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From The Times
August 22, 2007
Costa bravo
An estimated 1 million Brits now live in Spain; and after decades of Little England mentality, there are signs that the expatriates are integrating at last into the Spanish way of life
Record high in stampede out of the UK
Graham Forster may have come to Spain partly in search of the sun, but sea and sand can’t have had too much to do with it. The pretty Andalusian village where he has settled is a 40-minute drive from the coast – or would have been had I been able to find the winding road to it on my map.
Eschewing the concrete costas and looking inland, the 49-year-old Liverpudlian watchmaker found a perfect place to settle in Álora, a whitewashed village in the shadow of an ancient hilltop castle. “I wanted the Spanish lifestyle, rather than Little England in the sun,” he explains, taking a rest from fixing clocks in the afternoon heat.
Five years ago, he moved here with his family and enrolled his son Jonathan and daughter Jessica in the local school. After four years of lessons and considerable help from his neighbours, Forster felt that his Spanish was good enough to open his own shop, which serves Brits and Spaniards in equal measure. “This is it now,” he says decisively. “We’re staying here for good.”
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Álora is one of dozens of remote Spanish villages where Britons have settled in recent years. Far removed from the British enclaves on the coast, many of these latest settlers are becoming involved with their adopted villages to an extent their predecessors never dreamt of. But it is a slow and uncertain process with a looming catch: the more of their compatriots arrive, the harder it will be to integrate.
Even so, the latest and most intrepid wave of Britons to settle in Spain is challenging deeply-ingrained stereotypes of the dreaded “Brit abroad”. For a start, they aren’t all pensioners. “I think the traditional image of the retired Brit coming to live in the sun is diminishing,” says Bruce McIntyre, the British consul in Málaga. “The normal person who used to come here and live on their state pension can’t now afford to do so.”
Instead, he sees younger people moving over with their families, often entrepreneurial types with successful businesses in the UK. In short, the sort of person who is more likely to make a go of Spanish life, and not just wanting to live out their final years in the sunshine.
“I think the newer generation are integrating more,” McIntyre says, looking at his assistant for confirmation. “Yes, a lot of them are intermarrying,” agrees Rosslyn Crotty, who has lived in the region for 30 years. “There still is a lot of Brit-marrying-Brit. But there are also a lot marrying Spanish nationals now.” It is impossible to say with any certainty how many British live in Spain. Most do not register with their local authorities, often for fear of attracting the attention of the tax-man. That said, the estimates are huge – and growing at an impressive pace.
The UK Foreign Office works under the assumption that more than 1 million Britons are living most or all of the year in Spain – a huge number in a country of 45 million people. In dozens of towns and villages across the sunny south and west of the country, Britons now outnumber Spanish residents by a wide margin.
Recent surveys suggest that there is no shortage of others willing to make the move. In 2005, an average of 2,000 people moved away permanently from the UK each week, according to the Institute for Public Policy Research. Spain was the most-popular destination after Australia.
The latest official figures reveal that 315,000 Britons are registered with their local Spanish authority, giving them the right to vote in local elections. That figure is rising by 15 to 20 per cent a year. For the first time, Spanish politicians are starting to court the British vote in local elections. In places such as Majorca and Alicante province, Britons are themselves being elected as local officials; one town has even had a British deputy mayor.
Karen O’Reilly, a British anthropologist, conducted a now-famous study into The British on the Costa del Sol. During her fieldwork in Fuengirola 15 years ago, she found that the British and Spanish hardly mixed at all. “If you could draw it,” she says, “you’d have a Venn diagram with very little overlap.” On recent trips, however, she has begun to notice tentative signs of change. “People are now becoming more involved in the Spanish economy,” she says. “They are learning little bits of Spanish. It’s not a massive sea-change, but it is changing.”
To be sure, there are still plenty of lobster-red lager boys sporting gold chains and tattoos on the Costa del Sol. You don’t have to look far to find pensioners eating tea and cake, or chippies selling saveloys and pickled eggs. Fuengirola, one of the places where Brits first settled in Spain in the 1970s, still has shops selling naughty postcards and British bars bearing poor puns: 007: Licence to Grill, reads one, Live and Let Fry another.
