INTERVIEWS TO FAMILY AND NEIGHBOURS ABOUT THE SIXTIES
MRS. ANTONIA TOSCANO
My name is Antonia Toscano and I was born in 1960. Nowadays, I’m a History and Goegraphy teacher at Pérez de Guzmán Secondary School in Ronda, Málaga, which, by the way, was opened in that decade too, in 1969. Here, I did my BUP studies between 1975 and 1979.
- Did you hear the news about the murder of President Kennedy in the United States? How did you get to know about it: on the radio, from the neighbours…?I knew about all this quite later because I was very young at the time.
What about Kennedy’s brother’s murder?I remember having seen the frontpage of a magazine with the picture of a man lying on the floor, covered with his blood, and with a rosary in his hands.
What did people say about it?I don’t know.
- What did people comment when the Apolo XI reached the moon? Did they believe itI don’t remember it, but my mum always said that it was all a lie, that everything on TV was a lie. Now, I agree with her almost completely.
Did you watch it on TV?No. There wasn’t a television in my house, first because we lived in the country and we didn’t even have electricity, and secondly, because there were always more important things rather than buying a television. When I think of it now I realize we were really lucky. That experience helped me understand which the really valuable things in life are. When the first television entered my house, I was already 14, and it was in black and white, although there were many people who had a colour TV already.
- How many brothers and sisters have you got?I’ve got a sister and a brother.
And your parents?My father had eight brothers and sisters, though three of them died at a young age. My mother had three, and two of them had already died when I was born.
Do you think there was a big difference between those two periods of time?Definately. They had to live very hard times of poverty and even of Civil War, and they went through many difficulties.
- What kind of music did you use to listen to?When I was a little girl I used to listen to my mother’s favourite songs on the radio. She was a fan of the singer Manolo Escobar. But there were many other songs that were fashionable too. I also remember the music that we used to listen to at school, both religious and classical, and folk, too. The ones that the bands, and even the churches’ bells, used to play in the streets at festivals. Music was very present in all events of our lives, even Christmas is associated to singing carols and Christmas songs.
What singers or bands do you remember from your childhood?Apart from Manolo Escobar, I remember Juanito Valderrama and Rafael Farina who were my father’s favourites.
Did you know at that time who The Beatles were?When they were at the top of their careers, no. But, some years later, when I was a teenager I got to know them. In fact, I had some friends who used to imitate them. From them I learnt many of the Beatles’ songs translated into Spanish.
When did you listen to music? And when did you go dancing?In the sixties I was very young to go out and apart from the fair, we didn’t go anywhere to listen to music or to dance. But I remember there were some discos for older people. I really enjoyed dancing, and as soon as I heard music I started dancing, but my father didn’t like it, I don’t know why. Girls from richer families used to attend dancing lessons, but we didn’t have money for that.
- Did you hear about the revolution of May 68?Not at that time. While in France they were having a revolution I was 8 and I was having my First Communion.
Would the parents allow their daughters to study?Many of them wouldn’t. For them, what women needed was just a “convenient marriage”. It was the son of the family who could study, or if the family didn’t have enough money, the sons would join a Seminar, even though they never became priests. In that sense, my father was quite modern and allowed my sister and I to study and he was very proud of us because we were very good students.
Could you go out without a curfew, could you travel on your own?Absolutely not. My father would ask: “What does a woman do outside at night?!” to which I’d always reply: “What do men do outside without women?!”
At what age were you given a key to your house?At 20.
Did women use to smoke or drink or go alone to bars?When I was a child I never saw a woman smoking, only on films and TV shows.
- What did you use to do in the summer? Did you use to go on holidays to the beach, the countryside, abroad…?During the school months I used to live with an uncle and an aunt. And in the summer I went to the house in the countryside with my parents, because that’s where they lived. We didn’t use to travel or go to the beach. The first time I saw the sea, I was 14.
- Did you hear anything about the War in Vietnam, the Wall of Berlin, or the Cuban Revolution? What pieces of news do you remember?No. I learnt about all that when I grew up.
