. Shadowy, elusive, known only by nicknames, these were the fighters who refused to accept Franquismo, and struggled on for years to defeat a totalitarian régime. Members of the Maquis practised both large and small-scale resistance, from cutting cables and blowing up bridges to armed conflict.

For many years, the guerilla campaign against Franco was a taboo subject. Anyone who showed an interest in the topic was likely to lose their job or even to be imprisoned as an enemy of the state. Open discussion of the subject only became possible after a democracy was established in 1978.

The Spanish press was forbidden to report the activities of the Maquis,
but the Communist papers were willing to defy the law.

However, the existence of the Spanish Maquis was well-known. Officially described as ‘fugitives’, or 'bandits', to the ordinary people of Spain, they were ‘the reds’ or ‘the mountain people’. They were ‘Zaragata’, ‘el Chanca', ‘el Titi', ‘el Quinto de Coín’, ‘Pandaretas’, ‘Tabardillo’, ‘el Coripeño’ and a thousand others, lovingly or angrily nicknamed.

The Guardia Civil kept a 'hit list' of wanted guerrillas.

After the Civil War ended, the Maquis entered into folklore. Bandits, maquis and those scary harvesters of human flesh, the sacamantecas, were all lumped together in story and legend until Manuel Pérez Regordan of Arcos de la Frontera decided to bring the subject into the open. He began to ask questions in his local area, persuaded sometimes reluctant witnesses to share their memories and in 1987, finally published ‘El Maquis en la Provincia de Cadiz’, a record of the members of the Cádiz Maquis and their activities.

The Province of Cadiz was one of the centres of Maquis activity.

Resistance to Franco’s Nationalist rebellion began as early as in 1936, when ‘The Army of the Reconquest’ challenged Nationalist occupation of towns in Galicia and León. In response, the Nationalists gave XIV Army Corps the responsibility for suppressing opposition. Many of the corps’ activities were focused on Andalucía, where a tradition of anarchism gave an edge to protest. Francisco Gómez ‘El Cerreño’ escaped captivity in 1936 and formed an organisation whose activities ranged across the whole of Andalucía until he was detained in 1949 and sent to France. Four guerrillas under the orders of ‘Tabarrito’ created mayhem in Granada until 1942, when they were killed in a confrontation with the Army.

The first generation of guerillas was composed mainly of fugitives from Franco’s justice. After the fall of Huelva on July 29th 1936, almost a thousand Republican soldiers remained in the area, gradually dispersing into the mountains, where they formed themselves into guerrilla groups. Gradually, the groups of outlaws became more organised, and by the nineteen forties, their efforts were directed towards overthrowing the régime.

Women guerrillas ready for combat.

The Province of Cadiz, particularly the Sierra de Cádiz, was an important centre of guerrilla activity. The first recorded guerrilla action taken in Cádiz Province occurred in January 1940, when ‘Majada de Hornillo’ and ‘Viña de Padilla’ attacked Jimena de la Frontera. An armed confrontation with the Guardia Civil took place later that year in Benaocaz.

Despite publicly minimising the Maquis’ political impact, the government privately recognised them as guerrillas fighting against the régime, and pursued them without mercy. As the Maquis proliferated, the government tried at first to suppress them by the use of military force. However, it soon became clear that such an elusive enemy could not be contained by conventional means, and the Guardia Civil, with its local knowledge and ruthless methods, was given the job of dealing with the guerillas. Much of what we know about the guerrilla resistance to Franco’s régime comes from records made by Roger Oliete Navarro, who rose to the rank of Lieutenant General of the Guardia Civil.

The Guardia Civil's work was glamorised in art and literature.

Members of the Civil Guard on duty.

The word ‘Maquis’ entered the Spanish vocabulary in 1944, when an infiltration of Spanish Republican exiles was organised in Toulouse with the ultimate ambition of overthrowing Franco’s government. The forces, led by Colonel Vicente López Tovar, first established themselves at Foix in the Pyrenees, intending to gather support among the local people, prior to launching an attack. Around 10,000 people prepared themselves to confront the régime. The attack only lasted for ten days before being defeated by the combined forces of the Army, the Guardia Civil and the Carabinieri. Three hundred were taken prisoner and the remaining survivors dispersed in the mountains, from where they would continue to fight a guerilla campaign.

