Muppets

One of the many delights about living in this part of Andalucia is being so close to Granada.  It has many faces dependant upon when you visit.  During the summer months it is a magnet for the hundreds of tourists from around the world.   The main attraction is of course the Alhambra but there is much, much more to Granada than that.     When finished with the tourist attractions there are  plenty of shops to mooch around in, to say nothing of the restaurants, cofee houses and  ice-cream parlours.  A special treat  later in the day is doing the rounds of the many and varied tapas bars where you can get free mouthwatering tapas which come with your drink.    Our last visit to Granada was just before Christmas where unlike many other towns and cities around the world, it was lit up literally like a christmas tree, providing a warm and welcoming glow. 

The area around the Bib Rambla, which is one of the many interesting and intriguing squares in the centre, was especially tantalizing as for a period of some four weeks as many of the local artisans had taken up stalls to promote and sell their wares.  No shortage of ideas for presents. It even looked like the Muppets had come to town!!

But we are now looking forward to sharing Granada again with the women who come on holiday to this beautiful, rich and diverse area of Andalucia.   The holidays will start again from May up to and including September.  This ensures that you will get the most out of your stay here as the weather during these months is perfect for a memorable holiday.

Girls in Granada

Well here we are again, sorry for the long delay but we have been really busy with our holidays for women this year. Earlier in the year we were away in India for 6 weeks with two groups of women.  The first tour was in Gujarat in the tribal area of the desert, the second tour was in Rajasthan with it's forts and palaces and of course the magnificient Taj Mahal. http://www.tigertravel.co.uk/

On our return to Andalucia, Spain we were kept busy again as we had two holidays for women here in Granada.   The first group was a lovely family consisting of grandmother, mother and two grand daughters with ages ranging from 79yrs to 19yrs.  It was quite a test for us as we wanted everyone to be happy on their  holiday. We needn't have worried as they had a wonderful time.  The day they arrived was the grandmothers birthday.  We started their holiday with a bang by arranging a birthday cake and champagne.

The various activities they took part in during the following week ensured everyone enjoyed themselves. They were taken to the Alhambra which never fails to enchant me, they went on a herbal walk where they were given the opportunity to make their own lotions and potions.

 Being close to the coast a half days sailing was a must which included lunch and drinks on board as well as the opportunity to swim off the boat whist anchored in the Mediterranean. 

 
A highlight of the holiday was the chance to see Flamenco in the moonlight after a sumptuous three course dinner. The final night we all went to Granada for a tapas tour which was a fitting end to an action packed week.

We are now able to offer three different types of womens holidays to Andalucia. http://www.senoritasinthesun.com/

Salt and Satyagrahi

How often when we use salt on our food and our roads do we stop to think of its origins and  history, well one woman  in India is doing that right now.  Her name is Jill Beckingham who is the wife of the British deputy high commissioner in Mumbai.

During the early hours of 18th November she started a 17 day 357 km walk from Ahmedabad to Dandi beach, Surat,  on the coast of Gujarat. Her fund raising walk is under the 'India UK Friendship' banner, the proceeds will be going to 6 NGO's (non-governmental organisations) and will be split between three in Ahmedabad and three in Mumbai.  She will walk 25kms each day and there will be three rest days during this period.

Jill Beckingham will be retracing the historic steps of Gandhi when he set off from the Sabarmati Ashram in Ahmedabad on March 12th 1930.   This march was done to protest against the salt laws imposed by the British as well as colonial rule.

As with everything Gandhi did the protest was done by non-violent means and he was originally accompanied by some 78 male 'satyagrahi's' (activist's of truth and resolution).  The 24 day walk ended on April 5th.  All along the route crowds gathered to watch  him pass through their villages as they watered the route and threw fresh vegetation onto the path before him. Many villagers joined him swelling the group along the way.

On reaching the coast Gandhi bent down and scooped up a  handful of salt, so breaking the law, within seconds many of his followers repeated this passive defiance.  The Salt Tax made it illegal to either sell or produce salt, allowing complete British monopoly.  Equally the law made it illegal for people to collect salt for their own use from the coast ensuring they had to buy it . which many of them could ill afford.