- Did you hear anything about Martin Luther King and his murder? Did you know anything about the struggles of the Afro-American population in the United States?No. I was very young. I learnt about that later on.
- What kind of programs did you use to watch on TV? Where?When I was a very little girl I remember watching a very popular children TV show named “The Chiripitifláuticos” in a bar. Later, we would go to our neighbours’ or my classmates’ houses to watch TV. There was a woman who owned a drugstore and who had a television at home, and one of my classmates who had a television at home too because her father worked in Germany.
- Did you use to go to the cinema?I remember going to the cinema just a few times with my parents, or when we went to one of the private schools in town, where I saw “Smiles and Tears” for the first time. Later on, in the 70s we used to go to the cinema quite a lot! –every Sunday morning and to the CineClub in the evenings.
- Do you remember what you used to watch in the NODO? (The NODO was a news programme totally controlled by the dictatorial regime.)Of course I do, and I remember the peculiar voice that told the stories. It was about Franco’s activity, the inauguration of water reservoirs, his visits and interviews with important state men, news about football, bullfighting, military parades… the Dictatorship stuff. I also remember the people who used to work abroad and who only came back to Spain at Christmas or for the local festivals, like a friend of my mother’s who worked in Barcelona with “Los Tres Sudamericanos” a popular latin music band of the time.I also remember the cages with rabbits in the patios, the henhouses, and the women washing the clothes in the river or in the public washing place. The women who brought the milk to the houses in big metal jugs; and the big clay jugs to get water from the public fountains; the coal cooks… In these small villages of Andalusia, there were very few cars, and white horses would pull the carriage when a child passed away. Talking to people who lived in different places, such as Barcelona, Madrid or Paris, I realised that we were like a hundred years behind them. But I’m not sure that it wasn’t that bad,… or maybe it was.
Manuel Delgado García, 82, lives in Cañete la Real. He’s got four children. He went to Germany looking for a job in 1960. He didn’t stay long there and went back to Spain. This is an interview to a “country bumpkin” as he describes himself.
- Did you hear the news about the murder of President Kennedy in the United States? How did you get to know about it: on the radio, from the neighbours…?Yes, I knew it from my workmates.
What about Kennedy’s brother’s murder?
Yes
What did people say about it?
People thought that a war was about to begin in the United States.
- What did people comment when the Apollo XI reached the moon? Did they believe itPeople commented that going to the moon was impossible, but when it happened, everyone believed it.
Did you watch it on TV?
No, I heard it from my workmates too.
- How many brothers and sisters have you got?I had six brothers and sisters. But three of them have already died.
And your parents?
My father had two, and my mother had five.
Do you think there was a big difference between those two periods of time?
Yes, in my time there was lack of food because of the war.
- What kind of music did you use to listen to?I used to listen to “pasodoble” and “copla” (two Spanish folk types of music)
What singers or bands do you remember from your childhood?
I remember “la niña de la puebla” and “Juanito Valderrama”.
Did you know at that time who The Beatles were?
I don’t know who The Beatles were.
When did you listen to music? And when did you go dancing?
I used to listen to music in some parties and when the musicians came to the village. And we used to go dancing to some “verbenas”. (Parties that were held in the street by the people of the neighbourhood, usually in the summer evenings, with music and drinks)
- Did you hear about the revolution of May 68?No.
Would the parents allow their daughters to study?
Yes, those who had money for it.
Could the girls go out without a curfew, could you travel on your own?
No. The girls had a curfew set by the father, and they weren’t allowed to travel on their own.
At what age were you given a key to your parents’ house?
I was never given my own set of keys to my parents’ house.
What courses did you study?
I studied until I was 10. I learnt the few things that I know from my father after work.
Did women use to smoke or drink or go alone to bars?
Very few women smoked or drank alcohol. The went to the bars and cafés with their husbands, brothers, sisters, parents…
- What did you use to do in the summer? Did you use to go on holidays to the beach, the countryside, abroad…?We didn’t go anywhere. We’d just swim in a pool when it was very hot.