Waiting for action in the Sierra.

Despite what the régime wanted people to think, resistance to Franco was not a matter of a few ‘fugitives’, but an organised movement with strong links and cohesion. Many guerrilla groups had a distinctly political orientation, reflecting the ideals which had informed Republicanism from the outset. In Ronda, the ‘Stalingrad Guerrilla Group’ was founded in 1943, not to be confused with the 25-strong ‘Antifascist Guerrilla Group’, founded in Seville in 1949.

Franco's press were not allowed to report on the Maquis' political context

The different factions of the left managed to resolve most of their differences in 1945, when the ‘National Union of Antifascist Guerrillas: Southern Section’ was formed, to be followed by the ‘Alliance of Democratic Forces’ in 1946, led by Bernabé López Calle, with a base in the Campo de Gibraltar. All these groups possessed written statutes and organisational structures. In 1945, the defeat of Fascism in Germany led many to believe that Fascism’s last hour had come. Guerilla activity halted for a while, but when nothing changed, the Maquis resumed their activities.

La Cueva de los Maquis in Castellar was a favourite mountain refuge

The town of Alcala de los Gazules was a local centre for the activities of the maquis. From its heights, Vejer and Medina Sidonia are clearly visible, as well as a large part of the Straits of Gibraltar. Other mountain villages saw concentrated guerrilla activity, including nearby Arcos de la Frontera, Medina Sidonia, Castellar, Jimena and Cortes. Several groups were organised from Jerez. The famous Arcos guerrilla leader, Miguel García Parra, was featured in a Carnival ‘comparsa’ in 1948:

‘The twenty second of September,

We will always remember

The pistoleros came

For Miguelito García.

They took him from his house

To steal his money

And his mates’ money too

To give to the priest.

Don Miguel said

‘If you want me to come

Ride with me to the farm

And seizing the moment,

Courageous and valiant

He ran from those thieves,

Those murdering villains.

The coastal towns did not see as much guerrilla actions as those in the mountains, for obvious reasons, and what activity occurred was often recorded as simple crime, without any political context. However, there can be no doubt that Vejer was involved with resistance groups. In May 1941, one guerrilla, José Ramos Olivete ‘The Pirate of Vejer’, was caught with two other rebels while robbing a flour factory in Alcalá in1941, and subsequently executed at Jerez. Flour was in constant demand among the guerillas, and fighters would go to any lengths to obtain it. On18th May 1949, a Vejer shopkeeper, Demófilo Vitorique Merino, received an anonymous demand under threat, to deliver certain objects to the Maquis. He reported the matter to the civil guard who arrested Valentín López López, Francisco Aguayo Navarro and Luis Cardoso García.

As I said at the beginning of this article, it was customary for the régime to minimise the activities of the Maquis, and to pass off their activities as simple crime. It was easy to do this, because most guerrillas engaged without scruple in robbery and even kidnapping to achieve their ends. One amusing story recounts how a child was kidnapped by a leader of the Maquis. The only response came from a local shop, which complained bitterly that its supplies of chocolate had been depleted. After he had been ransomed, despite repeated questioning, the boy refused to betray his abductors, who he said had treated him ‘very kindly’.

A woman mourns a guerrilla shot by the Guardia Civil

The operations of the Maquis would have been impossible without the support of the ‘enlaces’, (links) the women and men who lived as normal citizens in the towns and villages and provided the guerrilla fighters with supplies and information. If caught, they were punished as severely as if they had taken part in the fighting, and although we cannot quantify their part in the struggle against Franco, for every guerrilla fighter, there were several more working secretly within the community. Many were women, the wives or sisters of the guerillas, but many men were also involved. About 20,000 people were executed for helping the Maquis, and so many people were placed in concentration camps and gaols that Franco’s Spain has been described as ‘one immense prison’.

Some of the most unexpected people acted as enlaces for the fighters.

Despite their best efforts and an enormous amount of sacrifice, the Maquis never managed to defeat Franco. The forces ranged against them were well-armed and numerous, and they had no compunction about using torture and intimidation to weaken support in local communities. The Guardia Civil laid many towns to waste in order to root out ‘traitors’.By the mid 1950s, the American presence in Spain had kick-started the failing economy and a new generation had grown up which had never known life before Franco. The régime produced stability, albeit at the expense of freedom, and repression became the new normal. Many older people today look back with nostalgia on a time when ‘moral’ standards were enforced and conservative values upheld.