Gandhi was to be arrested a month later but his resolve to free India from British rule never wavered and as history now tells us India did eventually gain independence. Jill Beckingham's walk is being done in a spirit of friendship and to raise money for the poor. 

Ladies of the Land

It seems perfectly fitting on this Armistice Day , to remember not only the men who suffered and made sacrifices during the war years,  but also the many thousands of  women who during both the First and the Second World Wars were called upon to work on the land.  They were known as the Women's Land Army (WLA).  They originally started to work in agriculture in 1915 and by 1917 there were some 260.000 women working on the land and on farms, digging and planting, ploughing and driving tractors.

                                                              (Photograph by dan)
In 1939 during the Second World War Britain needed to grow more food and the call went out again for women to work in agriculture.  Whilst many of the women and girls who volunteered were from the country up to a third of them came from London and industrial cities from the north of England. For many of these women the experience changed their lives forever not only in how they viewed themselves but also how the rest of society viewed them.

What is less well known is that  another  organisation known as the Womens's Timber Corps (WTC) was also formed.  They were known as 'Lumber Jills' and their origins also go back to the First World War. During 1940 in order to solve the problem of labour shortage, together with an increased demand for timber, the Forestry Commission started recruiting women to work in the forests and sawmills.

                                                                         (Photograph by dan)
Their work as with the Land Girls was tough, hard, dirty and ardous. They were put to felling trees, sewing them up, loading them and operating sawmills. With only a 4/6 week course before starting  work in the forests they nonetheless proved themselves to be more than capable of doing the work.  There was even a grudging acceptance of the fact that they were just as good as the men they had replaced.  They were paid anything from 35 to 46 shillings a week.    The WTC disbanded in 1946 and the women were recognised by receiving a personal letter from Queen Elizabeth.

Despite proving themselves on the land their work and contributions to the war effort went largely unrecognised for many years.  It was not until 2000 that they were allowed to take part in the annual Remembrance Sunday parade in London.  Later in October 2007 the Forestry Commission of Scotland unveiled a national memorial to the women of the WTC in the form of a life size bronze sculpture which can be seen in the Queen Elizabeth Forest Park, near Aberfoyle, Stirling.

In December 2007 the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs recognised their work by  creating a badge of honour for the women of the Women's Timber Corps and the Women's Land Army and in July 2008 over 30,000 women received this honour.

Women of Spain

Like many women around the world, the women of Spain are the mainstay of the family and daily pull things together to ensure harmony within the home, but with the fall of fascism and the rise of democracy  things started to change for the women in Spanish society.

During Franco's reign social values were strongly conservative, oppressive and restrictive,  enforcing a set of social structures aimed at preserving the traditional role of the family in general and women in particular.

After Franco's death many social and sexual mores started to relax. After 1975  criminal laws against homosexuals were either lifted or no longer enforced,  indeed today Spain recognises civil marriages between gay couples.

Many magazines and films previously prohibited were allowed into the country, one such being 'Playboy which had been banned until 1976. Issues around contraception and abortion where extremely restrictive under Franco's rule, together with the strict attitude of the Catholic church.  Today Spain has a more liberal aproach to such issues.

But perhaps the most significant change in social values revolves around the role of women in Spain. For many women the opportunity of a professional career was very limited,as the woman's role was thought to be in the home as wives and mothers.   The return of democracy also brought about the changing place of women in the work force and society.  During the years since his death women have grown both  in the work place and have increased in number in the Universities.

During Franco's years, Spanish law discriminated strongly against married women. They would need their husbands approval to engage in economic activities, employment, ownership of property or even travel away from home. Over the years there have been many sweeping changes which have become law which centre around marriage, contraception, abortion and divorce. But one of the biggest changes is that the role of women has greatly expanded. Spanish women are rapidly catching up with their European counterparts.

The lives of women under the Franco regime have been captured by Joan Fallon in her book 'Daughters of Spain' and is the story of the hard won changes within society that the women of Spain have achieved.

The Road to Equality?

Although premiered last week, today sees the general release of this new and enlightening film 'Made in Dagenham'.  In these days of austerity and cut backs it is a timely story of a group of women workers from the Ford Dagenham car plant in Essex, UK, who in 1968 went on strike for equal pay. The women not only took on the Ford Motor Company but also the Government of the day to highlight the injustice.

