THE MATTER WAS ACUTE

My Catalan friends will tell you I have an accent, but I am pretty sure it was the lack of one that led to Catalonia Today. How glad I am. I wasn’t one of the original writers two decades ago, but my 15-plus years of painting word pictures in the deep south of this country are fundamental to the privilege of immersion into a wondrous Priorat landscape and its deep-rooted, proud and trusting people.

One of my books was translated into Catalan and published in 2007: Es pot beure te amb porró? It is a candid/comical account of our journey and discoveries after settling here in 2001.

I was wheeled out by my Barcelona publishers to promote the book, including live on air on Radio Catalunya, where I proceeded to murder the language and invite people to enjoy my book entitled Can you drink tea and have a spliff? My repeated failure to stress the ó at the end of porró caused acute panic beyond the glass in the studio, but probably did wonders for book sales. I think that might have fuelled Catalonia Today’s interest.

Words, alongside family, community and nature, brought me and my family here in the first place. I had been a newspaper editor and columnist with one book on the shelf. I wanted space to write more books and screenplays and have done so. Meanwhile my steady flow of words in Catalonia Today have fostered friendships and vital memories. I am not sure of the value of my contribution, but as a reader I bear witness to how the editorial team has informed, enriched and defined Catalonia’s openness and place in the world. It calls out wrongs when needs be. It is inclusive and instructive, whether you are Catalan and seeking to learn English, or you are English-speaking seeking to integrate and appreciate the whole gamut of what it means to call this home.

I have to mention dear Terry Parris. She was a light. Her words in Catalonia Today, right up until her death at 93 in 2020, reflected her good nature. To share moments with her was engrossing for many reasons - her beautiful eloquence, long-life wisdom, modesty and hope, smile and laugh and pride in family chief among them. This former actress, writer, broadcaster and educator’s experiences of the world and her 47 years in Catalonia, which she loved, enriched these pages.

As for me, I won’t stop championing Catalonia and its cultural foundations that underpin society; nor its nature and biodiversity. But I will also keep trying to raise the spirits with the occasional nonsense.

Best moment? I cherish the memory of the late, brilliant satirist Tom Sharpe’s brief address to the English Cultural Society just a couple of years before his death at his home in Llafranc in 2013. He seemed a little squiffy, tipsy. “I just want to say... you are all invited to my house.....(wow).... if you come on a horse.”