Thousand of Maquis were killed during the period of resistance, and many others imprisoned. The lucky ones were able to escape, and many returned to Spain when the fuss had all died down. The real number of deaths will never be known. Too many were summarily executed and buried without honours. The deaths are recorded only in local legend.

A plaque commemorates guerrillas shot at the roadside and buried in an unmarked grave

As well as fighting in the Spain, the Spanish Maquis made a contribution to the efforts of the French Resistance during the second world war. Martha Gellhorn wrote in The Undefeated (1945):

"During the German occupation of France, the Spanish Maquis engineered more than four hundred railway sabotages, destroyed fifty-eight locomotives, dynamited thirty-five railway bridges, cut one hundred and fifty telephone lines, attacked twenty factories, destroying some factories totally, and sabotaged fifteen coal mines. They took several thousand German prisoners and - most miraculous considering their arms - they captured three tanks. In the south-west part of France where no Allied armies have ever fought, they liberated more than seventeen towns."

Two ex-Maquis reminisce, 1980s

Ángel Tinoco at his shop on Juan Bueno

I thought my recent publications about the Civil War were a bit short on local detail, so I decided to pay a call to local historian Ángel Tinoco in his shop on Juan Bueno. Could he tell me anything about local events during the period in question, around 1936 to 1955?

Ángel loves to talk about Vejer and its history and folklore, but on this topic, his lips are sealed.

‘It’s a taboo subject’, he said, adding that as the years went by, there were fewer and fewer people left who would object to having their, or their families’ stories told, and that once the floodgates were opened, there would be much to talk about.

Meanwhile, stories of the past are not the only, or even the main reason for visiting Ángel’s shop. A radio repair man by trade, he has a remarkable collection of old radios and other early machines and devices, neatly arranged in a small museum, one of Vejer’s less visible attractions but surely unique.

A unique collection of radios from all over the world

Ángel is always pleased to show you around and answer questions, and even to sell you a fan, decorated plate or chandelier for your ceiling, as well as many other electrical objects. His shop is one of a dying breed, rooted in the days when few people travelled far and you could buy everything you wanted within a few streets of where you lived.

His story begins in the 1920s, when his father, a cobbler, found that new, mechanised methods of shoe-making were taking over, reducing his clientéle and devastating his income.

‘It was a time of extreme poverty,’ Ángel explained, ‘and people were struggling just to find something to eat. Factory-made shoes were more affordable, and many people had to go without shoes altogether.’

Ángel senior, however, was a resourceful man, and he had heard that electricity was the coming thing. He got hold of a book called ‘Electricity and its Uses’, and discovered that although mains electricity was not available in Vejer, many household items could be connected to large batteries, creating a huge saving for the householder in terms of energy and effort. The new activity helped to offset the losses he was making in the shoe trade, and the family were a little more comfortable as a result.

Electrical repars are still done in the shop

Both Ángel and his brother were intrigued by this new technology and they subsequently trained as plumbers and electricians. The big breakthrough came in 1959, when mains electricity was installed in Vejer. Over the next decade, many young people left Spain to work overseas. The money they sent home made it possible for their families to invest in appliances like refrigerators, washing machines and televisions.

Ángel, meanwhile, devoted his energies to repairing these acquisitions, specialising in radios and TVs. Some, however, he could no nothing with. These were the appliances made overseas, At the time, Spain used a 110 volt current, while the rest of the world was on 120, and since conversion was not yet possible, a collection of surplus radios began to build up in his workshop, along with the occasional gramophone and sewing machine. It seemed a shame throw them away and as time went by, many of them became genuine curiosities, with an impressive international range. The nucleus of the museum began here.

A mini juke box from China

Meanwhile, the original cobbler’s shop was past its best. Over the years, it was rebuilt and extended, creating more living space upstairs, as well as a substantial workshop. Ángel Tinoco’s shop became the place to go for small electrical goods and repairs, and as the defunct radios threatened take over, he created his museum, unique in Vejer, and maybe unmatched anywhere.

