IAESTE Annual Review 2020/21

An IAESTE Trip
to Franco’s
Spain, 1960
Dick Weekes, UK
Long long trail.
Towards the end of my second year in the Metallurgy Department of the
University College, Swansea I needed summer work in the Metals industry
and through IAESTE I was pleased to be accepted for a position in the
Steelworks of Patricio Echeverria in Legazpia, northern Spain.
I was the owner of a well-proven 1933 Morris Minor so settled on that as
my transport. My sleeping arrangements for the journey were also taken
care of by temporarily removing the passenger seat, a sleeping platform
then placed my head in the back of the car and my feet cosily under
the dashboard. An impressive array of documents had to be gathered,
customs papers, an international driving licence, insurance green card
and a bail bond as one was likely to be locked up if involved in an
accident in Spain. More comforting were emergency traveller’s cheques
provided by the RAC and denominated in Swiss Francs.
I was wise to leave home that summer. I was in trouble in University
having spent too much time on the Student Rag Week charity fundraising
activities and the resulting, fortunately temporary, exclusion had caused
frostiness at home. Happily, three months later my family was pleased to
see my safe return.
My adventure really started at Dover and it was a thrill to be ushered
onto the ferry. I have crossed the Channel many times since then but
that first view of Calais Town Hall coming up out of the sea remains a
special memory. I rattled out of Calais in good style, negotiating my first
anti-clockwise roundabout and I put a good few miles under my wheels
before camping for the first night, finding time to write a postcard home
from ‘Somewhere in France’.
Thinking my inexperience in French city driving would get me into trouble I
skirted Paris to the west and arriving at Le Mans I drove down the famous
San Sebastian sign.
Mulsanne Straight, reliving at a distinctly slower pace the exploits of
the heroes in the 24 hour races. Then on to Tours where an ‘Interdit aux
Forains’ sign at a campsite bothered me for a while until I worked out that,
despite the appearance of my vehicle, I would not be expelled for being
a Gypsy. On then, following the route of many early motoring pioneers,
the road from Paris to Bordeaux.
I had allowed a week to get from Calais to Spain and was well ahead
of schedule so diverted through the thickly forested Landes country to
Arcachon on the coast. There, I treated myself to lunch in a bistro but a sign
‘free bottle of wine with every meal’ necessitated a long walk afterwards.
Ending up in Biarritz I put up at the Camping Chambre d’Amour, very
inappropriately named as far as I and my sleeping arrangements were
concerned! A day or so later on, I went again, enjoying the brilliance of
the southern sun at St Jean de Luz and finally reaching the frontier at Irun.
Here the police and customs officers seemed to me to be very relaxed,
despite their bristling revolvers, and let me into Spain with little formality.
Then, via San Sebastian to my destination in the hills, the industrial town
of Legazpia.
My lodgings were in a local bar, the Toki Alai, Good Place in Basque
and my hosts were a pleasant couple, helped by their three daughters.
Fortunately, the eldest daughter Maria Angeles, spoke a little French as
I had gone to Spain speaking no Spanish but thinking that I would not
be far over the border with France and that French would be understood.
Very wrong! The isolation of Spain brought about by Franco since 1938
was almost complete. In fact, there was a rueful local saying ‘Africa begins
at the Pyrenees’ and later when I unwisely produced a travel booklet my
friends were indignant to see a map in it which cut off the whole Iberian
peninsula. ‘There you are, Africa begins at the Pyrenees!’
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