Snap and Scribble

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Another memorable trip i did in the early 80s was to Basque Country, in the north of Spain. I had a couple of Basque friends in London and they’d gone back for a while. As i’d never been to that part of the world, i decided to go over for a visit.

It was the summer of 1984 and i’d been working as a freelance technical writer for a while. Somehow, i’d managed to save a bit of money and i knew i could stay away for a few months if i wanted to.

I decided to catch the ferry from Plymouth to Santander, rather than catch buses or trains across the Channel and down through France. I don’t remember if i caught the train or the bus to Plymouth. I think it was the train though – they were reasonably cheap in those days.

I’ve only got very hazy memories of Plymouth – but i do remember staying the night there, in a “bed and breakfast”, as i had to be there early in the morning to catch the boat. I think it was quite close to the docks – up the hill and back a bit.

The ferry trip to Santander was twenty four hours – on a boat that was pretty much the same as the ones that did the much shorter Dover to Calais route. It was crowded and cramped and, of course, i didn’t bother booking a berth. I always enjoyed being at sea, though, especially if it got a bit rough. The Bay of Biscay’s notoriously rough a lot of the time, but it wasn’t too bad that day.

Santander is a port town in Cantabria, roughly in the middle of the north coast of Spain, not far east of Basque Country. I caught the train from there to Bilbao, which was probably a couple of hours away. Nowadays, there’s a ferry direct to Bilbao, and before that time there’d been one too. But there was no ferry to Bilbao in the early 80s – probably because the city was in decline and nobody was going there any more.

In Bilbao, i met up with Concha, one of my Basque friends from London, and she showed me around a bit. My impressions were of a dirty, polluted, and run-down industrial city. The air was thick with sulphurous fumes and the mud of the river estuary had a rather nasty orange tinge to it. It didn’t make a particularly good impression on me that time, although nowadays it’s quite different. It’s been cleaned up considerably and it’s gone up in the world a lot since then. It’s actually a very pleasant city now.

Anyway, i didn’t even spend the night in Bilbao that time – i caught the bus to Vitoria that afternoon.

When i got there, i was met by another friend from London, Ana. She arranged for me to stay in a flat that was owned by her friend, Mari Feli. It was above a shop in Calle Cuchilleria, one of the narrow main streets in the old part of town – “El Casco Viejo”. I ended up renting this flat for the next three months.

I knew a bit of Spanish when i arrived, but i wasn’t particularly good at it. By the time i left, though, after spending three months surrounded by non English speakers, i was reasonably fluent – in a limited way, at least.

It was quite hard at first though. I went out to bars every night and i got to know quite a few people. But conversation was difficult. I felt like i had my jaws wired shut, somehow, and trying to follow what other people were saying was a strain. However, a drop of alcohol always helps with communication, and my Spanish gradually improved enough for me to feel comfortable chatting with people. When i wasn’t out, i listened to talk-based radio and read newspapers, which helped a lot with learning the language.

I managed to learn a few words of the Basque language, Euskera, as well. But only a very few – although i can still count to ten! The Basque language is probably the oldest European language and, it appears, it may have been the language of what’s now the British isles, long before English came along. But it’s very complicated and not at all an easy language to learn. Most people in Basque country speak Castillian Spanish most of the time, so there wasn’t the pressure to learn it – or, really, the same opportunity to be immersed in it, like i was in Castellano.

A lot more people seem to speak Euskera now than they did in the early 80s, though. It hadn’t been long, then, since Franco had died – and under Franco’s fascist dictatorship, it was illegal to speak the Basque language. Ana’s parents had grown up speaking nothing but Euskera until they were about twenty. But then it was outlawed and they had to learn Spanish practically overnight. It’s hard to imagine, really. But it was similar in Wales and Ireland at one time – their languages were vigorously suppressed under English rule.

I’m not sure if it’s the same all over Spain or not but, in Basque country, when you go out in the evening, it’s normal to spend the whole time wandering from bar to bar. There are loads of small bars all over the place and you tend to move around  the ones that you and your friends like, having a small drink in each place.

The standard drink back then – and probably today as well – was either a “zurrito” or a small glass of wine. A zurrito is a small glass of beer, holding somewhere in the region of 100ml, i’d guess. Compared to the buckets of beer that the brutish British like to pour down their throats, it’s quite insignificant. But the aim is to have a pleasant evening – not to get paralytic and even more stupid than you were to start with, British and Australian style.

We’d often stay out drinking till maybe six in the morning in Vitoria, but i don’t think i ever once saw anyone really drunk. As a result, everyone had a genuinely good time every evening – and there was plenty of interesting and intelligent conversation, too.

This story’s going to run to several episodes. Part two will be along soon…

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