When after many years of occasionally thinking, “I must type up my father-in-law’s memoirs one day”, I little realized that I was setting out on a voyage of discovery, a journey into the life of a man who, through his son, was to become part of my own life and yet whom I hardly really knew and certainly didn’t appreciate.
It has been a hard journey, a deeply emotional one which has left me with many regrets. There are so many questions I should want to ask him and which must remain unanswered because there is no one left in the family to ask. I rack my memory for the odd story or comment my mother-in-law made about the hard days they lived through - she and her small son during the almost three-year siege of Madrid; he five years of imprisonment after the war and before they escaped to France. But the fact remains that between first making my acquaintance with Spain, Madrid and my parents-in-law in March 1961, and in all the years that followed, there was a blanket of silence over all but everyday matters.
This was how Spaniards lived at that time. The streets were full of ‘war-mutilated’ men but no one talked about the war. It was too, too painful for everyone, no matter whose side you were on.
While living in Mallorca my next-door neighbour told me the story of her two brothers and how their mother’s life was forever blighted by their different fates. It deeply impressed me and brought into being “The Dark Swallows” which I wrote while still being mainly ignorant about the convoluted politics of that period.
Since then I have studied the subject in depth and, as as result, wanted both to edit and develop the themes of the original story, especially since at long last Spain is willing to reflect openly on its tragic past.
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