DATELINE: PORTLAND, SPAIN

If only Henry VIII had handled his break-up with Catherine of Aragn better back in 1533,
writes Jos Lus Gutirrez, the Spanish flag might not be flying over Portland Castle today.
THE 18th of August, the anniversary of the
Treaty of Madrid in 1604, is celebrated with
aplomb every year on the Isle of Portland, or
Prtland, as we transliterate it in Spanish. Every
year in the Plaza de la Armada, in El Pozo de
la Fortuna, a flag-raising ceremony is held by
officers of all three branches of the Spanish
Armed Forces. El Pozo, as it is more
commonly known, was once known in English
as Fortuneswell, but even in Britain, few call
it that now, apart from irridentists, though the
Daily Telegraph and Daily Mail do put El Pozo
in scare quotes.
As the flag is raised, the crowds of portlanderos
sing La Marcha Real with such gusto that they
can be heard from Weymouth: Viva Espaa,
alzad los brazos, hijos del pueblo espaol, que vuelve a
resurgir... For those like me, from Spain proper,
this display of ultra-Spanishness is a bizarre
spectacle, given that our national anthem has
not had official words for decades, but here
they still sing the ones sung under Franco.
When he ordered the frontier closed in 1969,
it saved us from creeping anglicisation, it

reaffirmed our Spanish identity, I was told by

taxi driver Jos Smith.
However, the language of Cervantes is not the
vernacular choice of most portlanderos, who
speak an English patois which mixes Dorset
dialect with Spanish, with a spray of Cornish,
Breton, Flemish, Danish and Yiddish loanwords, as befits their mixed ethnic origins: s,
hombre, them grockels is well meshuggah or dgame
once, oim gang hyem. This is an endless source of
fascination for visiting linguistics students, from
Britain or Spain, who would be loath to see
portlanderos speaking anything more standard,
as their university research grants would soon
dry up.
Pedants split hairs over whether Portland, a
four square-mile chunk of limestone south of
Weymouth is an island or a peninsula, though
the correct term is a tied island. However,
motor vehicles pass seamlessly between this
Spanish plaza de soberana and the British
hinterland, as portlanderos drive on the left.
Even after seeing a sign with Bienvenidos a la
Ciudad Autnoma de Prtland, Espaa with the

FOREIGN AFFAIRS REVIEW September-October 2016

citys flag flying alongside the Spanish and

European ones, it feels no different from
driving along the A354 from Weymouth.
Portlands flag, cream, green and blue, and
defaced with a white castle and gold coronet,
is in fact English in origin, predating the
cession of the island to Spain in 1604. Its
adoption by the Spanish was meant to be a
goodwill gesture to the people of Portland,
who were told that they could maintain their
way of life, but most chose to leave rather than
be governed from Madrid. As is so often the
case with free ports and coastal enclaves,
people from elsewhere came to take their
place, like the Cornish, the Bretons, the
Flemish (including Hasidic Jews from
Antwerp) and the Danes.
Local names, consequently, are a mix of the
Hispanic, the Celtic and the Germanic. The
citys Socialist Mayor, is Carlos Vranckx,
whose tailor ancestors hailed from Ghent,
while it is represented in Madrid by the
Partido Populars Deputy Julio Trelawney,
descended from fishermen from Penzance,
and Senator Fernando Rasmussen, whose
ancestors were merchants from Esbjerg. On
the other hand, businessman Derek Lpez is
descended from Badajoz peasants and
enviromental activist Cheryl Ortegas ancestors
were sailors from La Corua.
But they all see themselves as Spanish, in
much the same way as people of Hispanic
and non-Hispanic origin alike now see
themselves as Argentines or Chileans. Even
when they talk in portlandero about goin
mainland, they refer not to a daytrip to
Weymouth but a flight to Madrid, from the
tiny airport whose runway juts out of Chesil
Beach. Along with traffic on the left, the only
concession to geography they make is the time
zone, with Radio Nacional de Espaa
announcing that it is twelve oclock, eleven
oclock in the Canaries y Portlnd. And
London.
Thanks to satellite television, people in El Pozo
can watch the same programmes at the same

