A Spanish Girl and Her English Soldier – A Love Beyond Boundaries

Adios Benidorm, Guten Tag Zurich

As the end of August approached so the time was coming for me to depart. Our time in Benidorm together had been lovely. Yes the odd explosion but that could hardly be unexpected: Spanish girl, English man, Taurus girl, Aries man. Passion and emotion would always be a part of our relationship.  There was very little risk of long simmering resentment. Today I am looking at one of a lovely pair of Meissen vases given to us as a wedding present – its partner perished many years ago against a wall having been hurled at high velocity towards my fast ducking head.  And once the dust from the explosion had settled, the making up was usually even more powerful.  But before the making up, I remember how the song “Cant’t live if living is without you” by Nilsson would soothe me through the hurtful nights doubtless helping me feel very sorry for myself.  The love we had for each other was almost always the cause of the explosion and invariably the cure for any temporary damage.

And so I drove back to Leeds somewhat oblivious to the dark clouds gathering over my head. I was preparing for the next stage in our adventure.  Mike was to marry Heidi in Zurich, her home town and had asked me to be best man and Ana was invited too.  Ana would by then have returned to Madrid so I needed to sort out the travel.  This was solved at one stroke by Bill and Pauline, two friends of Mike’s. Bill worked for Avis in Leeds and we were to have the use of a VW minibus (the one just like all the hippy motor caravans of that era). The plan was to drive from Leeds to Madrid, collect Ana and then head through France and up to Switzerland.  It is in writing this story that I have come to realise that my love for Ana gathered the most amazing number of road miles.  In any case, we set off and, after a rather hair raising trip across the smaller Pyrenees pass, arrived in a sunny Madrid to be met by a gleeful Ana with a new shorter haircut which had concerned me and then of course I discovered left her just as stunning as ever.

The four of us then headed North East crossing the border into France on the Mediterranean coast.We stopped at a beach in France and stayed overnight before heading towards the Alps where we spent a chilly night on the grass beside the road before finally getting to Zurich.  Mike’s friends were all put up by Heidi’s parents or friends of theirs. It was a jolly time with the usual eating and drinking, rushing around, last minute preparations and a dental visit as Ana’s teeth played up.  Then came the wedding. The clergyman was a Lutheran of some sort and somewhat bemused by the concept of a ‘Best Man’, which simply did not exist in his religion.  So he came up with a solution that I really was not expecting. He suggested to me in his thick Zurich accent that I should conduct some of the ceremony in English! I felt I could not let Mike down and thus found myself agreeing to this insane idea.  And so it was that I had to stand in front of Mike and Heidi, not to mention the whole congregation and solemnly say “Do you Heidi take Mike to be your lawful married husband…….?” I knew Mike very well. We had been in many scrapes together and it was hard, oh so hard to keep a straight face for either of us – but we got through it and I just hope that He up there saw the funny side.

The Storm Strikes

Ana and I then caught the train back via Paris and onto England and Leeds. We enjoyed the journey and settled into Mike’s flat happily.  Before leaving for the wedding, I had not mentioned my planned absence to anyone in authority as I did not really think that anyone would be interested – I tended to forget that I was in the Army where it is rather expected that a young officer can be got hold of when needed.  It transpired that various bits of the Army had been trying to contact me as the University had informed them that they wanted to boot me out as a result of my failure to produce my philosophy dissertations to a satisfactory level (I still had not read the books and there was no Google in those days so I had cobbled together something by looking at the back covers!).  Although I had usually been able to write my way out of trouble, on this occasion it was, seeing as we are already in a cinematic title, a Bridge too far.  The Officer Training Corps (OTC) at Leeds was nominally at least in charge of me on a day to day basis while my Regiment would be the ones to make all final decisions.  The whole of the Establishment appeared to have it in for me: the Vice Chancellor of the University, the Commanding Officer of the OTC and the Regimental Lieutenant Colonel to whom I was summoned. What made it worse was that the Ministry of Defence was also highly unamused as they had discovered that I had been given a four year Cadetship for an Arts BA rather than the three that it was meant to be (I think I am still the only officer to have been given that). It transpired that it was a clerical error.  I had been posted to the Guards Depot and put on the Sandhurst course starting in late September of that year, ’72  not ’73. So when I had written back to tell them there was a mistake (not a brilliant career move for a young officer) and that I still had a year to go, there had been a mix of anger, embarrassment and downright disbelief – but I turned out to be right (again not a brilliant career move for a young officer).  Short of the Queen turning up to announce that she too was pissed off at me, I could scarcely have created a better storm. I cannot claim any credit as it all happened while I was gloriously oblivious and pottering around Europe.

