Hello everyone! Just a quick note to say the course I am currently on ends in June at which point I will delete these temporary posts and continue writing my second memoir. Meanwhile, thank you for your continued support in reading RockHeart.
For those interested in purchasing my first memoir – ‘RockHeart – Memoirs of Gibraltar’ – I will have a new batch of books available from June so if you would like to pre-order a copy please just either message me here or email me at Spailpinfanac@aol.com and I will add your details to my list. Thankyou. Alan 🙂
Hi everyone. Just a note to say that for now my second memoir is on hold until the new year as I am on a course but will be back writing again soon. Thank you everyone for reading and supporting RockHeart. Alan 🙂
I often think that if you haven’t taken the time to go up the Rock to see the monkeys you haven’t been to Gibraltar. To me that experience is one of a million reasons I love the place and is right up there with coffee and churros in Casemates on a sunny Sunday morning. Being Sunday morning that is exactly where we went to do just that.
Casemates is not a place I have a lot of memories of from when I lived on the Rock in the 1970s; back then the social hub for our family was the piazza where we would often go for drinks and snacks with friends. Indeed, looking at stat photos from the 1980’s it was still the place of happenings. However on visiting Casemates during my last trip seven years ago I found it to be the new place on the block. All around the square were a wide variety of eateries, pubs and restaurants with buskers performing for the gathered and cultural events such as glass blowing aplenty for visitors to enjoy.
The Piazza as I remember it in the mud 1970s
(L) The Piazza in 1980’s and (R) as I remember it in the 1970’s.
(L) Buskers in Casemates 2016 and (R) visiting Casemates in 2023
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Looking around at Casemates today I found it to still have a wide choice of restaurants and eateries, and the churros with coffee were just as I remembered them. Sadly today the glass blowers are no longer in situ although there is a fabulous collection of three tapestries on display created by children showing Gibraltar’s past and present, and visualising its future.
Recharged and rejuvenated with churros and coffee I took off for an afternoon walkabout with, as usual, no particular plan in mind other than to eventually arrive at Alameda gardens. To be honest I wasn’t planning to dwell in the gardens, just walk through and touch base with its lovely ambience because in a few days time I was being treated to a guided tour by someone who has played a major role in its development. And that was something I was very much looking forward to.
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At the top end of Main Street not far past John Mackintosh Hall I came across Inces Hall, which I always tend to remember from having seen the Irish band, the Bachelors (among other acts) perform there. Presumably the hall was named after ‘Henry Ince (1736–1808), a sergeant-major in the British Army who achieved fame as the author of a plan to tunnel through the North Face of the Rock of Gibraltar in 1782, during the Great Siege’ (wikipedia).
Looking at it from the outside, serious renovations were ongoing to the front of the building whilst at the side a fabulous blue based art piece had been created. Given its status as one of Gibraltar’s cultural hubs I thought it looked amazingly in keeping, and as I wandered past, people were queuing in their droves to see the latest piece of theatre which I believe was the Lion King. What a great way to remember such a great man.
Continuing on toward the Alameda I caught sight of another massive mural stretching along a wall near Ragged Staff Gates which looked to be the Battle of Waterloo? As an artist myself who paints very primary coloured abstracts (my work can be seen at: spailpinfanac.com) I am forever in awe of those who create fine art of historically interesting themes because as much as I love them it is not a skill I have. The mural was outstanding, not only for the detail but for the staggering size of it; I’m no mathematician but it must stretch about 100 yards in length by forty-foot high.
Eventually I carried on my walkabout toward the gardens and in doing so came across the most amazing ‘primary coloured abstracts’ in a pedestrian tunnel which I really absolutely loved because it could easily have been the kind of work I had done myself. It was beginning to occur to me that street art had become a thing on the Rock which I was well happy about and looked forward to discovering more as the week progressed.
Walking up to the gates of Alameda immediately took me back decades. From the top of the steps I turned around to look at my old flat on the top floor of Trafalgar House and remembered looking out at the gardens, a place I often spent time with my family. Since I knew I was coming back in a few days time for my guided tour I took this opportunity to go in and have a quiet walkabout in the gardens on my own.
