LOCAL HISTORY
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RECENT HISTORY OF MOJACAR VILLAGE....
By the 1960, Mojácar,
in common with every other village and town in the area, had suffered
grievously under the Falange dictatorship (1939 to 1975) triumphant
in the Civil War. It would not offend good historical
sources to say that starvation was common as life was deliberately
reduced to subsistence levels. This area of Spain had been
heavily Republican in the Civil War and as a consequence had
suffered a policy of ferocious discrimination by the Fascist
dictatorship under General Franco, '...a murderous little Christian
gentleman.' as he was accurately described at the time.
To
get an idea of the official venom directed at this area by
Madrid, consider the consequence of the mid air collision that
occurred further up the coast at Palomares (on January 17th 1966)
between an American nuclear bomber and an aircraft tanker
refueling it. Four
atom bombs were lost in the area, with three of them,
only their non nuclear detonators exploded but radio
active dust was scattering over a  large area. The
fourth was not found for nearly another three months
and it was always believed (a rural legend, I suppose)
that there was a fifth which was never recovered.
To make some amends the US government then paid for
a desalination plant to be built locally to obviate
the need for the local people to use water from what
might now be a contaminated water plane. The plant was
duly built and opened amidst great fanfare, attended by Falange
Government representatives from Madrid. A litre of this new non
radio active water was drawn off - it was also to be the last. The
Americans left and the plant was immediately closed - as far
as the Fascist government in Madrid was concerned, the local
people could grow two heads drinking contaminated water from
the local wells. Thankfully no such after effects have been
recorded since.
Then along came an unlikely saviour in the person
of Sergio Leone, Italian film producer, director
and the inventor of the Spaghetti Western. He
built a cowboy village a few miles away to the west,
just past Sorbas, in mountainous desert county so
authentic, it often seemed a better (and certainly
less expensive) Texas
or Mexico than the originals.
He began with three films, under a general heading
of, 'The Man with No Name' which he also directed,
starring the American TV actor Clint Eastwood
and with musical scores by Ennio Morricone (all of
whom are now  synonymous
with the genre): This triology were; A Fistfull of
Dollars (1964), For a Few Dollars More, (1965), and
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966). The last is
one of the most famous westerns of all time (although,
atypically for the genre, it had a relatively
high budget in excess of one million USD).
It is said that by the time the film makers arrived
in the area, the village was half way to being abandoned. It
owes it present ferocious renaissance to many factors,
not least its unique beauty and position and the
outstanding vistas it supervises, but also to the
film people choosing it as a base. Many stayed on
to settle in the area.
 Another
factor was a movement away from British post war
austerity on the behalf of rich and connected families;
a sort of second wave mimicking Gerald Brennan and
the Bloomsburyites who, in the late twenties and
early thirties, had come to settle further along
in the Alpurharas, the south facing slopes of the
Sierra Nevadas. This migration, necessarily interrupted
first by the Spanish Civil War and then the Second
World War and the limits on travel imposed afterwards,
began again in earnest in the sixties. Also
significant was the decision of a farsighted village mayor to GIVE AWAY
house to those well off enough to have been able to buy them in the first
place - as well as to selected embassies in Madrid. The
latter were offered house in Calle Ambassadories
- hence it's name.
The modern Mojácar also owes its prosperity and prominence to successive
Townhalls who have modernised its infrastructure, right to the present day where
a second wave of street refurbishments are underway, putting all piping and cabling
below ground. This is why the dreaming visitor
can still successfully disappear down a hole in the
street in August ...but as a result we now have everything
the spoilt householder could wish for, from the more
usual service to both broadband and wireless internet. |
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