The only balanced thread on the Dope, God be praised.
Very interesting stuff. Thanks, all.
I know this is an oooooold thread, but I found it so interesting and exactly what I was looking for that I decided to add my two cents.
I found it Google today, after a US friend who briefly lived in Oviedo and Barcelona in the 60’s started saying how oppressive it all was back then. I was born in Spain in 1959 and lived there on and off till 1985 and my memories of my childhood were very different from her description. I grew up in Madrid, attended a British School and had a large family with a fiery Abuela (grandmother) from Navarra whom I only recently found out was on the right, and on the other hand her daughter’s, (my aunt) family who had married a Judge of a well know leftist family. Apparently my Tia’s marriage to my Tio Pepe, was very much frowned upon by La Abuela Matilde. But hey, she had in her youth married a Norwegian man, my grandfather Joaquin.
I remember many instances where mockery of Franco was the subject when we were spending time with my cousins, especially towards the end when a law had been passed against big gatherings since anti Franco demonstrations were becoming more common, and since we were a large group when both families gathered, we would joke on such outings about the possibility of the entire family being busted by the guardias. Many jokes were also cracked around the time of Francos death, since it took so long, that people would say one of his ministers was walking around in Franco’s old skin and that the “Generalisssimo” had actually died months before.
While I attended classes at El Instituto Britanico, there was a strange class that combined sewing and politics ( Propaganda Franquista ). My parents managed to get me excused from the propaganda portion of the class, I have no idea of how this was pulled off, but I still had to take part in the sewing part of the class. Our teacher was a mean woman who had the habit of having the girls come up to her desk to show their completed sewing assignment, at which point she would almost always sneak her hand under the school uniform skirt and manage a hard pinch on each students inner thigh. I was one of the lucky ones, since the squeeze never happened to me. I am pretty sure that being exempt from the propaganda , also saved me from the physical abuse. Odd but true.
I have very good memories of my childhood, we traveled extensively around the country, and I still vividly remember my adventurous vacations, living in Madrid was exciting but very safe and while my friend remembers oppression, censorship and having trouble finding or being able to buy books in Oviedo, I recall visits to a large bookstore with my father and a house full of books. She remembers seeing a lot of poverty and experiencing a lack of basic comforts, I remember frequent visits to restaurants, museums, parties at home and going to the circus or movies with friends.
Ah, the famous Basque matriarcate 
Did she give your grandfather money and tell him to go to the bar when he got underfoot?
Welcome to the Dope! Your experiences are similar to mine in that you had each foot in a different place, and they were very different ones. Navarra (north and south, to further complicate things) and Barcelona for me, Madrid and Oviedo for you. This is when Franco had already been buried for years, but I remember how many customs were different in Pamplona, Tudela and Barcelona, yet the people from each place would take it for granted that “everybody does it this way” (except people in movies, but movies are tales, you can’t really believe them).
Sorry, I got confused with your own travels around the country and your friend being in Oviedo.
Thanks for reviving the thread. It is a bit apropo, because last night (in Boston) four young people were shot-two are now dead, a third will be shortly.
WE have tremendous personal freedom in the USA-but some people use this freedom to behave like infants.
OK, Franco was a dictator, but you didn’t have to worry about being murdered (by being in the wrong place at the wrong time).
Maybe societies like ours have reched the point that a little more control is needed.
Since the OP requested personal reminisces, this thread was probably more suitable for IMHO than GQ from the start.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
Eh, you still could get murdered for being in the wrong place at the wrong time, that can happen everywhere. You could have been murdered by ETA later in the regime (there were other terrorist groups, but in general they were as efficient as a declawed, toothless wet cat); you could have been mistaken for someone else by a specially sadistic cop; your neighbor could have taken a gun against his uppity wife and, being a lousy shot, managed to shoot you instead. If the last one had had good aim, it wouldn’t even have been counted as a crime, just a “domestic dispute” which got slightly out of hand.
The risk would have been lower? Depending on where and when you lived, yes. Or not. But then, the risk in Boston is probably not the same as the risk in Lousiville.
Still, my condolences.
Someone had better tell Chevy Chase.