Though the Internet and the large electrical mega-stores now predominate, and faulty items are rarely repaired, Ángel’s shop is still trusted by older people and those in a hurry. His stock has diversified into a range of souvenirs and objects of interest, and above all, if you want information about the history of Vejer, Ángel is the man to ask.

Historical telephones

Although Ángel had little specific he was willing to divulge about the Civil War era, he did tell me one amusing tale from his childhood. In 1946, when Ángel was 7 years old, a demonstration, as he ironically termed it, occurred in Vejer. It was a time of acute poverty, and many people were hungry. The only things that were not rationed, it was said, were ‘fish smoke and ginger’.

Spanish hospitality was strained to its limits in this era, and children were warned that if they visited another house, though they might be offered food, they should always refuse it. Saying ‘yes’ might result in somebody’s going without their supper.

Most in demand were coffee, bread, sugar and, most of all, oil. Jokes went around in whispers, comparing Franco’s Spain to a leaky old car spouting oil from every orifice, and making it clear that olive oil was the only exportable product Spain possessed. Not only that, but the proceeds were dedicated to providing luxury products for the ruling classes. Nobody cared about a little town like Vejer.

Fidel Castro keeps company with Cary Grant

At the time, Spain’s trade was blockaded by most of the world’s nations, in protest against Franco’s dictatorship. However, the blockade had little effect on the régime and though there were protests against the blockade, the people did not openly challenge Franco’s power.

In those days, children liked to play out in the street when they could, but though they caused no damage, if they were spotted, the authorities made a point of chasing them home. One day, Ángel and four of his mates were playing on the steps at the bottom of Calle Nuestra Señora de las Olivas, where we now find the Café Central, when the Mayor, the Chief of the Falange and the Chief of Police came by.

Many and diverse items in Ángel Tinoco's shop

‘Children, don’t run away,’ they said, ‘come with us and repeat in a loud voice what we tell you.’

The children were puzzled, but felt important to be able to help the authorities. They set up the chant as requested: ‘Franco yes, communism no!’, repeating it until it became almost like a song. The streets filled up, men, women and children, old and young, all shouting these words, not for political reasons but because it had been wrongly rumoured that anyone who joined in would get a supply of much-needed oil.

The demonstration moved up the street to today’s Begines bar, in front of the church. The doors were closed, but Ángel was fairly sure he would find his uncle Antonio inside. And indeed, when he opened the door of the bar, it was full to the rafters with men, all chanting, not the anti-communist message the children had been told to spread, but the distinctly heretical ‘Franco yes! Oil, no!’

Ángel Tinoco has a website, Historias de Vejer:

http://perso.orange.es/apc001/indice.htm

You can find his shop and museum on Calle Juan Bueno 26.

The flat green fields we can see from the Corredera.

Like most people, I've often stood on the Corredera in Vejer and looked out over the fields below without really knowing what I was looking at, so I was delighted when Miguel Ángel Romero invited me and Enfoque Casa photographer Marcel Snyders (http://www.enfoquecasa.es) to take a look at Finca Las Lomas, the farm those flat, green fields belong to.
The Las Lomas site, originally part of the Medina Sidonia empire, was purchased in 1900 by José Mora Figueroa y Daza, the seventh Marquis of Tamarón, who named it ‘La Finca de La Janda.’ In 1910, it passed to his eleven sons.

Drained wetlands, and now fertile growing areas.

In 1941, José Ramón Mora Figueroa de Allimes, the father of the current owner, bought the Las Lomas holdings from his uncle and expanded the estate by adding other purchases. José was a man with a project. Since childhood, he had dreamed of draining the La Janda wetlands and converting the land into productive farmland.
His dream wasn't achieved easily, but by 1967, the area was finally drained using Dutch technology, and developed as high-quality farmland, part of a business empire which has made its owners one of the wealthiest families in Andalucía. Las Lomas, stretching between Vejer and Benalup, is now among the great latifundias of Andalucía and one of the most extensive farming organisations in Spain, a modern and highly mechanised set-up, which boasts, among other things, the largest leek-processing shed in Europe. Its cattle bloodlines are said to be the finest in Spain.
Las Lomas was one of the sites enjoyed by General Franco, who visited every year to hunt and enjoy the prospect of a peaceful countryside. Witnesses remember him travelling slowly from Madrid with his escort, rather like a Royal Progress, and have commented on the insensitivity of his people, who, in those times of hunger, shot hundreds of animals in a single day, and joked that they were 'tired of eating'. Many local people enjoyed having their photo taken with the Caudillo.

