Peter Stone

In the Spring of 1962 Peter Stone left his job in the War Office and hitch-hiked across France to Spain – a country he instinctively felt was his spiritual home.

He still retains the dreamlike self-image of a bewildered 21 year old entering a raucously atmospheric Barcelona that reeked of cheap black tobacco and bad drains, and whose Catalan populace welcomed him with agonized expressions of incomprehension as he inflicted his embryonic Castilian Spanish on them.  Since then, as his linguistic ability increased, so has the country's quantum leap forward in a multitude of spheres - including a surprisingly smooth transition  from dictatorship to democracy - and its number of foreign visitors has risen dramatically from 8 million a year then to 80 million now.

Over the years his Hispanic activities have ranged from teaching English for a month in Oviedo to  establishing himself over a 12 year period as a writer in Madrid, where  he saw his first book published at the ripe old age of 62.  His first article - on Madrid - had appeared in "The Lady" four decades before, earning him the princely sum of eight guineas (which he promptly spent on a Harris Tweed jacket).

He's also worked as a travel representative in Torremolinos, Ibiza, Mallorca and various Costa Brava  seaside towns, and visited most major areas of the green  and lovely north of Spain including San Sebastian, Santander, Santiago de Compostela.  One of his most memorable early experiences  was as hotel receptionist at a Las Palmas de Gran Canaria hotel where he claims to have met the Beatles just before they achieved world fame. This anecdotal snippet is included in his most recently published book "A Cultural History of the Canaries." (Signal Books.  2014.)

Stone has been single and married and - in his dotage -  is now single again. He currently resides in a down to earth casa de campo (rural retreat) surrounded by almond, pine and olive groves, close to an inland castle-topped Alicante pueblo that enjoys hot summers and hardy winters and whose outwardly dour local industrial and agricultural activities are tempered by a seemingly endless sequence of colourful fiestas. He indulges himself with good wines and dubious cigars called Caliqueños, and is a feature of moderate interest in the town after first teaching English and then studying Valenciano in its School for Adults.

He is spectacularly unfocussed on the subject of Brexit. "Ugly word, isn't it?" he says. "Frankly I don't know what's going to happen. Nor how it might effect me." He wouldn't rule out becoming a Spanish national if that proved necessary, as he feels more at home in his adopted country than he does in England (though he's retained many good friends in the Sceptred Isles and enjoys his visits back to see them and retrace old stomping grounds). During his early days in Spain the UK wasn't even a member of the EU's predecessor-by-two decades, the EEC (which it joined in 1973). Then he had work permits to carry out his duties. Now he has a residencia which should in theory at least allow him to live on unhindered.

His background and interests differ radically from those of the non-integrated, non Spanish-speaking Brit, a relatively new species whose favoured habitat tends to be in cushioned urban ghettoes close to the Mediterranean coast. They're not wholly representative, of course. Like him, many foreign residents have found their niche, got to grips with the lingo and become active in a variety of fields. In the larger cities they tend to blend in more and have stronger allegiances. "Most of my English friends in Madrid are married to Spaniards," he says. "But I feel any person who moves permanently to live in any corner of this country, whether to work or retire, should try to become part of its culture and way of life. Or at least make an effort to understand them. Otherwise they might as well stay at home."