I've received a very interesting email from Ray who sent in several photos a while ago, Ray used to work for Tony Batey and here is his story.....
"Thank you for passing on my information to Oscar Batey. I have not
heard back from Tony Batey yet but I notice that a web page now
contains the historic photo of Tony, Eric, Maggie and myself that was
taken shortly before Eric died on that very spot behind the bar of the
Captain's Arms. I should have mentioned before that I was Tony's first
employee, hired in April 1963 for the opening of the Captain's Arms in
Lloret. Maggie was the second employee, hired about one month later.
I was due to open the bar at sunset but Eric had gone in earlier and
was in the process of restocking the shelves to do me a favour, when he
suffered a massive heart attack and died quickly (at age 35). I will
never forget the horse-drawn hearse with squeaking wheels (because of
ungreased axles). We all walked behind the hearse from the church to
the cemetery with the priest in front, then all of the men and finally
all of the women. In our ignorance of local customs, we foreigners
followed the grave diggers into the cemetery and witnessed the burial.
We should have gone no further than the cemetery gate.
In 1963 the English tour guides would meet at a bar-restaurant
named "La Granja". Above the doorway of "La Granja" hung a wooden sign
reading "Afternoon tea. Not made with tea bags". It was common to
hear tour guides agreeing to meet later at "not made with tea bags".
There were a lot of stray dogs roaming the streets of Lloret in
1963. One day a council employee with a bugle did a poor imitation of a
town crier. In the main streets he stopped at every corner, made
horrible noises on his bugle and then loudly read a proclamation about
stray dogs being exterminated. A couple of days later the hit squad
came around with fatal injections and lots of dead dogs lay in the
streets for hours before being carted away. The English dog-lovers
were appalled"
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I'm sure there must be lots more similar stories out there, if any of you have a story you would like me to add to the blog for others to read then by all means send it in for me to publish.
Now a few more photos which show how Lloret used to look before most of us
were born! including one taken on Tossa de Mar beach showing an old
woman doing her washing....no its not me before you ask!
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| Arial view of Fenals |
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| Wash day on the beach at Tossa. |
