local history

Recent history of the 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 17^th 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.