Granada '36

 Granada '36
(click for link to soundcloud)
An audio piece about a young English woman caught up in the Spanish Civil War, 
who was well remembered in Granada for her striking good looks and her habit of wearing a swastika on her blue Falangist shirt.

the rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain…

where was I?...

my memory’s so bad these days…

the rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain…

I was pretty once, so young and so very pretty…men would swarm around me, and the Captain fell in love with me, and I was young, so young and so very pretty…

I’d dress like them in uniform, a blue blouse, a red beret, and I was so young, so young and so very pretty, and the Captain fell in love with me

and they called me La Fanny.

Where was I?...ah, yes…

the rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain…

There were lots of English families living in Spain at the time, and daddy had a villa near the Alhambra and I did a lot of riding, and we spent more time over there than we did over here, and I was so young and so very pretty, and the men would swarm around me, and I’d dress like them in uniform, and daddy didn’t like the reds, he was a supporter of Mr. Mosley and an admirer of Mr. Hitler, and I wore an armband with a swastika, and daddy said all countries needed a strong man in charge, and the reds had taken over and were ruining everything…

and all these trucks carrying communists and socialists and anarchists would drive out of the city before sunrise, and come back empty later on, and I was so young, so young and so very pretty, and the men would swarm around me, and I’d dress like them in uniform, a blue blouse, a red beret, and the Captain fell in love with me,

and they called me La Fanny.

And I was stationed in Visnar, and I helped to guard the prisoners, and they even let me dispatch one or two, and I was so young, so young and so very pretty, and I remember when they brought the poet in, he was handcuffed to a teacher who only had one leg, and I was young and pretty then, but it was all wasted on him – he preferred the company of gentlemen instead, and nobody really liked him, and they didn’t like his poetry, so they took him up the road and he was never seen again…

the rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain…

after the generals took control, things started to settle down…daddy didn’t like the reds, he was a supporter of Mr. Mosley and an admirer of Mr. Hitler, and I used to wear a swastika on my arm, and he said all countries need a strong man in charge, and the reds had taken over and had ruined everything…

but then came the second world war, and I returned to England, joined an ambulance corps, and I was so young, so young and so very pretty,

and all the men fell in love with me

and they called me La Fanny.

*

The Andalusian dog-days of August mark the anniversary of the murder of the Spanish poet Federico Garcia Lorca. He was killed along with three others - a one-legged schoolteacher and two anarchist bullfighters - in the early days of the Civil War, and their bodies dumped in an unmarked (and as yet unfound) grave just outside Visnar, a small town on the outskirts of Granada. He was shot mainly because he was seen as an uppity homosexual, and a champion of gypsy and working-class culture. A lot of the bourgeoisie didn't like his poetry either, which was probably another reason why he was shot. I don't think the city of Granada has really come to terms with his death; the poet has almost become deified in certain quarters, and this sits uneasily with the more straight-backed attitudes to be found away from the vicinity of the Alhambra. After all, how can you justify killing your most famous writer? The man who shot him, Juan Luis Trescastro, bragged about it afterwards: "We left him in a ditch," he said, "and I fired two shots into his arse for being a queer".