But that is no longer the whole story. “There are people living in separate worlds,” says Crotty. “I just don’t think any more that they’re the majority.”
Britain’s love-affair with Spain began in the late 1960s when General Franco, the Spanish dictator, began to encourage tourism as a way to bring in much-needed foreign currency. Working-class families who had for generations spent their rain-soaked holidays in Blackpool or Skegness flew to Spain on cheap package holidays, made possible by Britain’s growing economy and the advent of mass air travel. For many, it was the first time they had been abroad, not counting the war, and they took their habits with them to the beach.
By the time Franco died in the mid1970s, resorts such as Benidorm or Torremolinos were in full swing, and Brits began to look for a way to stay. For many, that opportunity came in the 1980s, when the Thatcher government gave them the chance to buy their council houses. Many were able to sell, or remortgage, their rapidly appreciating council homes and buy far larger properties in Spain, still far cheaper than Britain at that time. Others, such as miners or steel-workers, got redundancy payments that stretched far in the Spain of that era.
Spain also became a popular destination for Britons on the run after the collapse of the extradition treaty between the two countries in 1978, after a diplomatic spat over Gibraltar. The figure of the British fugitive, living it up on the Costa del Sol, became a source of public fascination after those thought to have been involved in the £6 million Security Express robbery in 1983 moved there.
Though “Costa del Crime” stories still appear occasionally, they increasingly read like relics of the 1980s. Today, British criminals are not safe from extradition – they haven’t been since Spain joined the European Union in 1986.
The Costa del Sol property market slowed in the early 1990s, along with the British one. But by 1995, it was in the grip of a fresh boom, fuelled by soaring UK property prices and cheap credit worldwide. Pension problems in the UK also led many to conclude that any savings were best ploughed into property – at home and abroad.
“Before, people wanted to own a home in the sun – now it became an investment frenzy,” recalls Chris McCarthy, managing director of Viva Estates.
A decade of uncontrolled development led people to rename it the Costa del Crane, and the legacy today is a sprawling Legoland that stretches along hundreds of miles of Spanish coast. High prices and multiplying corruption scandals in Marbella have taken their toll, with the property market on the Costa del Sol again slowing sharply since 2004. Many British buyers have suddenly found themselves in a nerve-rack-ing position, uncertain whether their homes were built legally or not.
But behind the scenes, Britons have continued to arrive, moving to different, cheaper areas and seeking a different kind of life. They are ending up in places so remote that even the consulate has trouble keeping track of them. Crotty says: “You can end up in the middle of nowhere, in places that are hardly more than a dot on the map, and you will find a Brit.” You don’t need Spanish to get by on the Costa del Sol. The English language paper, SUR in English, has hundreds of classified ads by Britons offering their services to other expats. Everything from bars to builders, plumbers, lawyers, and hairdressers are on hand, and can be hired without ever uttering a word of Spanish In effect, English has become the lingua franca along great swaths of the Spanish coast. New technology has also proved to be a double-edged sword. British immigrants can watch their home football team on Sky Sports. They can read their home newspaper on the internet and speak by phone with their relatives for the price of a local call. Low-cost flights whisk people back to their home regions without having to pass through London, often for considerably less than the price of a British train.
But increasing numbers of expatriates are finding a way into real Spanish life – often through that time-honoured British tool of diplomacy: football. British railway and mining workers brought the game to Spain in the 19th century and their influence is often still apparent. The oldest football clubs still have traces of English in their names (it’s Athletic Bilbao, not Atlético), while Spanish football players still address their coach by the title: Mister.
Now modern-day British residents are getting involved with Spanish teams, often surprising locals by becoming their most ardent supporters. British expatriates on the Costa del Sol have formed a foreign supporters’ association for Málaga FC (officially: the Peña Internacional Malaguista) and now make up around 10 per cent of the season ticket-holders.
Posters on the back of Málaga buses show international fans dressed in the team strip under the slogan “The Guiri 11”, using a mildly derogatory Spanish slang-term for European foreigners. English chants sometimes ring out in Málaga's stadium.
“It’s a mixed group – Spanish, English. And we’re all there; we’re all part of it,” says Mercy Chapman, who acts as the Peña’s secretary. “Especially for someone who doesn’t speak Spanish – and there are many who don’t – they come just to be immersed in the atmosphere. And for that period of time, they are just like everybody else.”
