Corbera d'Ebre

 Corbera d’Ebre was like so many other hilltop towns on the road to somewhere. Its population rose from 1675 in the mid nineteenth century to around 2250 in 1920.  By the 1930s some of its inhabitants were drifting off to the cities in search of work.  It had been owned by the Templars and then the Hospitallers. It had been a supporter of the Carlists, like most of the region except Gandesa.  Then the Civil War came. The town was shattered by the assaults of the Fascist artillery and the attentions of the Italian and German airforces.  The old town was mostly abandoned - although the last inhabitant didn’t leave till 2008, and a new town grew down the hill.

Corbera d’Ebre was a natural place for our 2003 homage to go to. The ruined Poble Vell is a stark reminder of the cost of war and a place the International Brigades etched in their memory.  We heard, yet more, speeches, attended a meal, something that no self respecting Iberian community can not arrange, and viewed a temporary exhibition of Civil War finds.

Ten years later we returned.  Memory attracts visitors and provides revenue for a town whose population is now under a thousand.  There are now several museums in a landscape that has become more accessible to the visitor.  The town also has a swimming pool which was  avery welcome relief after the hot drive from Zaragoza.

We were there when Martin Green was taken to the place where his father died fighting and we were there when he came back.

Corbera d’Ebre does have the same international name as Guernica but it does have a more vivid physical reminder of what the Civil War meant and, at the same time, remains a place where people live daily lives.

A final thing of less weight but more symmetry.  In 2003 I discovered one of the grandchildren of the Brigaders had gone to whatever Havering Technical College was now calling itself.  We had both been taught History and Politics by Colleen Dicks - me at the early point in her career and she much later.  We sent her a postcard.