General Franco enjoys a quiet sojourn on the hill that was made for him,
'La Cuesta de Franco'.

While the Generalisimo usually stayed overnight in Barbate - 'Barbate of Franco' - his retinue was quartered in Vejer, earning the town the name 'Vejer of the Escort'. Las Lomas fitted so neatly into Franco's vision of a peaceful countryside, peopled with obedient and productive workers, that an artificial hill, 'La Cuesta de Franco', was built there from which he could survey this pleasant scene. Las Lomas people were well-looked after in comparison with the impoverished campesinos in other areas, a rare example of the benevolent aspects of feudalism, and though Franquismo is now a distant memory, Las Lomas has always tried to look after its people.
In tandem with the reclamation of the land came modernisation and mechanisation, and this intensified at the turn of the century as local workers moved away to live in other areas. The processing plant we visited was opened in 1988.

A pheasant takes its time crossing the road.

We were warned that as we approached the finca, we should drive carefully. One of the five companies which make up the complex still organises game shooting parties for the sporting-minded. The game birds, pheasants and partridges, are plump, lazy and complacent. They don't feel the need to get out of the way when a car approaches. Rather the reverse, as a van makes daily trips around the estate to replenish their corn dishes, filling their small brains with pleasant associations.

Las Lomas doesn't use wooden packaging, but outside organisations sometimes prefer it.

Other companies within the Las Lomas complex deal with cattle, cotton and cereal production, but we were there to see the horticultural section. The company produces a range of vegetables for export to Northern Europe, ninety percent of which end up in British supermarkets like Waitrose, Tesco, Sainsbury's and Asda. These supermarkets set high standards, and about about one third of the produce is discarded and sold on to food manufacturers for juice or other products.

Miguel Ángel Romero with some of Las Lomas' organic produce.

As we looked around, we marvelled at the pearly-white, perfect cauliflowers, all uniformly sized, which stood waiting for despatch to Tesco. The vegetables are packaged in the factory, so I had the rather surreal experience of seeing the grapefruit which would shortly be on sale in my local UK supermarket getting bagged and labelled in English.

Immaculate cauliflowers for export to the UK

Miguel Ángel provided us with white coats and cheery orange caps for our visit to the factory sheds and explained to Marcel that photography was not allowed inside the processing areas. First, we saw the cold rooms, cavernous spaces wreathed in murky vapours, which are designed to maintain produce at optimum temperature and humidity. Produce normally stays in storage for one or two days before being shipped out on one of the twelve or fifteen lorries which leave the complex every day, seven days a week.

Boxes waiting to be filled with grapefruit for export.

We visited two processing sheds, where twenty or so women were skilfully separating the grapefruit which whizzed onto the belt from the chutes above. The women specialise in one particular type of produce, so their work is seasonal, though their line managers are permanent employees. Music is often played through overhead speakers, as this has been found to improve production. The space is large, high and light, a comfortable place to work, though the work itself is repetitive. Fork-lift trucks dashing in every direction lent a touch of drama to the proceedings.

Las Lomas produces a range of vegetables including some, like parsnips and kale, which are hard to find in Spain. There's a beautifully juicy red grapefruit and spring greens, rarely seen in the shops here. Leeks are Las Lomas' biggest seller, though they aren't in season yet. Last year, Las Lomas sold 1.4 million leeks, and orders for this year are already up to 1.9 million. A chart on the wall reveals which of the women were the champion leek processers last season.

A well-organised space.

One third of Las Lomas' output is now organic and the company recently gained an international award for environmentally responsible production. There's an all-round commitment to conservation. Rabbits are trapped and sent to feed endangered eagles, and the organisation supports several other wildlife projects. As the complex is on a bird migration route, there are no wind turbines.

The first tractor was introduced into the complex from the UK in the 1950s.

After we'd had a look at the processing sheds, Miguel Ángel and his colleague Rafael drove us around some of the fields to look at the irrigation systems, which I'd often admired from the road. Man-made channels, fed by the River Barbate, are connected to long watering rigs which creep slowly across the fields, sprinkling as they go. Because the land is on the site of former wetlands, the water table here is high, and Las Lomas has a water supply which would last for seven years, even if no rain fell, an unlikely scenario on these Atlantic shores.