Mercy writes a column about Málaga FC in one local English-language newspaper, her husband, James, for another. Their five children all went to local Spanish schools and are about as bicultural as you can get, switching between English and Spanish with ease.
For much of the past 30 years, the English and Spanish communities have largely ignored each other. Spaniards who grew up in impoverished Andalusian villages, many of which were almost abandoned in the 1950s, largely accepted the arrival of so many foreigners as the price of progress.
Mojácar, a seaside town in the parched region where they used to film spaghetti westerns, is a good example. So few residents were left in this town in AlmerÍa that, in the 1960s, the Government wanted to close it altogether. In a last-ditch effort to save it, the mayor started giving away beachside properties to ambassadors and artists, saving the town by throwing it open to foreigners. Today, expatriates far outnumber Spanish residents and the overwhelming majority are British.
Since a large proportion of expats do not register, the town authorities have to resort to undercover methods to figure out how many people live there. “We calculate the number of residents by the amount of rubbish collected every day, by water usage and electricity consumption,” explains Án-gel Medina, a town councillor.
Like many towns popular with Britons, Mojácar must lay on new services for expatriates that settle there, such as schools, roads and rubbish collection. But it receives money for those services based on the number of registered residents. Medina says it is a problem throughout Andalusia. But he seems genuinely shocked when asked whether this generated any resentment among Spanish residents.
“Absolutely not,” he says. “Thanks to the British community, Mojácar has been able to develop and now people can live here all -year. Everyone is conscious that, for Mojácar, the arrival of so many foreigners has been a huge boost.”
Last week, British expatriates even founded the English Bullfighting Club of Mojácar. “How’s that for integration?” Medina says proudly.
Thirty years after arriving in Spain in force, the British are finally showing signs of integrating. But it is a patchy and intermittent affair, often undertaken with great ardour and later abandoned, the process glacially slow. In short, it is the experience of any immigrant group anywhere. So perhaps we should also give the Brits abroad a break, even those defiantly dousing their chips with vinegar on the beach now, for they are very much the future of Europe.
Charity begins in Spain
Joan Hunt broke out of the British enclaves as a result of real determination. She moved to Spain with her husband in 1984 after they both retired. They lived mainly within the confines of the British community. “My husband couldn’t cope at all with the language,” she says.
The two were in the process of changing insurance policies when her husband had cancer diagnosed. With no private cover, they were forced to enter the Spanish public health system. Hunt says that her husband found the hospitals deeply depressing. After his death in 1991, she began to look into setting up a hospice for cancer patients, a concept that was unheard of in Spain.
Today, Joan’s Cuidados de Cáncer (Cudeca) charity cares for hundreds of cancer patients, funded by 560 volunteers who man charity shops and pass around collecting tins. The shops often seem as if they have been airlifted from a British high street, complete with lilac dresses, frilly hats and discarded Mills & Boon collections. But Cudeca is anything but Little England. Around 85 per cent of the patients are Spanish, and volunteers are of all nationalities. “There are maybe two or three people who are not Spanish in the whole organisation,” says Hunt. “We have to be Spanish to succeed.”
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I've been living in Spain for 6 years. I moved to Madrid to specifically learn Spanish, fell in love with the life here and ended up staying. I have since moved to Marbella with my boyfriend who is Spanish. I consider myself to be integrated into Spanish society.
However, I feel ashamed of calling myself 'inglesa' as in general the British living on the coasts or close by still have an appalling reputation amongst the Spanish for being rude, ignorant, loud, uncooth, overly patriotic, critical, cold.....I could go on. The majority of British I've met here do not make any effort to integrate and spend 80% of their time complaining about or criticising the country they have chosen to live in. It is embarrassing and depressing at the same time.
By the way 'eating tapas alfresco after work' is not typically Spanish' - it's a British conception of what Spanish life is like. We all need to take off the blinkers and start seeing things as they are and not as we want them to be.