The Lieutenant Colonel looked at me. He smiled and asked me why I had not done the work and I replied that I had been somewhat distracted by Paris, that indeed I felt that I had truly used the year well in getting to know such an amazing city.  He grinned, a huge wide grin, chuckled and said something like “Well what else do they expect?”.  He then said that if I could persuade the University to keep me he would support me.  I penned a letter to the Vice Chancellor expressing remorse and a determination to do better, explained that I was now much more settled as I was with Ana and asked him to please allow me to stay. He said yes. There were still various professors to placate not to mention my boss at the OTC who eventually started to see the funny side.

We had quite literally come through the eye of the storm pretty unscathed. And so it was back to the really important business of Ana and our life in Leeds.

We were faced with a new situation and one that was not easy.  I don’t think I responded too brilliantly in recognising what it must have been like for Ana.  I was not in the flat with her all the time as I did have to show my face a bit at the university after what had happened. She was in a foreign land and with a foreign language. We were staying in a newly married couple’s flat and however kind they were, we would inevitably feel that we were intruding.  Despite all that there were wonderful times, full of love and happy moments exploring some of the amazing Yorkshire country side, meeting a few of my best friends (many had of course left after completing three year degrees).  Ana’s family wanted her back in time for Christmas and I was under some pressure to spend Christmas at home.  So we were separated and I was pretty miserable, and reading Ana’s letters she was saddened by it and by the tug she felt between her family and me.  Her mother wrote me a very warm letter thanking me for having looked after her so well and helping her get back for Christmas.  What rather knocked my socks off was when she asked me to find her two more of me for her younger daughters.  Ana was the oldest daughter and because of that and more importantly how she was, a source of strength and comfort for her mother and her brother and sisters.  Her father loved her very much too and certainly treated her as the favourite – but sadly much of the family need for her support stemmed from his behaviour, which would also impact our relationship.

Then something amazing happened. I managed to find a little flat on top of a gas appliances shop. It was a classic Leeds red brick terrace and we had two floors.  A drawing room/dining room and kitchen on the first floor and two bedrooms in the attic. It was unfurnished, so I managed to get a dining room table and chairs, a sofa and beds from a second hand shop and a few posters for the walls.  While moving the sofa in I sliced my hand open on a glass panel that formed a sandwich for my hand with the sofa.  There was a huge amount of blood, a visible bone and an A&E visit.  My love for Ana has left me with three scars, the one on the chin and the one across the top of my hand are the physical ones – they are my tattoo declaring in some small way my love. The scar that is left after her final departure may be invisible, but it runs through my heart and soul. But the pain and sorrow of that scar are equally the celebration of a love that I find so hard to describe, especially the way in which it became my life and I became it. That love seems to pump around my veins, touch every nerve and somehow climb into every thought.

Ana was really happy and could scarcely believe that I had managed to find a little home for us, as we had been mighty impoverished while living with Mike, but the flat was really cheap and it was real. Although I had to attend the odd university tutorial and lecture, we were together more, there were at least shops and things for Ana to go and see and crucially it was ours and we were no longer ‘lodgers’.  It showed that we could find happiness away from Paris and Madrid. And in my mind it simply reinforced the belief that we really were made for each other.  I loved it.

Going home to Ana was always a thrill and it remained so throughout our life together and I suppose that is a really good gauge. I have already touched on how so much of our relationship had a childlike innocence and so it was with our house. It was fun; it was as though it were a game with Ana, who had never cooked in her life, trying things out in the kitchen, often with me annoyingly in attendance as I loved being with her and I loved watching her do things.  As with all the things she put her hand to, she became the most wonderful cook. She would add flair and style to any recipe, merrily ignoring accurate measurements or rules and allowing instinct to rule.  And that was largely how she led her life with me and then our daughters.  And having our daughters, who were all complete surprises (funny how so many of the best things are) led us to question whether we were grown up enough, responsible enough to be real parents.  I don’t think we were ever convinced that the answer was yes; but we gave them an abundance of love and imagination and they knew that we would always fight for them, protect them and encourage them to find their own way. And they knew that we treasured them.

As Spring came, the pressure came on for Ana to join her family in Menorca where her father had just taken over a large hotel by the loveliest of Calas. It was called Almirante Farragut and was at the Ciudadela end of the island. I had to deal with exams and the imminent return to the Army.  But the separation hurt and more crucially I could see some real challenges looming.  With Ana in Menorca and my going through some fairly concentrated training and then onto my first posting, that could have been pretty much anywhere, it seemed that separations could become a way of life and I did not want that. It seemed dangerous. I pictured her meeting someone else, forgetting me slowly, finding it all too hard. I think she would be cross at such a thought, but I had found my life and I could not face losing this precious unique creature.