The watering machine creeps slowly across the fields, providing a carefully
metered supply according to temperature.

As we drove, small clusters of spanish sparrows flew out of the growing wheat. These birds can be elusive, so it was good to see them here in healthy numbers, as well as the large raptors hunting through the skies. I was impressed by the height of the wheat, which was twice as high as it is in the UK in early March.

Spanish sparrows in a field of wheat.

In the past, Las Lomas was a thriving small community, and about 150 people still live there. There's a large manor house which accomodates the present owner, José Mora Figueroa, a descendant of the Tamarón family and also a member of the Domecq family from Jerez. A secondary school for country children was opened in 1970 and has strong links with the company, which manages an organic garden for the school and offers support to its students. And the Prince of Wales comes regularly to play polo on the competition ground. There's a lot more to that stretch of flat land than meets the eye.

For information about the birds of La Janda:

https://theresagreen2.wordpress.com/habitats/open-countrysidefarmland/la-janda/la-janda-bird-
calendar/

Thanks to Marcel Snyders for the photos.

The Easter processions, with their candles, hooded habits and swaying floats are part of the iconography of Spain, and anyone who visits will want to see them at least once. Vejer holds five processions as part of the programme of Easter celebrations which also include several special masses and the Toro Embolao event on Easter Sunday. However, not all towns are the same, and in neighbouring Barbate, there will be eight processions, each with its own special character and tradition.

The large floats are carried by between twenty and thirty-five people directly underneath, who are concealed under drapes. When a whistle blows, they take a break, and you will see shadowy figures checking their phones or even having a crafty cigarette.

The processions, each of which has its own special name, commemorate different episodes in the Easter story. Each one is arranged by a different hermandad (religious brotherhood) or cofradía (a trade or professional association which now has a mainly religious function.) The different robes and hoods seen at processions belong to the different brotherhoods conducting the processions, though others are also represented. Most processions are accompanied by the town band, and like everyone else, Spain celebrates Easter with flowers, an important symbol of spring and rebirth.

Processions usually feature a large float carrying a three-dimensional representation of Jesus, and usually one with the Virgin Mary as well. Some of these statues are old and valuable, and each Virgin appears in a different embodiment, according to which hermandad is conducting the parade.

The Virgin of the Olives plays an important part.
Photo by M&J Night photography.

The most important day for parades is Thursday, marking the Crucifixion, though unlike Barbate, Vejer does not hold a separate midnight parade. Instead, the ten o’clock parade continues until around 2.30 a.m.

Here’s some information about the different processions, with thanks to Miguel Ángel Romero:

Palm Sunday (Domingo de Ramos)

La Burrita (the Little Donkey) This procession, which in Vejer is celebrated by masses in all the churches of the area, commemorates Jesus’ arrival in Jerusalem at the beginning of Holy Week.

The procession is conducted by the Cofradía de Penitencia del Santísimo Cristo del Amor, María Santísima de la Paz y Nuestro Padre Jesús en su Entrada Triunfal en Jerusalén. The Barbate procession begins at 5 p.m. and includes many children. No hood is worn in this procession, and the participants wear brown and white robes.

Barbarte's 'La Burrita' parade, from 2011

Monday.

Ecce Homo. This is the man). This procession commemorates Jesus’ trial by Pontius Pilate. In Barbate, the procession takes place at 8 p.m. and the celebrants wear the official robes of the Cofradía: a light beige tunic, red cape, shoes and belt. In Vejer, the procession begins at 8.30 and takes the following route:

Plaza del Padre Angel, Ramón y Cajal, Judería, Juan Bueno, Trafalgar, San Juan, Misericordia, Poca Sangre, Palomina, La Fuente, Plaza de España, Canalejas, Reyes Católicos, Quintanilla, Rosario, Plaza del Padre Angel y Parroquia.

Vejer's Thursday procession.
Photo by M&J Night photography.

Tuesday.