The women were employed to sew seat covers for Cortina's and Zephyr's.   They worked long hours and in poor conditions, for during the summer, the shed they were based in was so hot they practically worked in their underwear and during the winter the conditions were freezing and the roof leaked.  Health & Safety today would have a lot to say about that!   The final straw came when the bosses at the plant declassified and downgraded the women to unskilled workers. For many women workers during this period,  this will not come as a surprise.

Despite many women going out to work, men were still considered to be the breadwinners.   Women have always had to fight for their rights in the workplace and the women car workers were no exception.   The only difference is that these women decided to do something about it. There was little known about the strike at the time as the newspapers did not carry the story for very long, despite some 300 women coming out on strike for 3 weeks. Nonetheless the strike created many heated discussions in households, pubs and clubs, as well as fuelling the all important political debate that the women were hoping for.

                                                        (Photograph by Graur  Codrin)

Another woman of particular note during the time of the strike,  was Barbara Castle who was a cabinet minister in the then Labour Government. Whilst making  no secret of the fact that she was in support of the women, she found it extremely exasperating dealing with Harold Wilson who was  Prime Minister at the time, as he was more ambiguous. Despite dealing with opposition from their bosses  and their male colleagues, the women were not to be daunted.  As a result the first Equal Pay Act was passed in 1970 and later in 1975 Barbara Castle brough in legislation making it illegal to pay women less than men for the same job.

It is interesting to note that some 35 years on,  there are still disparities to be found. The Dagenham women strikers may have won the battle, but it is debateable as to whether they won the war.  Whilst it is now illegal to pay women less than men for the same job, women are still not equal to men in the workplace, because  in the main women's work still has a lower value than  men's.  It is arguable therefore that despite the Equal Pay Act employers are still getting away with it. I guess you would have to ask the women strikers from Dagenham what they think of todays wages for women!

Whilst only the soundtrack to 'Made in Dagenham' is available at the moment, the DVD will not be far behind.

Spitfires in More than One Sense

As the 70th anniversary of the Battle of Britain comes to a close it would not be right to let it go by without highlighting the work of these incredible women. As in every war women were called upon to do mens work and then at the end of the war pushed back into domesticity as if they had never been out of it, and these women were no exception.

Aeroplanes came off the production line and into the hangers at an ever increasing speed during the second World War as the battle's in the air were fought and won with the loss of lives as well as aeroplanes. The very few women who had flown before the war saw their opportunity, but their own battle was not an easy one either.

The persistence of one woman in particular Pauline Gower, saw the breakthrough. A shortage of pilots and the need to get the aircraft from factories to squadrons up and down the country prompted the British Air Ministry to engage trained women pilots. Pauline Gower who was an experienced commercial air pilot also ran pleasure flights before the war.  When civilian flying  was banned during the war she saw her opportunity and approached the Director General of Civil Aviation to discuss with him the newly formed Air Transport Auxilliary.   Despite some resistance she was not to be denied nor defeated and it was agreed that there should initially be only 8 women who would be allowed to fly the aircraft provided they were sufficiently trained.  It comes as no surprise that the women had to be more qualified than the men to be able to fly them.   Throughout her time with the ATA she ensured the highest levels of competence amongst the women and demanded the utmost professionalism.  By the end of the war there were overf 165 women pilots, many of whom had joined from overseas.

                                                     (Photograph by Bernie Condon)

Diana Barton Walker a  wealthy young socialite learnt to fly after just six hours of training, by the age of 22 years she had delivered over 200 Spitfires and other aircraft to squadrons throughout the country. In 1963 she was the first  British woman to break the sound barrier.

Another woman of note was Amy Johnson who became the first British trained woman ground engineer and for a time the only one in the world.  During the 1930's she set off in a Gypsy Moth from Croydon, London to Darwin, Australia, completing the flight in 19 days and 11,000 miles later.  Tragically her life was cruelly cut short in January 1941 when after joining the ATA her plane crashed into the Thames Estuary and she drowned.

So many of these women when interviewed in later life were to remark that it was the best time of their lives despite the dangers and difficulties surrounding them and not always due to the flights but also from some of their male colleagues.   Not surprising then that most of them had to return to a life of domesticity!