CL, Marbella,
For Jamie Lear, of London. I am from southern Spain and to me has not given me of eating any briton. In my family, all what we have, has won it with our effort and our work. But you don't say that the poverty that there was here decades ago in Spain, at less how you says, in southern Spain (for blame of the dictatorship) now has become wealth thanks to the britons. No, welcome to Spain, but this country, if has been helped economically, has been for the sacrifice of our grandparents and our parents. At least in southern Spain
Victor, southern Spain,
We all know Americans have a terrible sense of geography so I will just point out that the province where I live, Alicante, is in the ancient Kingdom of Valencia, now the Valencian Community, and not Andalucia.
Unfortunately Jorge of Zragoza perpetuates that old myth spread by Spanish journalists of tabloid standard about the pressure on the Spanish health service caused by British retirees - rubbish, it is the reverse, because the UK government reimburses the Spanish for health costs incurred treating UK retirees under EU law. The increase in usage of many hospitals in coastal towns means they are staffed up and provide services, to local Spanish people as well, that would not have been provided were the expats not here.
The article is great but behind the times as this trend has been identifyable for the last 4 years or more.The majority of immigrants from Britain are people in their 30s and 40s with young families who know that Britain is the worst country in W.Europe for kids
Mark Solomon, Alicante, Spain
I live and I mean LIVE in Mojacar 12 months a year not six months here and six months in UK. I am resident, on the padron, and have even opted out of the British tax system to pay Spanish tax. Most of the Brits that moan about local public services - not enough doctors, police, rubbish collection etc, are these people who do not live here permanently so therefore not on the padron .at their local town hall. This padron determines the number of residents in a town and therefore estimates the number of people required to carry out these public duties. Remember you do live in Spain and as such should accept their way of life, how many of you complain about immigrants in the UK. How about a tax in Britain for people who have second homes abroad!!
Ann Marshall, Mojacar, Almeria/Espana
This article aroused lot s of opinions!
As the world becomes more integrated, cultures will continue to intermingle. Our life experiences will be broadened by it.
Frank, Martinsburg, US
I understand from the news today that 200,000 Brits said goodbye to Blighty last year. This is a big and understandable figure. having lived in Thailand for the nearly 3 years enjoying the sun, happy faces and good standard of living i must say that a better life is available to all away from the overcrowded and overtaxed West..
The last person please turn the light off.
mark shepperson, Chiang Mai, Thailand
Bob in London, these people are not Britain hater's they just hate what Britain has become , they probably love the old country but if you can't get a job or you live in fear due to the street crime or ,quite simply, feel a change is necessary it doesn't make you a Britain hater. Live and let live.
If emigration continues at it's present rate for the hard workers then this country will be left an exponential rise in both immigrants and the so called under class leaving most of the country owned and run by the top two per cent once again and we find ourselves having gone backwards one hundred years.
Well done to all our politicians down at the Westminster Job Club . You couldn't make it up.
Nick Dixon, Sutton Coldfield, U.K.
I couldn't agree more with this article and its good to see more Brits trying to integrate better. My wife and I go to the town hall sponsored Spanish class's twice a week for a paltry sum of 20 Euros a year and as hard as it is for a 62 year old, its still good fun to try and converse better with the locals. There are unfortunately a small percentage of Brits who want to change their part of Spain to Newcastle in the sun or wherever but thankfully most other Brits tell them to go back to Britain if you don't like the Spanish way. In contrast we look at Britain now and see the Islamification of parts of the country where no one seems to want to integrate. The Spanish government and their economy is benefiting enormously from the billions pouring in from Britain and they know it, whilst the same can't be said for most immigrants to the UK who arrive penniless and are an immediate drain on public services. This was the best move I made nearly 4 years ago and I have no regrets at all.
Mike, Alicante, Spain
Bob in London, these people are not Britain hater's they just hate what Britain has become , they probably love the old country but if you can't get a job or you live in fear due to the street crime or ,quite simply, feel a change is necessary it doesn't make you a Britain hater. Live and let live.
If emigration continues at it's present rate for the hard workers then this country will be left an exponential rise in both immigrants and the so called under class leaving most of the country owned and run by the top two per cent once again and we find ourselves having gone backwards one hundred years.
Well done to all our politicians down at the Westminster Job Club . You couldn't make it up.
Nick Dixon, Sutton Coldfield, U.K.
Hoot the Malaga!