- Did you hear anything about the War in Vietnam, the Wall of Berlin, or the Cuban Revolution? What pieces of news do you remember)I remember something about a war in Vietnam, but at that time I didn’t understand much about wars.About the Wall of Berlin, I remember that they built it and then they destroyed it.About the Cuban revolution, I don’t remember anything.
- Did you hear anything about Martin Luther King and his murder? Did you know anything about the struggles of the Afro-American population in the United States?I don’t remember anything about it.
- What kind of programs did you use to watch on TV? Where?I didn’t watch any TV programmes.I don’t remember any actors of the time.
- Did you use to go to the cinema?I only went to the cinema when I had enough money, which wasn’t very often.
- Do you remember what you used to watch in the NODO? (The NODO was a news programme totally controlled by the dictatorial regime.)I remember watching films about The Spanish Legion (a military unit)I watched the news about Spain and the Legion.ANTONIO OSUNAAntonio Osuna Ponce was born on 8th October 1946 in Cañete La Real. He remembers the decade of the sixties as a nice period, though he had to go several times to France to work.
- Did you hear the news about the murder of President Kennedy in the United States? How did you get to know about it: on the radio, from the neighbours…? What about Kennedy’s brother’s murder? What did people say about it?Yes, it was 1963. I was on the bus to Torremolinos, where I was working, and we heard it on the radio. The people on the bus, and especially the driver, got very excited and they said that it was a terrible crime and very unfair.
- What did people comment when the Apollo XI reached the moon? Did they believe it? Did you watch it on TV?It was said that it was the beginning of many trips to the moon. I watched it in a bar, the news and the images were repeated again and again on TV, but most of us didn’t believe it.
- How many brothers and sisters have you got? And your parents? Do you think there was a big difference between those two periods of time?We were 8 brothers and sisters, but two of them died at a very young age from very high fever. In my father’s family they were six children, and in my mother’s they were also 6. There are plenty of differences between their childhood and mine.
- What kind of music did you use to listen to? What singers or bands do you remember from your childhood? Did you know at that time who The Beatles were? When did you listen to music? And when did you go dancing?The Twist, Formula V, Raphael… The Beatles were a foreign band of four members. We went dancing at night to the verbenas, because there weren’t any discos.
- Did you hear about the revolution of May 68? Would the parents allow their daughters to study? Could you go out without a curfew, could you travel on your own? At what age were you given a key to your parents’ house? Did women use to smoke or drink or go alone to bars?Most women weren’t allowed to study, travel alone or stay out late. I was never given a key to my house, there was only one and my father had it. I learnt to read and write during the military service and I think it was a privilege. When I went to France and Germany to work, I used to write my workmates letters, since they couldn’t do it. I hardly ever saw a woman smoking at that time.
- What did you use to do in the summer? Did you use to go on holidays to the beach, the countryside, abroad…?We used to go to the countryside.
- Did you hear anything about the War in Vietnam, the Berlin Wall, or the Cuban Revolution? What pieces of news do you remember?When the Berlin Wall fell, I was there, in Berlin, in the “good” side. Everybody was very happy.
- Did you hear anything about Martin Luther King and his murder? Did you know anything about the struggles of the Afro-American population in the United States?Yes, Martin Luther King was killed in 1968. He faught for the rights of the Afro-American population. They were being descriminated in the United States.
- What kind of programs did you use to watch on TV? Where?I watched TV in the bars of the village. My favourite TV character was Jorge Mistral.
- Did you use to go to the cinema? Do you remember what you used to watch in the NODO? (The NODO was a news programme totally controlled by the dictatorial regime.)I really liked going to the cinema. I remember some films such as “El Derecho a Nacer”, “Abuelo made in Spain”, “El Padre Manolo” and the first film I saw at the cinema was “Gone With The Wind”.The NODO was all about Franco.