Being someone who loves walkabouts I’ve never really been fussy about the hotel or guesthouse I’m staying at because in the main I see it as somewhere to shower and sleep; more often than not I eat out. Having said that, the luxurious en suite, guest-focused rooms at the Eliott didn’t escape my keen eye. Notwithstanding the fabulously comfortable bed and immaculate facilities, detail had also been paid to the smaller things such as a coffee machine with daily supplies, bottles of water in the fridge, television and free wifi – which other than the television I took full advantage of. For me though the best thing was the view from the balcony.
Through a 180 degree turn, my view (left to right) took in from the Moroccan mountains on the far horizon to an over-the-bay view of Spain, with a close-up view of Gibraltar in the foreground. In the warm evening sunshine it brought back memories of my visits to Fez and Tangier, my happy days living on the Rock, and the privilege of supporting visiting warships while serving at HMS Rooke. Whilst the room was undeniably lovely the view was more than beautiful. It was an absolute chapter of my life.
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Strolling down Main Street on that first evening I couldn’t help noticing that there were no eateries open and all the pubs had stopped serving food. In fact the street was so quiet on a Saturday night for a minute I thought there may be a big football game on the television. Not wanting to contrast it with days gone by I found it hard to not recall memories from my navy days, when raucous sailors performed traditional zulu warrior stripteases atop tables culminating in their naked bodies being drenched in beer thrown on them by their shipmates. Amidst the silence however, I did notice quite a lot of people taking their dogs for a walk in the cool of the evening which pleased me enormously as a dog lover. Having had to sadly leave my new rescue dog Macie behind to make this trip it was a pleasure to see a few smiling canoe faces.
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Eventually after wandering back up Main Street I noticed a small bistro open which turned out to be Jurys, a place which not only serves excellent food but one which I have very fond memories of. On my last visit there, readers of RockHeart may recall, I accidently left a very expensive camera on the table which was returned to me in the morning by very honest staff members. While a camera is replaceable, the photographs in it are not and so I was extremely grateful and relieved to have the camera returned. Although it had been seven years since my last meal there, the excellent food and service were exactly as I had remembered them.
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My first night of sleep at the Eliott was probably the best I had had in a long time. Back home life had been really busy with having a new kitchen and bathroom fitted, doing heavy work at the allotment and settling Macie in. A good rest had come very low down on the priority list. After wandering up to the rooftop breakfast room and sitting down with a cup of fresh coffee I caught the sunrise over Catalan Bay and just felt blessed.
Later in the day I took my first solo walkabout with no particular plan in mind and found myself standing outside John Mackintosh Hall on Main Street, the cultural hub of Gibraltar which celebrates and promotes all aspects of the arts. To be honest when I lived on the Rock in the 1970’s I don’t think I was very aware of the Hall or its connection with the arts but looking at it today I was really impressed. For many years after leaving the Navy I was employed to develop the creative arts with people with learning disabilities but it was at a time when funding largely went towards the sports under the ‘Sport for all’ umbrella. Consequently the arts only received peanuts in comparison. Just looking through the window of the Hall at the things promoted was a joy, albeit with a touch of envy.
Standing outside the Hall I was thinking about my view of Main Street being multidimensional in that I see it through the eyes of a sailor, a local and a tourist depending on the context, which is probably why my memoirs seem to time travel between the past, the present and the future. When I look at photos taken in the same place many years apart I can almost read my own mind as to how I was feeling about my circumstances at the time. In some ways all three of the photos of me outside the Hall (taken in 1976, 2016 and 2023) are quite special to me today in that my book RockHeart has been donated to the library housed within the hall. Although in life, while I have had some successes in the arts back home in the UK, having my memoirs of Gibraltar accepted in their library is very much my high point.
Readers who have previously read RockHeart will know that on my last visit to the Rock I came away with many unanswered questions. One of those questions was where on earth was the Montarik Hotel, the hotel that the Navy placed my family in for our last three days in Gibraltar pending our return to the UK for my release. (See RockHeart 2.59 (1977)). As to why I wanted to find it has always been a bit unclear to me because our stay there was not a happy one but on the other hand it is very much part of my story. Wandering back down toward the Piazza I happened to just glance up a backstreet which had a familiar feeling about it and there it was, the Montarik!