Chocky, Mijas Costa, Malaga
"The term British refers to Welsh, English, Scottish and Northern Irish / Ulster, NOT Irish, Alis Camdon. Irish people are not British and haven't been for 85 years now. When it was part of Britain, the Irish were ignored and sidelined - hence the fight for independence."
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
Ireland; whether Northern Ireland, Eire or both has never been part of Britain.
Nervous, Sussex, UK
While it is true that some people don't register at their local town hall because they fear tax implications, as Thomas Catan says, others don't because they are claiming UK government benefits while living in Spain. A subject that is worth an article in itself.
Also - thanks for mentioning Mercy's column in the Costa del Sol News - she does a great job keeping supporters informed and promotes the club, who are struggling to get back to Primera division, with a passion.
Suzan Davenport, Málaga,
So is Graham Forster the watchmaker with the biceps and tatoos or does the Times assume that the readers natural prejudice will jump to the conclusion that this is one of many undesirables exported to Spain?
Paul, Madrid ,
It will be interesting to merge the comments from this article with those from the other one about ''one in 4 children born to foreign parents in the UK''?
However there are a couple of relevant differences:
- Most inmigrants to the UK go there to work, while the majority of brits in Spain are retirees; imagine the outcry on the ''NHS sinking'' if 1 million romanian retirees went to live in the UK
- Having lived in the UK myself for a while, I never met a ''foreigner'' proud of not speaking english and yet still complaining about the ''locals'' being unable to understand them in their mother tongue; the contrary happens in Spain a lot.
The old story about double standards...
jorge, zaragoza, spain
bob, the tacky italian costas are just as bad as the spanish ones, with the difference that you have to pay to be in them (there are obviously nice coastal parts in italy and in spain).
The reasons Spain still comes on top of other mediterranean destinations are: the quality of life, it is still cheap (even when compared to Greece and Turkey), people are more welcoming, there is less corruption than in eg. Italy, Croatia etc, and has a wonderful infrastructure that has been growing for 30 years (taking into account expats needs). You can still find the place of your dreams, whether is costa or beautiful countryside, and have a fulfilling life if you make the effort. And the quality of brits there is of a huge variety, so no need to pigeonhole anymore. We did our move a year ago and are loving it (with its obvious hurdles).
hanna, granada,
Thanks to the British comunity that lives in Spain, it is possible for our country to be as nice as it now... Come on! Reading this article it seems that without them, Spain would not be as good as it is now (I am just saying good, not perfect, of course), which is a excess of complacency. I am not saying they do not contribute, but it is obvious the effects are not as notorious as this piece of new reflects.
And about our hospitals, maybe the staff that works in them is not buttering patients up all the time (as they do in private hospitlas), but they DO treat and look after the patients in excellent conditions, and all of this is for free (or not, because the money to pay for this expenses comes from the taxes that all the workers are paying, that is why later we can visit the doctor without paying anyting).
LucÃa, Cranfield, UK
Fairly accurate article, apart from the notion that people bought their homes by selling their council houses or with their redundancy payments from t' mines. This is dinner party economics. For a long time in the UK there has been a large section of the working class who are (private) homeowners and have saved carefully.
Apart from the retirees, you're right that the younger migrants who are coming here tend to be more dynamic and will, once they get over their initial excitement at the price of a decent bottle of Rioja, get on and become economically active and socially interactive.
This follows the trend of most migrant groups, the process naturally selects the adventurous.
So while I sit gazing at the Sierra Arana, and those left behind sit shivering on their roofs awaiting rescue,
Adios
ashley meredith, Iznalloz, Granada, Spain
People like your poster Bob just cannot see what Britain has become over the last 10 years in particular.
Enjoy your neo police state soon to become Muslim -look at your demographics Bob and your crime and education and health boring huh ?.........
And I want you to have a really nice life. - Really.
Victor M., Malaga, Spain
Irish people arent British?
Is Ireland no longer the second biggest island in the BRITISH iles
Did it move?
They're no longer united kingdomish, they never were great british, but just plain old british, yep, they are.
Dominic, Manchester, UK
An interesting take on life on the Costas. Whilst the superficial glitz so apparent in tourist areas cannot be denied, the reality is that thousands of expatriates are working as hard here - in many cases far harder- than in the UK in order to succeed in their various entrepreneurial businesses. The underlying rationale seems to be that the drive and determination that led them originally to uproot and emigrate - with all the concomitant stresses thus entailed - ensure they continue to strive and achieve.