I considered the options such as leaving the Army, which could have been tricky as they would then demand back all the money that they had paid, which led me to wondering whether I could pretend to be loopy (a great friend of mine got out of the same situation by ‘coming out’ and he was out like a flash – things were not so enlightened in 1972).  But it is not in  my nature to lie, so I came to realise that by far the best solution was the one I would in any case love, namely to marry Ana. It was now some 18 months since I had met her, but I was only just 22 and she was just coming up to 24.  Why would that matter? Well it was simple: the Army did not like young officers to get married before 25 at the earliest. The thinking was that they would be distracted and not spend enough of their spare time with their Guardsmen.  This was not going to put me off and so I duly wrote asking for an interview with the Regimental Lieutenant Colonel who was recently in post and not the one who had laughed about my Paris escapades.  And before I set off from Leeds, I had already made up my mind that I would resign if he said no.  Nothing was going to stand in my way of marrying the girl without whom I simply could not breathe.  He said yes and I thank him to this day. His name was Colonel Hales Packenham Mahon.

While I was doing all my thinking and seeking out ideas, we were of course apart, so communication was back to letters, telegrams and very occasional telephone calls. I started to raise the idea that I might perhaps leave and to discuss our future and Ana thought that would be best done when I was with her – we had a hope of getting together for a bit of the summer in Menorca.  I felt that I had to call to try and resolve the matter of our future (at least I hoped it was our future) despite the complications of not having a phone and it sometimes being difficult to get hold of her and the lines were not that reliable.  So I sent a telegram telling her I had to talk to her urgently and gave a time and day. The poor girl was in quite a state as she had no idea of what it was about. I was so nervous, the minutes leading up to the call felt like years and now it is still all a bit of a blur.  She sent me a sweet reply by letter saying that I must be mad to want to marry her, but she seemed to like the idea.

Nothing is simple.  She had the pull of the family, the sense that they really needed her as things with the father had got worse (the ‘other woman’ was highly visible) and of course I was pulling in the opposite direction with a real sense that we had to do this by July before my leave came to an end and I was sucked into the Army machine.  So I fired off letters and telegrams galore to Ana. I wrote to the father asking for his blessing. At this stage I have to introduce the Postman.  And I think I have to thank him too.  One day, a hot clammy day, he arrived at the hotel with his bag of post and latest telegram and looking pleadingly into Ana’s eyes, said “Please say yes, please!”  SHE SAID YES.  I have no idea of how to explain how I felt or what I felt.  If we were in film, I suppose rockets would fly up into the sky and burst into a myriad of colour and shapes, the sun’s brightness would be eclipsed by the way in which my life lit up. If joy can explode, then that is what happened.  But nothing is simple.

Suddenly it had a sense of real, but I equally had a terrible fear that she would change her mind.  We had to get everything organised in quite a rush, which offered the cynics and nay sayers a wonderful opportunity to gossip, but they were wrong for she was still a virgin, something that was important to her and that, out of love I utterly respected, and our first child was not born until September two years later.  But equally she, poor thing, had time to think about the implications.  She loved Spain and Madrid; she loved her family.  I perhaps did not understand that as well as I would have liked to.  I did not have the same sense of having to be in England that she did about Spain; I had one Uncle, a mother and a father that I did not even see annually, so the ties were much less and far more easily managed.  I could sort of imagine an army life and see the fun and positive side – she on the other hand only knew a home based army that was in essence there purely to support Franco and his regime.

To add to the complications for her, we also need to understand that she had been let down by boys in the past, coming to realise that they were not what they had first seemed, and her father’s infidelities simply reinforced her lack of trust in men honouring their commitment. So, for her, this was a far more frightening decision; she was having to take a leap of faith that for me simply was not there. Ironically, as my father too had demonstrated similar behaviour, I suppose I did not come with the best pedigree to help allay her fears.  What I knew was that her fears about me were unfounded.  And she had always said that I was a good person and made her feel protected, which of course would make any failure on my part even worse. But my commitment to her was total and I so wanted her to understand that and I tried hard.

But nothing is simple.

NOTE TO READERS: I understand that it is difficult to like or comment on this site as you have to first register – that is of course assuming that you might wish to do either. I do however post the blog on Facebook and on LinkedIn where it is much easier should you so wish.  May I once again thank those of you who have been so encouraging – I cannot tell you how touching that support has been in a what I can only describe as the worst time of my life. Thank you deeply.