THE CHANGE IN SPAIN — AN IRONIC VIEW

Expat reminiscences about life in Spain are two-a-penny, but  Sunny Side Up – The 21st century hits a Spanish village stands out for one special reason. It gets under the skin of a rural Málaga community as it shifts from a medieval life style into the computer age.  

“Baird’s ironic glance back over the past 30 years is recommended reading for anybody who has ever wondered what happened to ‘the real Spain’,” according to the Sunday Times.

Forget about romanticised, superficial views of life in the sun. This book, relaunched under the Maroma Press imprint,  looks at what really goes on behind those white walls and describes it with irony and affection.

Libro presentado en Frigiliana

El periodista, historiador y escritor británico David Baird, ha presentado su libro Sunny Side Up, The 21st century hits a Spanish village (El siglo 21 llega a un pueblo español) en Frigiliana (Málaga). Esta obra se ha editado en inglés y alemán.

En este libro el autor relata la evolución de un pueblo axárquico, que no nombra, en los últimos 40 años. Intercala el tono humorístico y el serio para contarnos una serie de anécdotas que pueden ir desde un mendigo ciego que circulaba en moto, hasta un fantasma que aterrorizaba al pueblo.

DEEP PASSIONS IN RURAL SPAIN

EVEN THOUGH more than 70 years have passed since Spain’s civil war the conflict and its aftermath still provoke deep passions. 

While many Spaniards want to forget the past and move on, many others feel that the country  should confront and come to terms with what occurred during the Franco era. Only then, they feel, can old wounds be healed.

It’s against this background that the novel Don’t Miss the Fiesta, published by Maroma Press, is set. It relates what happens when a stranger arrives in a remote village, knowing nothing of its turbulent past.

NOW SUNNY SIDE IS A SCHOOL TEXTBOOK

WHEN he struggled to complete school essays long ago in wildest Shropshire, David Baird would never have believed that one day his scribblings would be part of a scholar’s curriculum. 

But that’s what has happened. Suddenly he finds his words are required reading in Spanish schools.

High school pupils in Nerja on the Costa del Sol were the first to make his book Sunny Side Up Up — The 21st century hits a Spanish village the object of study.

Now the Escuela Oficial de Idiomas in Motril, Granada province, has announced it is to be a set book for Fifth Grade students and has invited David to make a presentation.

GUERRA OLVIDADA EN LAS SIERRAS

HACE MAS DE 60 AÑOS una guerra azotó varias regiones de España. Era una guerra de que el público no fue informado, ni dentro del país ni afuera.

Cada día hay menos gente que vivío en su propria carne la lucha por grupos de guerrilleros contra el regimen de Franco. Uno por uno, los testigos se van desapareciendo.

El libro “Historia de los maquis – Entre dos fuegos“ deja constancia del impacto terrible de aquella guerra desconocida en las sierras de Málaga y Granada en los años 40. Recoge el testimonio — apasionante, espeluznante y emocionante — de los campesinos de la Axarquía. Y también de los guerrilleros y de la Guardia Civil.

Guerrilla war in Spain – new edition

MAROMA PRESS IS PLEASED to announce publication of a new edition of Between Two Fires — Guerrilla war in the Spanish sierras.  

Praised by historians and readers around the world, this book by David Baird is a poignant account how a Spanish village was trapped in a brutal guerrilla conflict — a conflict that was virtually unreported because of the strict censorship of the Franco regime.

Paul Preston, respected author of The Spanish Civil War 1936-1939 and many other books on recent Spanish history, says: “This superbly written book could not be  more timely.”

FINDING THE SIMPLE LIFE IN RURAL SPAIN

SOMETIMES, says David Baird, he dreams about garbanzos.

“Yes, chick-peas, those little bullet-like beans which have to be soaked for days and boiled for hours so that finally you can add some flavouring and create a fine stew — fine that is if you like bullet-like beans.”

He claims that’s what he lived on most of the time when he and his wife first settled in a Spanish village. He describes his efforts to live “the simple life” in Sunny Side Up — The 21st century hits a Spanish village.

Hilarious, nostalgic and moving, his book inspired the Sunday Times of London to comment: “Recommended reading for anybody who ever wondered what happened to the ‘real Spain’.”

Anther angle on that ‘real Spain’ is contained in Between Two Fires, Baird’s book about the guerrilla war that raged in the 1940s.

Gaddafi – Crazy as a Fox

So the Teacher-Leader, inspirer of the Green Revolution — revered by his followers but feared and hated by many others — has gone.

Muammar al-Gaddafi was judged by a fellow Arab leader to have “a split personality, both evil”. He may indeed have been crazy, but it was the craziness of a desert fox.

Years back I encountered the Teacher-Leader when reporting on a conference of African leaders in Libya (records David Baird). The media scene was reminiscent of that in Evelyn Waugh’s Scoop and some of the leaders present could have qualified for bit parts in The Godfather.

Not the sort of people you would want to meet in a dark alley nor for that matter on a well-illuminated highway. And they were running countries!

But they had been feted in London and other capitals. Politicians had warmly shaken their bloodstained hands, eager to share in their mineral wealth or to conclude profitable trade deals.

TITLE IT RIGHT — HOW TO GRAB READERS

Sooner or later every writer is faced by the same problem. What title to give his latest opus? Choosing the right words can be critical. The title has to grab the browsers’ attention, persuade them to scan a few pages, even put their cash down and buy the tome.

Pick the wrong title — not difficult — and they pass by on the other side. A tricky business, as I realised when I finally typed “The End” on a work that I had been toiling over for months. For the life of me I could not come up with a neat, catchy title, writes David Baird.

Murdoch’s Setback in the Outback — Media Tycoon With Problems

Suddenly his global media empire is trembling. Scandals are rocking Rupert Murdoch’s mighty corporation, News Corporation, owner of everything from Fox News to the Wall Street Journal and The Times of London.

Revelations of sordid phone-hacking have forced the Australian tycoon to close the world’s biggest-selling English-language newspaper, the News of the World.

But the Dirty Digger, as he has been dubbed, has a way of bouncing back. He graduated in the rough-and-tumble Aussie newspaper business. Way back in the 1960s, before Murdoch set out to take over the world, he learned a useful lesson in Australia’s Outback: don’t start a circulation war in the wrong place.