A memorable part of my childhood was spent in Rio Tinto, Andalucia, Spain. There was (and still is as far as I know) a housing complex complete with chuch and school for the British employees of Rio Tinto copper mine. There had been a mine in the Sierra Morena since Roman times, which yielded all the gold for the Romans, but the modern Rio Tinto company mined mostly copper.

There was a secluded colonial life for the British families; for instance, no effort was made to teach the children Spanish. We young children were taught by a teacher employed by Rio Tinto and at ten or eleven were sent 'home' to boarding school, or in my case, to live with grandparents.

The years I spent there are happy memories of sunshine, freedom to roam in allowed and sometimes forbidden countryside, expeditions (sometimes by mule) to mountain picnic sites, or local wonders like the 'Marvellous Caves' which at that time had not been developed as a tourist attraction. We spent the summer on the Atlantic coast near Huelva, where the company had bungalows on stilts on the endless sandy shore - you can see us here (me on the left). I remember the food and drink, learning to swim, catching galapagos, and many activities which I did not realise were my good fortune at the time. I would wish every child could be as lucky.

The idyll came to an end; the civil war sent the British community back to England. I grew up.

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