We've just got back from Almería which you can find in the bottom right hand corner of Spain, if you have a spare minute.
Indalo. The symbol of Almería
They say, 'See Naples and die'. Well, my advice is: 'See Almería from the autovía, stay clear and head home for a square meal.' Everything shuts down at 4.00pm. We had to settle for a cup of coffee and a piece of cake.
Mind you, it's worth going to see the statue of John Lennon in the Plaza de las Flores. He stayed near Almería in 1966 when they were making the film (movie) ´How I Won the War'.
John Lennon
If you read the last edition of this venereal organ you may remember that tens of thousands of Malagueños fled from Málaga to Almería in 1937. They were being hunted down and killed by German fighter planes on the orders of General Francisco Franco. In such circumstances Almería would be well worth a visit
It's not often that Mrs. Sánchez and I leave the comfort of Álora to explore uncharted territory, but our expeditionary fervour to boldly go beyond Granada and life as we know it was tickled by a chance to visit some old friends who now have a place near Las Arboleas in Almería province. Brian and Cynthia are Brummies (people from Birmingham) and we were mates for most of the seventies. We were comrades then and we still are.
Nobody was talking about Climate Change in the seventies.
They were days of workers' struggles, revolution was in the air and 'Red Robbo' struck fear into the hearts of the capitalist class at British Leyland's car factory at Longbridge, Birmingham.
Derek 'Red Robbo' Robinson
It was also the time of the The Corporate Plan , A bold set of ideas that was put together by workers at Lucas Aerospace, a branch of Birmingham based Lucas Industries plc.
Faced with massive redundancies following Defence cuts, Lucas Aerospace trade union members across the country combined together to devise a set of ´socially useful' products which could save their jobs and at the same time move the company away from producing systems for the arms industry. A trade union 'combine committee' brought together both 'staff' and 'worker' unions. They all put their heads together and came up with plans for 150 'socially useful products that could be made at the company factories across Britain with existing skills, technology and equipment. These included wind turbines,
kidney machines, hybrid engines, road/rail vehicles and environmentally favourable heating systems for 'council houses' (remember them?)
Brian was the chairman (this was before 'chairpersons') of the Combine Committee and co- led negotiations with the management at Lucas Aerospace, but the 'bosses' dismissed their ideas out of hand.
They had no time for ideas coming up from 'the shop floor' nor what they considered to be 'hippie', low tech. pipe dreams and thought the company could survive by turning out more and more killing machines.
The Plan was 40 years ahead of its time.
Brian, earlier this year with campaigning rapper 'Lowkey'
Many of the Plan's suggestions are now in full production as a response to declining fossil fuel supplies, pollution of the seas and atmosphere and global warming.
Production for social need rather than for profit alone is now back on national and world agendas. A new film The Plan about the Lucas Aerospace Corporate Plan was submitted to the National Film Institute this year. It's hard hitting and bang up to date.
Brian told me that I should put more politics into this blog, so I hope he'll stop telling me off now - but it´s not really about politics is it? It's about the survival of the human race.
Speaking of global warming and survival,it's flipping hot here in Álora but it's been raining cats and dogs in England for weeks, apparently. I can't wait to get back. We don't usually stay this late.
It´s Corpus Christi day tomorrow, when the priest leads a parade around town with a piece of the hostia (host) in a monstrance. The 'host' is a piece of bread which has been changed into a piece of the body of Jesus Christ.
Corpus Christi. Álora
It's never on the same day two years running. They love parades here and it's a long time since Easter, which they also move about a lot, so they (the Pope) introduced this event in the 13th. century to remind everybody that they should go to church.
In happier times they used to drag any backsliders, heretics and protestants out of their houses and give them a good seeing-to to jog their memories, but this doesn't happen round here any more. They´d need a whole month just to get through a few streets - all the Brits would be in for a biffing for a start.
Our neighbour, Lina, is putting un altar (an altar) up outside her door at the moment and she wants us to give her some leaves off our grapevine to decorate it. ('Sí señora'). It pays to keep in with them. ¡Nunca se sabe! (You never know!)
Oddly enough 'hostia' also means 'a slap in the face' and 'Bloody hell!' (I'd be careful with that one.)
For some reason they've chosen the same day for Corpus Christi and the 'Vispera de San Juan' (the night before the saint´s day of St. John) this year, which could cause problems because it's traditional to chuck buckets of water on people from the balconies of tall buildings on this day. We found out about this the hard way many years ago.
Down on the coast they jump over bonfires on the beach and eat sardines, which sounds a lot more fun.
You can't say they don't know know how to have a good time round here, can you?
We've got a new alcalde (mayor) now in Álora. That´s him in the top left hand corner. His name is Francisco Martinez.(Humillo to his mates) I can't wait to meet him and I'm hoping to form the the same close friendship with him as I enjoyed with our previous leader José Sánchez (Epi to his mates).
I'd like to talk to him about La Plaza Baja de la Despedía (La Plaza Baja to its mates). It's the historic old centre of Álora at the bottom of our street. It's home to the biggest parroquía (parish church) in Andalucía, you have to go through it to get to our historic castillo arabe (arabic castle) and el museo municipal Rafeal Leria (the town museum) is there. The famous author of Don Quijote, Miguel de Cervantes lived there for a time, where the now 'Mirador Cervantes' provides stunning views of Álora's olivares (olive fields).
There used to be three bars, three shops and a kiosco in this picturesque cobbled square and four big leafy trees which provided shade for people to sit under and roosting room for the hundreds of noisy little birds that flocked there at dusk.
The last remaining bar, Bar Mocho run by a great lad called Manolo, will close soon because he is being forced to sell it by his family. (Families eh? Who'd have 'em?)
The leafy trees were pulled out some years ago and replaced by four sickly palm trees which provide no useful shade so that the vecinos (local people) have to huddle in doorways during the day or stay indoors.
When Bar Mocho closes the Plaza Baja will be 'dead'.
I want our new alcalde to breathe some life into our 'bottom square'. Twenty odd years ago it had a bad reputation for which the 'gitano' commmunity, as usual, took the blame. The 'comfortable classes' of Álora look down their noses at La Plaza Baja and tell their children not to go there, except for the annual 'Despedia' ceremony on Viernes Santa (Good Friday), bodas (weddings), bautismos (baptisms), primeras comuniones (first communions) and the odd funeral now that the town cemetery has been moved from the castle to a new leafy glade opposite our back wall.
The weekly market used to be held there, which kept the bars busy but they moved it up to the town car park. There used to be thriving vecinos club on Calle Ancha too, which organised a three day annual verbena (party) in the square.
I shall be making an appointment to see our new alcalde when we get back in September - he should have settled in by then. Meanwhile, Mrs. S. and I would be very grateful if readers of this humble journal could write in, in your thousands, to Señor Martinez (c/o El Ayuntamiento, Álora) demanding a re-vitalisation programme for the community of La Plaza Baja.
(How´s that for politics, Brian?)
For anyone who is missing 'Pie News' or the `quiz', I apologise.
I also seem to have again missed an opportunity to meet my entire readership from The Turks and Caicos Islands who visited 'Alora en masse last week. Sorry folks....¡otra vez sera!
Juanito Sánchez 22nd. June 2019
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