Spain runs through my family’s story. In this, I am not unique – there are currently around 300k Brits who are resident in Spain. The average age of the resident foreign population living in Spain is almost 40 years old. However, the average age of Britons living in Spain is 55. Unsurprisingly, the two provinces most popular with Britons in Spain are Costa Blanca and the Costa del Sol. Alicante is the biggest attraction with nearly 77k Britons living in the province of Valencia. In some of the most densely populated British areas of Benidorm and Torrevieja, British people can be 10–30% of the population.
So, when the call came from my nephew and his partner that they needed help to paint their restaurant in Hondon des los Frailes, near Alicante, the ‘old team’ in the family thought “Why not? It’s bound to be warmer than Scotland (and England)” and at the drop of a paint brush we were signed up and on our way. This is part of the great thing about retirement – other people imagine you have skills that you have shown no aptitude for in your previous working life. Now that you have time on your hands, well you must be able to paint. Surely?
What do British people do in Spain?
Prior to Brexit Brits could move to Spain to work in sectors such as Teaching English as a Foreign Language, IT, Tourism or indeed start their own business in, for example, the building trade. The situation now four years after Brexit, is very different.
We drove to Alicante and en route, I briefly spoke to a young British linguist who was on half-term holiday in Madrid to keep up her Spanish. When asked why she did not apply to work in Spain she complained that it was almost impossible to find work teaching in Spain. The number of vacancies had shrunk and it was hard to get a visa. Spain didn’t need that type of worker any longer as it already had a bilingual resident population who could supply the workforce to teach English.
Reduced opportunities are not often talked about by the Brexiteers. Where are Johnson, Farage and Gove now when you need them to explain to our graduate linguists that, although we thought we needed more skills like the ones they have acquired, they cannot move to their chosen European country to take up employment and improve their skills? Where are the Brexit benefits now?
Running a restaurant is a highly competitive business. It’s full-on, hard physical work. In the summer the heat of the kitchen is not for the faint-hearted. Days start at around 8am and can continue until midnight. Many Spanish customers book to eat at 9.30pm. This means the staff clear up at midnight. There are no regular days off. If you want a break, the restaurant closes, the local clientele complains, and you reopen and build up your business again. This is not what I think of as a cushy number. I came away with the overall impression that there are easier ways of earning a living.
The generation gap in Spain
Brits who went out and started businesses like this put their children into the Spanish education system. The adults mastered enough Spanish to get by. They speak enough to shop, order a meal in a bar and can explain to their doctor or dentist where it hurts. Their children, however, are fluent in Spanish and many have a good grasp of another European language. Language learning is central to all post-16 courses. Want to be a builder or a beauty therapist? You have to study English alongside your course. All courses are delivered in Spanish. This puts the British kids living in Spain at a linguistic advantage, which certainly isn’t the case for their cousins who live in the UK. Many are not required to study another European language, even to age 16.
This puts the kids with British parents and a home who speak English all the time at an advantage. It also creates a situation where the same kids are wheeled out to communicate with local people when the parents don’t know enough Spanish to get by. There is a growing gulf between the parents who moved to Spain because they fancied the lifestyle and their children who are now to all intents and purposes, Spanish citizens.
What did EU membership ever do for us?
Glad you asked that question.
Many of our brightest and best took the opportunity that EU membership offered to give it a go in Europe. They have built businesses, embraced a European lifestyle, learnt at least a passable knowledge of one other European language and have bilingual kids.
Some now regard Britain as that small island from where they came, where there are few opportunities to own a decent house, the weather is always wet or worse and they have fading memories of waiting for an age to see a doctor. Dentists didn’t exist. These are the people who resorted to DIY dentistry, you pull my sore tooth love and I’ll fit your new kitchen the first chance I get.
I pinch myself hard to remind myself that I live in a country that has unleashed its potential, embraced our inner entrepreneurism and left the EU trailing in our wake. Then I wake up to the dulcet tones of Gove, Johnson and Rishi on the radio! Spending a week helping to paint a Spanish restaurant has given me an insight into what might have been.