Strangely enough even though I hadn’t seen the Montarik for 46 years I felt totally indifferent. Somehow I think I thought I would be quite angry in seeing a place connected with painful feelings but when I looked at it, it was just a building and not even remotely to blame. Clearly whatever subjective pain I had associated with it had long since dispersed which in a way I was quite glad about given my love of all things Gibraltar. If anything, looking up at the street name, I almost laughed out loud. With no disrespect intended as to why it was called Bedlam Court I almost instantly realised it did have a place in my story given the definition of bedlam. For a young couple with three little children about to become homeless and jobless it pretty much summed up our situation. Turning to walk away I knew now why I had looked for it; it was cathartic.
For some reason whenever I visit Gibraltar the first walkabout I take is down Main Street. I think it’s just about touching base, a bit like having a starter before a seven course meal – or in my case a recce before a seven day visit. Stretching down from Trafalgar Cemetery to Casemates Square, Main Street, back in the day was vehicular, although today it is pedestrianised from the Convent to Casemates.
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For me the street has always been the social hub of the Rock thriving with locals, tourists and very often sailors and having been all three at one time or another I see it very much multidimensional. As a sailor in the early 1970’s I would often be dragged reluctantly by shipmates between Charlie’s Hole-in-the-Wall and the Donkey’s Flip Flop (aka The Horseshoe) after first being pre-loaded in the ‘Mad Monk’ Angry Friar. Later, in the mid-1970’s as a family we would be doing the weekly shop at Lipton’s (now Marks and Spencer), the Emporium and Princess Silks which sadly is no longer there. Today, however, after strolling down from the Eliott, passing the Art Gallery en route and arriving on the infamous street, I guess we could be described as tourists out to check out the local facilities.
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For a Saturday morning the street seemed unusually quiet other than a distant noise of what sounded like drums. As the drums became louder it became clear some sort of carnival was in progress with a crowd appearing to come up the street. Within a few minutes a fabulous parade led by a bearded drag queen in a pink frock completely engulfed the street, dancing, clapping and waving the rainbow flags which symbolise the LGBTQ+ community. Behind the leader must have been two or three hundred people of all ages, genders and colours saturating the whole place with an amazingly positive vibe. As the parade finally tailed off to a few stragglers we found ourselves tagging along at the back with beaming smiles and a wonderful feeling of joy.
As the crowd carried on up the street towards the Convent we drifted off up a side street feeling really happy to have witnessed, and been tentatively involved, in what was clearly a Pride parade. Spotting a small eatery we sat down on a table in the street, ordered chicken wraps with drinks and spent the next hour chatting and reliving it all again. Although I didn’t catch the name of the eatery, it is on the same backstreet as an Art shop and I can highly recommend it.
After unceremoniously dumping my bags in room 602 I ventured up to the rooftop with my travelling companions for that long desired dip in the pool. However, before I had the chance to jump in, my eyes caught sight of the view. Spinning around on my toes, soaking up the panoramic vista, felt like coming home. From where I stood I had a birds eye view from the ships in the bay to Moorish Castle and the Old Town, with the warm sunshine contrasting starkly to the drizzly North East of England I had left just a few hours ago. Despite the changes on the Rock it was reassuring to see that fundamentally much of what I knew was still as it was, although it did occur to me I knew more about what was where in Gibraltar than in my home town of Newcastle. That alone spoke volumes.
Having absorbed the distant surroundings I turned my attention to the closer vicinity and, looking down through the glass windows surrounding the pool, I noticed sadly that the Marrakech moroccan restaurant had closed. Further along the street I couldn’t help but see, and was very amused by, what looked like a couple of dozen three-inch nails protruding from the top of a solar street light; clearly Gibraltar was not going to tolerate any pigeons knocking the lights out. Something about that fed into my sense of humour.
With a last glance across the Old Town my thoughts were filled with anticipation of my forthcoming walkabouts. High on my agenda was of course the places I knew and had loved for so long; the Alameda, the backstreets, Europa, the apes. Coupled with that anticipation was a nervous excitement at experiencing the new too, in particular the Skywalk. As I walked slowly down the steps into the cool waters of the pool I looked up at the top of the Rock and smiled. Meeting up with old friends has always been a joy for me
On leaving the airport it was only a matter of minutes before the changes in Gibraltar became apparent as the taxi sped through the new airport tunnel which was completed on 31 march 2023. Prior to the tunnel being built all vehicles and pedestrians used to have to cross the runway in between planes coming and going which for me was always a unique selling point. Nostalgia aside however the advantage of the tunnel was clear in that within minutes we were through the other side, thus justifying the 14 years it took to complete.
