Living in Palma

Back from Santa Catalina Market in Palma

Chapter 31
(click to enlarge photos)

In the late 1960s I was staying in Palma de Mallorca at the apartment of Mr. G and his daughter Helen (not her real name) until I could establish myself in my new job teaching music and find my own accommodation. Helen and I shopped weekly at the Santa Catalina market where we bought the vegetable and meat supplies for the next days. All was carried in one or two mesh shopping bags or my big straw basket which we took with us.

I was happy to find this above photo, taken as a slide with my old film camera. It shows part of the apartment's tiny kitchen. Here is another one:

The water heater was suspended from the ceiling, the double sink was low and small and there was little counter space. What you see in both photos is the total work space for preparing meals.

Downtown we would walk along the Paseo del Borne and around to the Via Roma, which I believe has since been renamed. This was the avenue of the flower sellers where the central paved boulevard housed the many stalls where flowers were sold. When one wanted to buy a bouquet for a special occasion or just a few flowers for the house, the Via Roma was the place to go.




On our Sunday outings in the Citroen deux chevaux we would often drive to the picturesque terraced slopes of Banyalbufar on Mallorca's west coast:





As Helen was engaged to be married to her Spanish novio, her fiancé José, she was preparing her trousseau as was customary with young women then. She was concerned that her future mother-in-law might feel that since her son was going to marry an estranjera (a foreigner) rather than a Spanish girl, she might not have the premarriage custom of hand embroidering their linen, such as bed sheets and pillow cases with the initials of the couple.

Since young women then spent hours sewing linens in preparation for a future marriage, Helen wanted to make sure that she did her part by embroidering and adding lace edging to sheets and pillowcases. I remember being so amazed at this detail that I asked Helen's permission to lay out some of her work for a photograph, which now unfortunately seems to have deteriorated more than some of the other photos.


Two big events were coming up. The petición de mano, or the asking of the hand by the novio José, and the trip to Barcelona, where I was to go with Helen as her chaperone, or carabina.

The asking of the hand is often the first time that the future in-laws meet. The occasion is a friendly reunion of the two families, where in fact the future husband does not actually have to make a formal request to the bride's father for her hand. Rather they meet for a luncheon or afternoon tea, the engaged couple exchanges gifts, usually the engagement ring for her and a watch, cufflinks or other sentimental piece of jewellery for him. Photos are taken and some wedding plans may at that time be discussed. The groom's parents would be travelling to Palma for this event.

And the trip to Barcelona was going to be an exciting time. Helen and I would go by overnight boat to Barcelona where we would meet again with his family to finalize wedding plans, see the city and stay in a hotel, all the time while I was to chaperone the engaged couple! That was a trip to which I was looking forward with excitement.

Continue on to Chapter 32 The Bride's Hand
Go back to Chapter 30 Dina Moore Bowden

Eurovision 1968

Chapter 19

(Click photos to enlarge)

My arrival in Palma (Chapter 1) was a turning point for me. So now I'll leave Vancouver Flashback and continue with Memories of Mallorca where I left off in Chapter 12.

While walking around any street in Palma during the summer of 1968, one could hear music emanating from cafes and bars, and it seemed to be always the same song. Not the strains of a flamenco 'cante jondo', or a stirring pasodoble , but rather it was the voice of Massiel who had recently won the Eurovision song contest for Spain with the tune La La La. Having never heard of the Eurovision song contest I was surprised at how ubiquitous this one piece of music could be, but its popularity was probably due to Spanish pride that their candidate had won over England's Cliff Richard with his song Congratulations. In later years it was rumoured there had been some questionable negotiations in the voting process.



I was more interested in continuing with my guitar, teaching and learning to speak Spanish. Somehow I managed to communicate with my Spanish music students but I needed to increase my vocabulary. Helen was a great help as she had been back and forth to Mallorca from England and Canada so she spoke the language well and did her best to teach me. She suggested that I practise learning to roll the double rr by saying the word 'arriba' (up) over and over again, so I set myself to the task.
I'd heard the expression 'Arriba España' often on the radio at the end of speeches so I practised saying that too.

It didn't take long for me to start enjoying the life of downtown Palma. The Borne was the social centre of town, a place to meet friends and stroll under the immense, leafy plane trees. There one could see young couples followed by mama, older sister or aunt acting as chaperone. It was frowned upon for respectable señoritas to be seen walking alone with a young man without the vigilant eye of a close relative watching over them.
Businessmen were seen in hot weather wearing 'guayaberas' the Cuban-style men's dress shirts worn loosely over trousers in place of a suit jacket, often clutching a leather 'carpeta' or thin briefcase under their arm as they walked to and from their offices.

Guayabera photo from cuban market website

The streets of Palma were beautiful.
It was customary for many ex-pats to pick up a copy of The Mallorca Daily Bulletin at a kiosk and have a coffee and ensaimada on the patio of the
Bar Bosch (Link to photo by Francisco Diaz on Photo.Net.) That was one of several places where the waiters were older gentlemen dressed in white shirts and black waistcoats, who wore long white aprons down to their ankles and carried small white towels over one arm as they maneuvered their round trays of coffee through the narrow doorway.

Bootblacks, 'limpiabotas' were to be found along
The Borne shining the shoes of businessmen as they sat and read their newspapers.

Ivan Petrovszky "El Limpiabotas"

Continue on to Chapter 20...... Mallorcan Countryside

Go back to Chapter 18......Off to Mallorca