Ray used to work with Tony Batey in the Captains Arms, and I have been in contact with Ray for about 12 months or more now. He has sent me a few stories about his time in Lloret, so I have decided to pick out parts of his emails to let you all read about Rays life here in Lloret.
He has been 'travelling' around Lloret using Google street view and is amazed at how the place has changed...but then again he was here in 1962!
I have sent him maps pinpointing places which he couldn't find ie: church, cemetery and Las Cuevas.
Just below I have posted the first part of Rays email.....
Using the streetview feature of Google Earth I "walked" around modern Lloret. About the only buildings that I recognized were the town hall by the beach and the phony castle overlooking the beach. Not only have the town boundaries expanded for miles but many tall modern buildings replace the old low buildings that used to line what is now named "Avinguda Just Marlès Vilarrodona". I even saw signs for Burger King and MacDonalds! I could not find where the Captain's Arms used to be. About one block north-west of the Captain's Arms I used to walk across open countryside for one Kilometre to a secluded spot where I could practice my saxophone without bothering anybody. I recall the day when I returned from my daily sax practice in time to open the Captain's Arms for the evening, only to met by Tony Batey with news that his partner Eric Richards had been found dead on the floor behind the bar. A doctor had diagnosed a massive heart attack as the cause of death.
Another email from Ray......
The population of Lloret must be huge during the tourist season. I noticed lots of signs in English. Back in 1963 I only remember two signs in English. One sign above the doorway of La Granja restaurant/bar proclaimed "Afternoon tea. Not made with tea bags". The other sign proclaimed "Captain's Arms". I also noticed the signs in Catalan instead of in Castilian Spanish. While I was living in Spain in 1962 and 1963 I learned to speak basic Spanish but I subsequently went on to complete the task, switching to the Mexican pronunciation because I was associating with people from Mexico, Central and South America . I had no reason to learn Catalan. During my 23 years of service with Canadian Customs, I spent 28 weeks in northern Québec learning French.
Mercury Tours of Manchester handled many of the English tourists but I forget the names of the other travel firms. The tourists would come for a two-week vacation at Lloret, arriving late on a Wednesday night by coach from the Perpignan airport. Spain insisted on having Lineas Aereas handle 50% of the charter flights into Spain but because the Spanish airline had very few aircraft, the British airlines, the British airlines were unable to make many flights into Barcelona and they had to drop their passengers off in France at Perpignan. On every second Thursday when a new batch of tourists were sunning themselves on the beach, Tony, Maggie, myself (or the other girl employee whose name I forget) would walk the length of the beach handing out Captain's Arms leaflets to each group of English tourists. It was very easy to distinguish the English tourists from the other nationalities. (You had better not circulate this because it not complimentary.) English tourists on the beach were identified by (a) a small truckload of books, suntan lotions and other provisions, and (b) unfashionable attire - e.g. Dad in his old army shorts and occasionally a knotted handkerchief on his head and Mum in her ten-year-old swimsuit.
Each batch of English tourists would go to a bullfight in Barcelona. The following night in the Captain's Arms they would voice their disgust at what they had seen. Two weeks later it would be repeated by a new batch of tourists. We had a Scottish pianist named Jock at the Captain's Arms for part of the summer season of 1963 and the customers enjoyed a sing-along while they sipped their imported Double-Diamond draught beer.
Whenever the police saw a tourist girl wearing a swimsuit in the streets, the police would order the girl back to her hotel.
I can't remember whether I already told you about the time that the council sent a hit-man to kill all of the stray dogs in the streets of Lloret. A week earlier the "town crier" walked around stopping at every street corner, blowing his bugle, and then reading a proclamation about the extermination of stray dogs. The "town crier" was not wearing a fancy costume and he only knew how to make loud noises on his bugle. A week later the hit-man came around administering lethal injections to stray dogs. The gutters were littered with dead dogs awaiting removal and the dog-loving English tourists were appalled.
Thank you for going to the trouble of checking on the old Lloret cemetery Jacqui.
As for Ray mentioning that British tourists were very easy to distinguish....well I think we all know that is still the case Ray!
