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1931.
    His death left a great vacuum in the family, and the flight of his soul from the world left me oppressed and overwhelmed, my heart gripped by deep sorrow. I had lost the one I loved most, for ever. His coffin was borne on the shoulders of his factory workers and accompanied by some of the patients from the Saint John of God Hospital for Sick Children, to which he had been a great benefactor. Many other mourners also followed this kind and generous man to his body’s last resting place. Fiftyyears after his death, I feel that providence had been right to remove him from the scene before he could see the tribulation and suffering which his beloved country was to suffer.
    After I had finished training to be a poultry farmer, it was time for me to report to barracks for compulsory military service. In those days it was possible for a conscript to buy himself out after serving for six months. This scheme, known as the Fee-Paying Military Service Scheme, had the additional advantage that those who joined it could spend their nights at home. Moreover, if a recruit took all the necessary military training courses and studied hard during those six months, he was allowed to graduate with a star as a second lieutenant.
    I decided to join the scheme and so avoid some of the more onerous chores of military life. I was drafted into the Seventh Regiment of Light Artillery, which had its barracks near Barcelona’s harbour, in the
drassanes
or old dockyard area. Unfortunately, it turned out to be a cavalry regiment so I had to learn to ride. The captain who taught us was extremely harsh, so that I returned to barracks more than once with my buttocks on fire. The accepted cure for this was to apply a cloth to the raw part that had been soaked in vinegar and sprinkled with salt; when I did this, it made me see all the stars in the firmament . Such tough training left me with little love for the cavalry by the time I had won my spurs. I ended my military service without any enthusiasm whatsoever for my companions or my mount; I lacked those essential qualities of loyalty, generosity and honour that the cavalryman is meant to possess; I had no desire to stay in the army.
    I was lucky not to have been called upon to quell any civil disturbances while doing my national service. In January 1933 anarchists took over the village of Casas Viejas near Cádiz and were ruthlessly put down by the security forces at the instigation of Manuel Azaña Diaz’s left-wing government: fourteen prisoners were shot. All our leave was cancelled, but thankfully it was too far away from Catalonia for us to be sent there.
    In October 1934 there was a revolt in Asturias, which was put down by the then centre-right government. After that, transitions from one government to another were swift. Bad news travelled around the country even faster. Every day newspapers reported more violent deaths. Passions were unleashed in bloody fashion. Debates in Parliament degenerated into insults and diatribes; politicians quarrelled endlessly among themselves . One day a right-wing faction sitting outside a coffee-bar would be machine-gunned; the next day it was the turn of the Left. Shots were exchanged daily. To make matters worse, governments took part in reprisals, lashed their opponents and claimed powers never granted them by the constitution. The police force, swamped by endless acts of private retaliation, ended up contravening the laws themselves. Finally, there came a black day in the annals of the country, 18 July 1936, an ill-fated date that changed the course of Spanish history, for it saw the beginning of a bloody civil war.

3
Civil War
    There is no joy comparable to that of regaining one’s lost freedom.
    Cervantes
    I have stumbled across dictatorships all too often during my life, albeit with different characteristics and aims; it almost seems as though they were following me around. Perhaps in trying to avoid them I have inevitably strayed into their orbits.