time as their compatriots in Madrid. So great

has been its influence that there has been a
language shift among the younger generation,
who, despite being fanatical supporters of
Liverpool and Tottenham, now prefer to wait
until British and US programmes are shown
dubbed in Spanish than watch them immediately in the original English. In any event,
the local cinema has never shown Hollywood
films in the versin original with subtitles.
What, though, do the British themselves think
of the Spanish presence in Portland? This, I
thought, would be a particularly thorny issue
for me to discuss with them given my status as
a government official in Madrid. And surely, I
thought, they would hanker after it, as we
might hanker after Gibraltar, had it been
seized in the Anglo-Dutch War in 1704.
Havent their schoolchildren here ever been
taught about how Spain not only wrested
control of Portland, but also Penzance, later
returned to England under the Treaty of
Whitehall in 1686?
Surprisingly, I discovered, this was not the
case, and was told by one Guardian journalist
that whereas Gibraltar being British (said with a
sneer) would contaminate the local culture,
Portland being Spanish (said with a purr) had
been culturally vibrant and enriching. London
food critics, for example, wax lyrical about
how portlandero chefs like Chico Kreiswerth
cook up such fusion food delights as kosher
chorizo waterzooi in a scrumpy-flavoured
broth at 3000 a bowl at his restaurant in El
Pozo, which is only open three times a year
when he feels like it.
Occasionally there are protesters outside the
Spanish Embassy from the Portland Is British
Group, which attracts oddballs claiming to be
the descendants of those who were, they say,
expelled by the Spanish in 1598. Next year in
Fortuneswell, next year in Fortuneswell, next
year, next year! they sing, to the tune of God
Save The Queen. Some even went to New York
to petition the UN Decolonisation Committee,
only to be politely ignored. Usually they are

FOREIGN AFFAIRS REVIEW September-October 2016

joined by the far-right British Alliance, though

the cranky Libertarian Marxist Network also
joins them at border pickets.
As for the Spanish, while the right-wing press
like ABC and La Razn idealise and
mythologise la Isla de Portlnd as a reminder of
when their forefathers held sway over what is
now Belgium and Luxembourg, the Spanish
living in Britain, particularly the younger ones,
tend to roll their eyes when asked about the
place, like my friend Marisa, who scoffed
Portland? If I want northern Europeans who
speak weird Spanish, Ill hang out with
Germans in Mallorca - at least the weathers
better. Men kiss me on both cheeks and its
nothing sexual, but portlanderos think its a
come-on!
She had, she said dismissively, never had the
occasion to go to Portland, imagining it to be
the only place in Spain where the locals wore
socks with sandals, not just the tourists, albeit
more understandably in a cold climate.
Spanish army conscripts on Portland, however,
found portlandera women difficult to fathom,
Nordic ice maidens who would recoil when
men tried to kiss them on both cheeks, but
have few qualms about staggering around
drunk and scantily clad even in winter as if
Portland were on the Costa del Sol.
As the portlanderos would say in their Yiddishinfluenced Spanglish parlance, our meids got
chutzpah no? On the other hand, the Hasidic
Jewish girls on Portland are off-limits to any
Gentile, Spanish or otherwise. Unlike the
Sephardic Jews in Spain and Portugal who
have largely assimilated and abandoned their
faith, the Hasidic Jews of Portland fiercely
guard their identity, so the sight of bearded
men dressed in black wearing shtreimelech or big
furry hats is far more of a culture shock to
visitors from Madrid than from London.
As an autonomous Spanish city, Portland has
been able to slash its rates of personal and
corporate tax, despite threats from Brussels,
not only attracting people from el mainland, but
across the border, with the old Spanish army