El Huerto. (The Orchard). The procession, which does not take place in Vejer, commemorates Jesus’ last night in the Garden of Gethsamane. It is organised by the Venerable Cofradía de Penitencia de Nuestro Padre Jesús de la Sagrada Oración en el Huerto y María Santísima de Gracia y Esperanza. The habit consists of a bone-coloured tunic, cape, hood and belt in olive green.

The procession leaves the parish church of Barbate at 8.30 p.m.

Wednesday.

Medinaceli. This procession commemorates Christ’s suffering while in prison. It is conducted by the Hermandad de Ntra. Sra. de la Oliva Coronada, featuring an 18th century statue of Jesus in the Genovese style. It takes place in the new part of Vejer, beginning at 10 pm.

Iglesia de San Miguel, Avda San Miguel, Plaza de la Constitución, Juan XXIII, Mariscal Miranda, Alonso Clavijo, Avda. Buenavista, Diputación y su Templo.

Most processions are accompanied by the town band.
Photo by M&J Night photography.

Thursday

Ardero - The Nazarite

The procession, which commemorates the Way of the Cross, is conducted by the Venerable Hermandad de Ntro. Padre Jesús Nazareno, Maria Santísima de los Dolores y San Juan Evangelista, and features a statue of Jesus from the early eighteenth century. The robes of the hermandad consist of a purple tunic, gold belt and white cape.

The procession leaves the parish church at 10 o’clock and returns at 2.15 a.m. A similar procession takes place at 8.30 in Barbate.

Ntra. Sra. de la Oliva, Plazuela, Teniente Castrillón, Plaza Juan Bueno, Altozano, Sagasta, Santísimo, Esquina de la Pita, Juan Relinque, Plazuela, Ntra. Sra. de la Oliva y a su Templo.

Some finishing touches, Vejer. Photo by M&J Night photography.

Good Friday

Amor (love). (Barbate only)

This moving and deeply impressive parade commemorates the Crucifixion. It is conducted in total silence with no children present. The penitents are robed in black. The procession is conducted by Cofradía de Penitencia del Santísimo Cristo del Amor y María Santísima de la Paz and leaves the parish church at 2 a.m.

The silent procession of 'El Amor' (Barbate) takes place in
the depths of the night.

Soledad (Loneliness). This procession commemorates the death and burial of Christ. It is conducted by the Hermandad y Cofradía de Nazarenos del Santisimo Cristo de la Caridad en su Santo Entierro y María Santísima de la Soledad and begins at 8.30. The robes consist of a black robe, white satin hood and a belt with five knots which symbolize Jesus Christ’s five wounds.

Ntra. Sra. de la Oliva, Plaza del Padre Ángel, José Castrillón, Plaza de España, Plaza del Padre Caro, Corredera, Plazuela, Ntra. Sra. de la Oliva y a su Templo.

Christ crucified, Vejer

Easter Sunday

Resurrection. (Barbate only). This joyful procession is replaced in Vejer by the Toro Embolao event, following an ancient custom. In Barbate, it usually begins at 12 p.m., and represents all the cofradías and hermandades.

Christ reborn (Barbate) - a joyful procession.

For Easter, I'd like to share this poem which I wrote in 2012. Like many of my poems, it considers the relationship between art and sacrifice.

Martyrdom of an Unknown Saint; parish church of El Divino Salvador, Vejer .

Easter 2012

The chapel is bright with glowing silver and sentiment;

The big floats rest, the friendless Christ,

With his broken face, gorgeous in violet.

And painted on the wall a different scene of passion,

‘Pero en mal estad, en muy mal estad’,

Blemished by cracks and clumsy restoration,

An unknown saint, maybe San Sebastian.

The sky darkens as the Roman heavies

Advance on the naked man. He lifts his arms

As though he might at any moment spin

Into a triumphant escobilla, urged on by

Palmas and jaleos and cries of ¡alé!

From an unseen crowd; halfway to heaven,

Already almost a saint.

History tells us it was otherwise.

And surely his stance is impossible? A small angel

Hovers above, ready to receive his soul,

He surges forward; birds and arrows split the sky;

His eyes turn upwards: is it aire

Or duende, or mere agony

Which fires his limbs to ecstasy?

We do not know, and now we never will,

What we are seeing; triumph or victory?

Falling or rising? Dancing?

Or dying?

Pedro packs my bargains - 4 cotton shirts for 4 euros.

