Avoiding Sean Connery’s terrible coffee and dancing with Mick Jagger and Paddington Bear are just some of the fond memories of Britain brought back by a new exhibition in Spain.
Xesus Fraga, curator and celebrated Spanish writer, grew up hearing stories about it. James Bond The actor’s apartment in London, where his mother’s friend worked as a cleaner.
Fraga’s family emigrated to Britain in the 1960s in search of work to escape impoverished Spain. They were among tens of thousands of Galicians who left north-west Spain for Britain between the 1950s and 1970s.
Agent 007 offered coffee to the late Amalia Lopez, but she always refused, much to the star’s surprise.
“Amalia said that Connery has all these props from his films in his apartment. He always offered her coffee, but she always refused because he didn’t know how to make coffee. It was too strong,” Fraga said. I.
“He always told Amalia: ‘You know, not many women in the world will refuse me.'”
Amalia also became a cleaner for the late designer Terence Conran and became part of the family, being invited to his son’s wedding in Ireland.
“They really loved her. She was at the wedding and even danced with Mick Jagger,” Fraga said.
The exhibition “Generations of Montserrat” is named after the passenger ship Montserratwho brought many emigrants from Galicia in north-west Spain to Britain and started a new life.
The Corunna exhibition features Paddington Bear, a reminder of Mr Fraga’s love of books about another emigrant to London – albeit from deepest, darkest Peru.
“Years later I wrote on the Paddington Bear website that it was very important to me and started writing my own books, so I was very grateful to Michael Bond. I was invited to his home by his wife and got to know him,” he said.
7″ single by The Beatles. Hard day, hard night is another exhibit showcasing his grandmother Virtudes’s affection for the Fab Four. She came to Britain as Beatlemania was in full swing and sent a full-size poster of the band back to Spain.
I work on the London Underground, studying the language and struggling to find turnips to make a Spanish stew with. Caldo – these are just some of the secrets that awaited the wave of newcomers from Spain.
Mr Fraga, who returned to Spain with his family at the age of five, has written a memoir. Advantages (and secrets)or Advantages (and secrets), partly about his time in the UK, where he won a Spanish Short Story Award. He is looking for an English publisher.
His grandmother first moved to London in 1961, leaving behind three daughters and sending money home. Two years later Mr Fraga’s mother, Isabel, moved from Spain to London with a friend, who asked a priest for her blessing to protect her purity from the “dangerous Babylon” that lay in wait in London.
In 1976, the family returned to Spain because his father was homesick and Mr. Fraga was preparing to go to school. “We have never lost touch with this world. They see themselves as a bridge between both worlds,” Fraga said.
“Generations of Montserrat” can be seen at Kiosco Alfonso in A Coruña until January 14.
Source: I News
I am Michael Melvin, an experienced news writer with a passion for uncovering stories and bringing them to the public. I have been working in the news industry for over five years now, and my work has been published on multiple websites. As an author at 24 News Reporters, I cover world section of current events stories that are both informative and captivating to read.