In my case, I was sufficiently inspired after my arrival here by all the frenetic activity all around to complete my first novel ‘The De Clerambault Code’ which has just been published. And as for integration, I speak Spanish like most of expatriates I know. That most resident British live here in hermetically sealed enclaves may have been the case once but is assuredly a myth today!
Nora Johnson, Marbella, Spain
I am very surprised by Joan Hunt's opinion of the Spanish public health system. I lived in London for 20 years and when I was 16 was admitted to hospital. I was sent to a geriatric mixed ward with aproximately 20 beds. My first son was born in a British hospital and fortunately I was only there for 5 days, otherwise I think I would have ended with malnutrition as the food was absolutely terrible. From what I hear from relatives and friends in the UK things have only got worse over time.
Here in Spain the public health system is excellent. Most hospitals rooms have 2 beds and a bathroom, and only rarely do you see 4 beds in one same room. The hospitals are spotless and the food is delicious, very unlike British hospitals. Last year my son had an accident and broke his skull, he was operated on and had bits of bone extracted from his brain and the whole area reconstructed. He was home after one week, in perfect condition and has recovered totally with no aftereffects.
Esperanza Aguirre, Madrid, Spain
As a Londoner living on the sunny Costa del Sol, I can relate to this. An increasing number of my colleagues are making huge efforts to learn and utilise Spanish and to live as Spanish an existence as possible. Eating tapas alfresco after work, spending quality time with friends and family and just relaxing a little more seems a lifetime away from a stressful, busy life in the UK. I've also made some great Spanish friends who have helped me integrate faster and are a big help with the language lessons! Property prices may have risen sharply but there are still some bargains to be had especially away from the busy Costas. www.propertymartoverseas.com have an excellent selection regardless of your budget and is perfect for browsing what is on offer and where in sunny Spain! Enjoy!
Sinead, Marbella, Spain
To Kalina, Bulgaria: I think you will find that when Brits emigrate overseas, they pay their way and don't 'sponge off the system'. Penniless immigrants are crippling this nation, bleeding it dry of unearned benefits, free medical health, housing, etc., always at the expense of Brits. That's why we're all so sick of Britain, we have to keep paying ever increasing taxes to pay for scroungers. The Spanish know which side their bread is buttered, Brits bring so much wealth into the country, allowing communities to regenerate, providing work for their familes so that they don't have to migrate to the cities (by their own admission). That's the difference, nothing to do with 'double standards'.
B.renda, Manchester, UK
I came from Spain in 1989 as a post-doc and stayed here as I married my chartered surveyor husband.
Britons attending hospitals in Spain are heading for a shock; there are not tea rounds and they will expect a relative always on call at the patient's bedside. However, Spaniards having chidren at least in England (where i live ) are also heading for a shock; no peaditrician will see them regularly, apart from at birth, unless there is anything really wrong with them (like an operation). I don't think Spanish hospitals are depressing; however, i think Harlow (Essex) Hospital is depressing while Lincon County is lovely.
An andalusian, I do worry by the way northen europeans want to live in Spain, we don't have water for you to have a back garden like in Britain! Laws in construction should allow for the different climate.
Mix and mingle. Avoid ghettos. Good luck to the lady of the charity and to the Italy-traveller. I visited Venice not long but i miss Chipiona's playa.
Ines, Cambridge,
Kalina, dont talk rubbish. British emigrants are net contributors to the economy of the host state, thats why southern Spain has been transformed from the poorest region into the richest. Eastern Europeans often bring nothing to England and more often than not they will need supporting by the state. This is not the case with Brits abroad.
Jamie Lear, City, London
All those Pakistanis speaking their Urdu and Punjabi, in an English speaking country. Forming their “ghettoes†with their self-sustainable local GP Surgeries (with Pakistani doctors), pharmacies, supermarkets, and supporting the Pakistani Cricket team. Same goes for Indians, albeit on a slightly larger and wealthier scale (as a lot of Indians are pretty affluent, and work an awful lot harder and are much more successful in all aspects of life than their English counterparts). We need more articles like this to explain that all people are the same and all people go through their own personal journeys to find their identity and place in foreign lands. Give them all a chance, they may never by as “English†as us, but they are making our place all the better with their own cultures and food and religions. Ignorance is a two-way street in the UK.
