Businesses all over the world, especially the USA, were affected and some companies went bankrupt, with financial people committing suicide. Bad years also for Gibraltar though we boys didn’t feel the pinch, but our parents did and were rather concerned about us and for the future.

   To add to the turmoil, the Spanish Revolution started during the summer of 1936 which led to war (1937- 1939) between the Republicans (supported by the communists) and the fascist regime of General Franco.

   I remember being on the roof-top terrace of my parents’ house, home to my brothers and sister, which was situated above Casemates Square, overlooking Gibraltar Bay, Algeciras and La Linea. It was during the annual summer fair at La Linea of 1936 when several shots were fired by the opposing factors in the dispute and conflict. People were running all over the place. Gibraltarians visiting the La Linea fair could not get back to Gibraltar quick enough!

   My uncle, auntie and cousins were living on the ground floor of my parents’ house. I recall a day later, after the flare up at the La Linea fair, my uncle, my father, my elder brother and myself were on the roof-top terrace (azotea). My uncle was using powerful binoculars, and looking towards La Linea and the old Police/ Customs building at the end of the Spanish neutral ground, as it was then, and referred to as the aduana.

   He was giving a running commentary of what he was seeing. “He’s stopped someone in a car, on the Spanish side of the aduana. Something is going on. The driver get’s out of his car. The Civil Guard is looking for something. Something is handed over, looks like a matchbox. He is lighting matches and throwing them inside the car”. At this point I looked over the terrace wall. I could see black smoke rising up in the direction to which my uncle was pointing the binoculars. “The Civil Guard shoots the driver,” my uncle said and concluded his recital.

   We boys, out on The Road, that is, Road to the Lines, we talked about those things, we didn’t understand them or what was going on, but I remember we were afraid. Even when Spaniards came to The Road to sell their products, we were afraid of them. They were Spaniards, weren’t they? We didn’t know if they were friend or foe. The fact remained we were afraid of them. Somehow that ‘magic’ palaver we had with them had gone. 
  
   When we went to Eastern Beach that summer, hardly a day went by that there wasn’t some Spaniard swimming across the border seeking asylum in Gibraltar. They were afraid, trembling and exhausted but the womenfolk took them into their beach tents, gave them a towel, a cup of tea and something to eat. All this before the Police came to take them away. “Not now officer, please, let him finish his tea first,” the women would say.

   I recall one minor incident in which some of us boys, about 5 or 6 of us, were playing at Eastern Beach that summer. One boy suggested “Let’s cross the fence to the Spanish side, let’s see what is going on.” At the time there was no airfield so the sandy beach was side-by-side with the Spanish side, separated by a barbed-wire fence.

   One day at low tide we found the courage to go over and by lifting up part of the barbed-wire fence and bending down to crawl under it, we crossed over to the Spanish side. There was nothing to see, the place was deserted but one older boy started shouting “There, over there, a Moorish soldier”. We all scattered back to the Gibraltar side of the fence. We previously had heard, on The Road, that a contingent of Moorish troops were fighting on the side of General Franco.

   However, in going under the barbed-wire fence back to the Gibraltar side I stumped my right foot on a spike on the fence and slid my foot along the wet sand and in doing so, that spike in the sole of my foot left a five-inch gash. Once back on the Gibraltar side, I was bleeding profusely. My mother had to call an ambulance and I was taken to hospital for treatment. That five-inch scar is still there and every summer when I go swimming I look at my right foot and I am reminded of that incident.

   Thereafter I couldn’t play on The Road, I just sat and watched the other boys play cricket and football, rounders or whatever game was on. One older boy (Lawrence Hitchcock) took it to himself to call on me every time I needed to go to hospital for check-ups or to change the bandages. He would piggy-back me to hospital and back. Regrettably, later in life, he passed on but to this day his memory lives on with me. God bless his soul.

   Later, when I could use my foot, I joined the other boys on The Road to play all sorts of games. Things were beginning to get back to normal and the Spanish vendors who came to The Road did not appear so frightening after all. The revolution in Spain had progressed towards the north and some sort of normality had returned at the border crossing between La Linea and Gibraltar.