barracks having been transformed into a hub

for young IT entrepreneurs. One anomaly of
Portland is that under the Treaty of Madrid, it
retained English common law, accounting for
bewigged barristers rather than bareheaded
abogados, walking to the Supreme Court, past
the yellow pillar boxes of Correos y
Telgrafos.
Indeed, the loudest denunciation of the British
Consulate-General in El Pozo as of late has not
been that it is a capitulation to Spain, but
rather an overpaid taxpayer-funded non-job
for defeated Weymouth district councillors.
But was it? I decided to pay it a visit. I had
met the Consul-General before, and still had
his card with his contact details: Calle del
Prncipe de Asturias 26, 51000 El Pozo de la
Fortuna, Portlnd, Tel: 0034 940... Apart from
the Portlnd, who would have guessed that
this were just south of Weymouth?
The Consulate-General, I found, is in a nondescript building, flies no Union Flag and
displays no Royal Coat of Arms, as if it were
an Interests Section in enemy territory. New
York or Hong Kong this was not. It is
identifiable only by a small hand-written sign
by the doorbell: CONSULADO-GENERAL
BRITNICO. Asking for directions to it in El
Pozo elicits the same reaction among locals as
asking directions to an opium den; first a look
of disdain, then a turn to see if anyone they
know is within earshot, and then a whispered
turn left, second on the right.
Until 1969, it had occupied a more prominent
building in El Pozo, the former Casa Britnica,
but this was firebombed by local Falangists, on
the orders, some say, of General Franco
himself. This was in protest at the British
governments decision to grant asylum to
Spanish pro-democracy activists. The incident
prompted a formal apology from Whitehall,
which then deported the activists to their
deaths at the hands of Spanish firing squads.
The former Casa Britnica is now Casa
Irlandesa, owned by shadowy businessman
and rumoured IRA man Tadhg Nill.

FOREIGN AFFAIRS REVIEW September-October 2016

I rang the doorbell, and heard a crackling

s... Good afternoon, I have an appointment
with the Consul-General, I said, enunciating
clearly. Como? came the reply. This did not
augur well. I then switched to Spanish:
Buenos das, tengo una cita... but was cut
short before the door buzzed and I was let
through. A dour, frumpy, bespectacled
portlandera looked suspiciously out at me over
the banister before motioning me to come
upstairs. The office bore no portrait of the
Queen, and once again, no Union Flag, only a
Visit Britain calendar.
Geoffrey Hume, despite having only ever
having been Vice-Chair of Weymouth and
Portland Borough Councils Management
Committee, had the same unctuous fluency
and spin as any Foreign Office mandarin or
desk officer. Granted, he said, there was
tobacco smuggling from Portland into Britain,
but no worse than that resulting from British
people coming back from Belgium and
Portugal, with suitcases bulging with Golden
Virginia. And Portland was within the EU
Customs Territory, like mainland Spain, but
unlike the VAT-free Canaries.
Hearing this apologia for Spain, I could have
been forgiven for thinking I were in the
Spanish Consulate-General in Weymouth,
rather than the British Consulate-General in
Prtland. A shibboleth for those close to Spain
(including the BBC) is the Spanish pronunciation Porrt-lahnd with a trilled r, as well as
the use of the acute accent on the o. Its reminiscent of left-wing solidarity activists who talk
about Neekarr-aghwa and Chee-lay. However,
those who are not spell and pronounce it as
they would the city in Oregon, or with a West
Country burr.
If you dont mind me asking, I said, in the
full knowledge that he would, how do you fill
your day? Hume smiled. Well, just like my
counterparts in other parts of Spain, say,
Malaga or Ibiza, I have to deal with anti-social
tourists, or rather, tobacco smugglers, though I
usually tell them theres nothing I can do and

leave the Guardia Civil to do their worst... He

stopped abruptly, before going on. I mean, its
not as if we have British consular courts any
more! Indeed not, though at this rate, he
might advocate the Spanish having ones of
their own in Britain, not least in Weymouth.
I then decided to pay a visit to the offices of
La Crnica Portlandera, the local daily newspaper. Founded in 1754, it prides itself on
being one of the oldest in the Spanish-speaking
world. Even after La Crnica finally started its
online edition in 2004, one of the last Spanish
newspapers to do so, there is still something
charmingly anachronistic about it, with its
magisterial use of capital letters in 1970s
typefaces, though its front and back pages are
now in colour. Long the voice of the
establishment, it faces competition in print
from the livelier Vista, and online from
portlandhoy.es.
Still the newspaper of record, La Crnica is a
strange mix of the global and the parochial,
with that days front cover juxtaposing the
latest news on the coup in formerly Spanish
Equatorial Guinea with complaints that Mayor
Vranckx was wasting money on the lavish Da
de Prtland reception in Madrid while the
public library in the Casa de Juan Gabardino
had to appeal for donations of books because
of budget cuts. In other local news, the
Guardia Civil had busted a racket selling
pirated Canal Plus viewing cards to Weymouth pubs showing live football.
The offices of La Crnica are across from the
Cathedral of the Virgin Mary. This comes
under the authority of the Bishop of Portland
in Europe, a diocese created by Pope Paul V
on the insistence of King Felipe III. Like so
many old buildings on Portland, it is built from
limestone rock, though built in Brabantine
Gothic style, it looks more like a scaled-down
version of St Rumbolds in Mechelen, albeit
with a completed spire. As coincidence would
have it, Bishop Enrique Blommaerts eldest
nephew is La Crnicas editor, Jeroen Ignacio.
Jeroen, like many portlanderos of northern