Sean Dunleavy, Guildford, Surrey
I am a Spaniard from the north of Spain, and living in Andalusia is nearly as strange for me as it can be for any of you. (Even the language is so different!) People here are very welcoming and friendly. They have a joy of life which is infectious. We have a group to exchange help with language with a lot of foreigners (most of them British) and to help them feel part of the place, sharing trips and cultural events. Not all the British, but those who try enjoy it very much.
Paloma Irazazábal, Chiclana, Spain
To Alis Camdon, Toronto, Canada
We here in Europe understand that the level of geography and world events is poor at best in Canada and the US, but to think that Ireland is a part of Britian really takes the biscuit!
Ireland gained Independace in 1919 and has been a free state since. Is Canada still a colony of England?
tom, London, UK
I think the more whinging brits haters stay in Britain the better.
They can be replaced by nice middle class golf holliday makers. ciao.
pepe, Alicante, Spain
Alis, we Irish have come a long way and relations between Britain and the Irish has never being in better health, but we are not British, we are Irish and proud to be.
Paul, Dublin,
What a timely article, I am visiting my brother in the Andalusian province - Alicante next month, he retired there from England. I will have to give input when I get back .
evienita, Charlotte, USA
I just hope brits made an effort to integrate to Spain. In they UK they all moan about pakistanies and other ethnies not integrating to the England's life style. But then british people are exactly the same in Spain, they do no integrate, don't learn the language, don't change the diet or the meal times,... Should I continue? I just think is sad that Brits are such hypocrits!
Belen Catala, Mallorca, Spain
Can't wait for our English friends who emigrate to Cymru (Wales), to integrate within Welsh society, and to learn Welsh. Well, we live in hope!
Gerallt Huws, Talsarnau, Gwynedd, Cymru
Firstly To Kalina in Sofia, Bulgaria.
The only impression I get from your comment is that you dont know what is going on and the difference between British moving to Spain and Eastern Europeans moving to the UK.
The latter move form poorly paid and lower living standard east european states to the UK where there are higher pays and assumingly higher stanard of living. They accept the low wages their employers pay them (because they are higher than in their homelands) and thus take a job for less money that a Brit would take for more. Therefore lower costs for the British employer.
In this case the higher paid Brits move to Spain because of the lower taxes, better climate, lower crime etc and because their standard of living is much better and higher than in the UK they accept staying in Spain and working there with lower wages than in the UK.
Secondly I am quite skeptical about this article but I do hope this is the case and Brits are respecting and intergrating.
Andreas Andreou, Nottingham,
MB people from Northern Ireland may also be considered Irish as well as British.
FN, Dublin, Ireland
Not sure your father will get away from the chavs, Alex...
Amoore, London,
We have lived in Spain for the last five years. Our first four years were in an urbanisation full of Brits on the Costa Blanca. It became a nightmare as we were harassed out of our property by elderly English and Irish ex-pats constantly slashing our tyres and smearing excrement outside our house, etc. Eventually we found happiness in the thoroughly Spanish city of Cartagena. There are not just two alternatives in Spain. You don´t have to live amongst the Brits in an urbanisation or in a remote village. Spain abounds in wonderful cities. The one I live in has excellent facilities and is by the sea. The banks put enormous amounts of money into culture so you can have loads of free or cheap concerts, theatre, exhibitons, etc. if you choose city life. Not to mention the ease of transport, shopping, etc. Our life amongst the Brits was certainly hell but I wouldn´t like anything as remote as a village.
Fiona Pitt-Kethley, cartagena, spain
How refreshing to read an article which says something positive about living in Spain. Over the past few years the UK media has constantly gone into overkill with scare stories about buying property and living in Spain, often giving total misinformation to a public who hang on their every word.
Many of us who live and work in Spain can empathise with parts of the article. We all have our own reasons for being here and our own stories to tell. One thing we do have in common though is that we did not want to continue living in the UK where we were taxed to the hilt, paying for people who had no intention of working legally or contributing to the UK. With the UK no longer being what many of us once called home we will surely see many more people looking to make their lives abroad.