Underwear unlimited

A Spanish classic.

Fun fabrics

Jeans like a catch of fish

Winter warmers

A treeful of teashirts.

I love the kind of arts and antiques markets you find in most cities, but I don't wear short skirts, 'strappy tops', polyester or sparkle. I've never considered buying clothes in a street market. I usually get my clothes from charity shops, Ebay or big department stores. But with summer coming on, I needed a cotton shirt with short sleeves, something I could wear over a sleeveless dress or top. I decided it was time to confront my prejudices and check Vejer's weekly 'mercadillo' in the new part of town. Like most street markets, this one specialises in cut-price apparel.

Most of the stalls sell clothes of one kind or another.

Many varieties of olives are
available in the mercadillo.

The market can be found behind 'Los Molinos' school, near the Post Office. At 10 a.m., it was still quiet, with a handful of women looking around. The first stalls sell food, and this is obviously the place to buy olives, with rows of different varieties lined up in buckets. Sweets, nuts and pulses are also on sale though at 2 euros a kilo, chick peas would be cheaper in the supermarket.

Clothes on sale are a very mixed selection, with (as expected) a lot of polyester dresses and tops. It's surprising that artificial fabrics are so popular in hot countries, but this is probably because they are perceived as more economical. In northern European countries like Britain and Germany, natural fibres are in demand, and tend to be less expensive than they are in Spain, though cotton production in particular can be harmful to the environment.

Beans, chickpeas and garlic.

Nevertheless, on a hot summer's day in Vejer, a polyester dress must be both clingy and sweaty. My friend Marcel once remarked that if Andalucían women wore cotton in summer there would be fewer cries of '¡que calor! in the streets as the temperature rose.

The delicate subject of underwear, as viewed from the perspective of the street market, is not delicate at all. I still remember Mexican street vendors around some of the nation's most respected monuments yelling 'pantalettas, pantalettas!'(knickers, knickers!) all day long.

Street market underwear is not presented as delicate, girly or sexy, but is offered in king-sized packs, for all sizes, shapes and genders. Not much is cotton, though microfibre is easy to find. Some of the underwear on offer is formidable and would certainly increase the 'que calor' effect.

Proudly presented underwear.

I didn't expect to find my cotton shirt, but then I came upon Pedro's stall, specialising on shirts and tops for women and men, all at 1 euro each. Reading between the lines, these are second-hand garments selected from the many which are sold or donated for sale in the developing world, but they were in good condition and I didn't ask. A determined search turned up not one but four cotton shirts with sleeves, one by the designer Gerry Weber.

Four cotton/linen shirts for four euros.

Other stalls sold jeans, t-shirts and shoes. Curtain fabric was a bargain for 4 euros and 2 euros a metre and there were plenty of colourful cooking pots, bed covers and blankets.

One of the bonuses of visiting the market was the variety of calls, cries and chants used to attract shoppers' attention. And although, like anybody else, I didn't find everything in the market to my taste, I was pleasantly surprised by the range and quality of the goods on offer.

T-shirts full of light

A popular jumble-type stall, but not as cheap as you think.

One of the many clothes stalls.

Espadrilles at 12 euros

This formidable underwear would surely be hot to wear in the summer months.

Vejer's street market takes place on Callejón Benitos del Lomo every Thursday morning. There is a small car park on Calle Ventozano, but note the one-way system.

Gaspar Sobrino and Kath Hockey - beautifying Vejer.

Vejer Weekend Fashion

Art in Vejer - Sol Muniain

Casa Palacio - Vejer's own Castle.

Manuel Torres - Father of the Poor.

Arte Vejer: a new home for artists.

The Living Nativity: a beautiful way to begin Christmas.

La Cobijada - a beautiful impostor.

La Barca - Vejer's water world.

The Names of Spain

Juan Relinque, hero of the hazas.

Vejer de la Frontera and the Barbary Corsairs.

The church, the muzak and the tourist dollar...

Vejer and the start of the Spanish Civil War

The Civil War - the Maquis, resistors of tyranny.

Ángel Tinoco - Franco yes! Oil, no!

Out in the campo - Finca Las Lomas Agricultural Complex

The Processions of Semana Santa

A Vejer poem for Easter

Vejer's Mercadillo: the New Town Market