Although it had only been seven years since my last visit, during which I had seen a massive increase in high rise buildings, the view from the taxi window of progress since then was astonishing. For a brief moment I could be forgiven for thinking I was back in Hong Kong during the 1970s. The journey from the tunnel to the familiar area of Queensway felt like we were driving through a never ending maze of triffids leaving me wondering if those on the top floors had become accustomed to living with vertigo.
Just at the point I thought I had accidentally caught a plane to New York I felt a great sense of relief in eventually looking down and realising we were beetling along Line Wall Road. Arriving at the Eliott was a relief, not only because of the tiring journey from the UK but also because I knew where I was.
On my last visit to Gibraltar (2016) I stayed at the Bristol Hotel, the oldest on the Rock, and remember describing the very retro feel about the place with its statues, paintings and quaint corridors which appeared not dissimilar to the Addams family mansion. To me, on the one hand, it didn’t seem to have had any modernisation since its inauguration in 1894 but on the other hand I decided that was very much in keeping and enjoyed my stay. In contrast, the Eliott was very much the opposite. Recently renovated the hotel is truly opulent and deserving of its four star status, not only for its immaculate facilities which include a rooftop pool with fabulous all round views, but also because of its dedicated staff team who all contributed to spoiling me rotten during my stay.
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I’ve often noted how Gibraltar is steeped in history and so I had a feeling that the Eliott was named after a famous son. With the minimal amount of research on google I discovered one George Augustus Eliott, 1st Baron of Heathfield, was credited for his command of the Gibraltar garrison during the Great Siege of Gibraltar between 1779 and 1783 and wondered if it was him? If it was him I was curious to know what his view would have been if he knew the sign on Main Street pointing to the Eliott had been spelt with the double letter ‘L’ and only one ‘T’.
Hello old friend. How’s it going? You don’t look like you’ve changed a bit although I know you have as I’ve kept up with things online. I read about your new Windsor suspension bridge and your new Skywalk; you’ll have to give me a guided tour in between my usual wanderings. I doubt the Old Town has changed that much or even the Alameda, although I know there have been new additions – well, new to me having not been here for seven years. But you know me well and so know those beautiful botanical gardens will be one of my first ports of call. What you may not know though is that one of my visits there will be with the man who spearheaded its rejuvenation in 1991 from its sadly neglected state into the Eden it has now become. So you see we both have news for the other.
I remember when I left I promised myself I wouldn’t leave it another forty years before I came back so – here I am. To be honest I would have come back sooner but, you know, life happens and things don’t always go as planned. Without boring you to death, since my last visit I have moved house twice from one country to another, had three jobs, retired, and welcomed my great-granddaughter into the world.
Anyway, got to go. Need to go and book in at Eliott and dump my bags. There’s four of us on this trip, none of us young whipper-snappers anymore, and after that flight we’re all looking forward to a dip in the pool. Catch you later.
It’s now seven years since I wrote RockHeart, a memoir of my forty year relationship with Gibraltar from my first visits in 1974, to living there during 1976/1977 and revisiting in 2016. The book was originally written in blog form here on my website and on completion printed into the book. For those wishing to buy a book please just email me at: Spailpinfanac@aol.com. I try to keep costs low as I am a (not for profit) self-publisher and depending on where you live the cost would be between £5 and £10 to cover postage and packing. For those living in Gibraltar a copy has been donated to the John Mackintosh library which can be borrowed. Alternatively, the full text and complimenting photos can be seen here on my website.
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In the final chapter of RockHeart I had vowed not to leave it forty years before I returned to the Rock and true to my word was blessed to be able to revisit in 2023. Having only just recently returned, and while memories are still fresh, I thought I’d once again share my stories and anecdotes as a new chapter in blog form which (as with RockHeart) will be edited at the end into book form. The title ‘Seven Years Later’ is a work in progress and may change at the end. If you would like to read as I go along please just click the ‘follow’ button and you’ll receive an email every time my post is published; comments and discussions are always welcome. Alan 🙂