Bob Martin, Javea, Spain
There is, of course, another side to all this. It is not always that the Brits do not want to integrate more with the Spanish but, often, that the Spanish do not want them to. The Spanish do not like foreigners in general and, on the Coast, Brits in particular. This has very little to do with 'yob' culture which more or less died in the early '80's and more to do with an inherent dislike of people making a living, or appearing to do so, in their country. It is well known to people living on the Coast that the Town Hall and the Police operate one set of rules for the Spanish and another for everyone else. They pay lip service to EU regulations having to apply to foreign bars and restaurants while Spanish establishments carry on flaunting every rule in the book. There is a reason why the newcomers do not register with the authorities: if you are illegal and low-profile you are left alone, while if you are legal and play by the rules there is a whole Industry geared to plucking you clean.
Nigel Wilson, Benalmadana Costa, Spain
A great article and something that many would have predicted
would happen 10 years ago. My father included who can't stand the incessant CCTV spying big brother life any longer and has promised me that he will retire to spain in two years, away from the CHAVS and the rising expense or at least buy some kind of property there in the middle of nowhere, my parents divorced 10 years ago and now i'm living and married in China along with many other Brits who can's stand British life and only visit home once a year. Naturally this will happen more and more as more Brits get sick to the back teeth of the country we used to call home.
Alex, Shanghai, China
The more whinging Britian haters leave for Spain the better. They can be replaced by polite, educated, hard working Poles.
I love visiting Italy where you don't find the vulgar types who inhabit the Costas.
Bob, London, U.K.
Double standers? When it comes to Britain, immigration especially from Easter European countries such as Romania and Bulgaria is presented as a threat. Immigrants are there to steal your job, to disturb the law and order of your community, etc. Yet, British immigrants are portrayed as the most wonderful thing that can happen to a country. They save the local economy and start charity. And a British immigrant watchmaker never steals the job of a local watchmaker, which I by the way happen to agree with it. It is the double standards of presentation I disagree with.
Kalina, Sofia, Bulgaria
The term British refers to Welsh, English, Scottish and Northern Irish / Ulster, NOT Irish, Alis Camdon. Irish people are not British and haven't been for 85 years now. When it was part of Britain, the Irish were ignored and sidelined - hence the fight for independence.
If you don't like being sidelined by the English, then seek your independence instead of whinging about it.
MB, Edinburgh,
really ? must have changed a lot in the past 3 months , when I last was there.
Pedro, London, UK
A great article and something that many would have predicted would happen 10 years ago. My father included who can't stand the incessant CCTV spying big brother life any longer and has promised me that he will retire to spain in two years, away from the CHAVS and the rising expense or at least buy some kind of property there in the middle of nowhere, my parents divorced 10 years ago and now i'm living and married in China along with many other Brits who can's stand British life and only visit home once a year. Naturally this will happen more and more as more Brits get sick to the back teeth of the country we used to call home.
Alex, Shanghai,
I guess there is no Welsh Irish or Scots there, or so it would seem according to your write -up of Brits who emigrated to Spain. When you are using the word Brit don't forget it includes the above three Nations ,at least up until further notice.
Alis Camdon, Toronto, Canada
"Last week, British expatriates even founded the English Bullfighting Club of Mojácar. “How’s that for integration?†Medina says proudly. "
The irony of it all.
Odd Hagenes, Fagerhult, Sweden
I'm English but don't see myself as expatriate. Perhaps that's because I speak Spanish and have Spanish friends. I accept Spain needed to progress but the concrete jungle that has grown out of the spectacular Andalusian countryside is so often an eyesore. I must be thankful that I came when I did, for adventure, and stayed because it was all so beautiful. In the eighties I had a mare, Sevillana, who took me all over many parts of a Spain that can only be remembered today. Like travellers on a younger earth we did our rides on all territories and in all seasons, made friends everywhere and looked at life and all things living.
These days I am committed to teaching English to Spanish children; speaking English is so important these days 'for their future' and I get them through their ESOL examinations.
On the whole Spaniards are fine people and enjoy quality of life at all levels of society. They are very welcoming to foreigners in their country - I certainly feel one of them.
Dorina Gutherless, Algeciras, Spain