FOREIGN AFFAIRS REVIEW September-October 2016

European extraction, is blonde-haired and tall,

despite his Spanish surname hinting at a
swarthier appearance. Despite having studied
and then worked in Seville, his Spanish, while
educated, still has a noticeable local accent,
with its clipped consonants and closed vowels,
which reminds me of Portuguese. Given the
love-hate relationship of the portlanderos with el
mainland, with some idealising it despite never
having lived there, and others despising it
having moved to Portland to escape it, how, I
asked him, had his experience of it been?
I loved Seville, but the whole experience of
Spain made me feel more conscious of being
portlandero, Spanish, granted, and proudly so,
but northern European in outlook, influenced
by the mercantile traditions of Antwerp and
Copenhagen, and exposed to the values of the
Enlightenment, something Spain never truly
had. Sure, my family is Catholic, but most
people here are Anglican or Lutheran.
Peering through his rimless spectacles, he
added: And time is something we value here,
la hora portlandera es la hora inglesa, as youve
probably heard before.
And how did he view Perfidious Albion to the
north? He laughed. Were not as close as you
think, but were closer than we admit. So you
do wear socks with sandals, then? I teased,
remembering Marisas jibe. No, and I dont
have carpet on my bathroom floor either!
Jeroen shot back. That said, the use of English
common law has been an asset in attracting
companies here. In Dubai, theyve set up an
international finance centre operating under
common law, complete with a court with
judges from common law jurisdictions, but
weve had that from day one.
Hybrid societies like Portland can be
fascinating places, but their hybrid nature is
often a mixed blessing, as they can embody
the worst of both worlds as well as the best.
Despite being derided in Spain as a relic of
Francoism (not helped by the Free Augusto
Pinochet concert some years back) Portland
has managed to avoid many of the pitfalls of

other hybrid societies, especially in small

jurisdictions. These often result in too many
big fish in a small pond, and with it, a culture
of class deference, much as British Ceuta was
before the Moroccan invasion in 1982.
The war over Ceuta, or Sebta as those who
side with Morocco call it, sharply divided
British public opinion, but Spanish diplomatic
and support proved invaluable, reinforced
with more tacit military support from the
Spanish naval base in Gibraltar. As a gesture
of gratitude, Dorset Police foiled a plot by
Moroccan intelligence to set off a bomb a
Spanish military parade in Portland, though
even after diplomatic relations with Rabat
were restored, the way in which the Moroccan
officers were killed in a shoot-out remains a
bone of contention.
One positive outcome of the 1982 war for
Ceuta was not simply a reinforced British
military presence, but also an end to the
dominance of politics and business by the socalled twenty families, and the emergence of
a can do culture in place of the do you know
who I am? one that once prevailed. Preinvasion Ceuta was romanticised in Britain by
Old Labour statists and High Tory paternalists,
essentially Italian and Portuguese family
capitalism disguised in British nomenclature,
with Sir and QC this, and MBE and JP
that.
Today, Gibraltar, of dwindling strategic value
to the Spanish Navy, never mind NATO, now
looks enviously across the strait to the British
overseas territory of Ceuta, and can only
dream of having the advantage of Portland in
being an enclave of Spain in Britain. Its
mayors frequently make appeals to Madrid to
grant it free port status, but all fall on deaf
ears. It all seems so unfair to a place that has
protested its loyalty to the Spanish Crown ever
since 1462. Would it have been any worse off
today had it been seized by Anglo-Dutch
forces in 1704? Maybe, but well never know.
Jos Lus Gutirrez is Head of the Portland Affairs
Section in the Ministry of the Interior in Madrid

FOREIGN AFFAIRS REVIEW September-October 2016