Gatwick Airport, a wet Thursday in late November, 2010.
Tim and Beryl Hall are shuffling towards Security, an hour and a half after arriving by coach, and an hour and a half before their flight to Malaga, on the Costa del Sol.

Tim: “Look Beryl what’s that commotion ahead?”
Beryl: “Heavens, police are trying to arrest a woman, she’s wearing a long grey raincoat.”
Tim: “I hope she’s not a suicide bomber.”
Beryl: “They’re leading her away, maybe she was trying to jump bail or something.”
Tim: “You’re never sure now are you, whether people who are arrested are really criminals, or just unlucky, or disliked by people in High Places, or have just made a mistake like filling in a form wrongly, or not filling in a form. Well it’s not us anyway.”
Beryl: “Pick up your bag, the queue’s moving again.”

The woman in the raincoat, looking startled, angry and nervous at the same time, left the scene in handcuffs. Most people looked the other way, not wanting to draw attention to themselves.

Later, sitting on the plane as it descended towards Malaga, Beryl stared out of the window and remarked how brown and thirsty the landscape was. In the airport she reclaimed their bags, they struggled rather than strolled out of the terminal, and squinted in the strong light as they spotted an unoccupied taxi, and flagged it down. Beryl handed the driver a card with the address of their apartment written on it, the driver wrote down the fare and Beryl counted it out slowly in Euros, realising that if converted back to sterling, the short trip was costing £12.50. She sat and worried somewhat while Tim dozed, woke him when the taxi drew up outside the apartment block, and after managing “Gracias, adios” to the driver, they plodded up two flights of stairs to apartment 37, from where they collected the key to their home for the winter, apartment 38.

A month later. Tim and Beryl are sitting on the apartment’s balcony, watching the sun go down.
Tim: “As I’ve been saying Beryl, I can’t seem to settle and I really don’t want to stay much longer.”
Beryl: “But we’ve paid for four months.”
Tim: “Maybe, but we’ve had no more than a trickle of water in the taps all the time we’ve been here, and food shopping eats so much of our money that we can scarcely afford to go out even to the tapas bar down the street. There aren’t many people to speak to, either, not English people like us.”
Beryl had to agree. The block that used to be the winter home for twenty or so pensioner couples from Britain now had just three in residence. Many apartments were empty, giving the block a desolate feel. “It’s hot, dusty and eerie,” continued Tim, “for the life of me I can’t think why we’ve carried on coming here.”
“It’s cheaper than paying heating bills in Bracknell”, Beryl reminded him.
“I’d rather go home and head down to the library in the day and keep warm there,” said Tim.
Beryl was not enjoying their winter in the sun either. There were few acquaintances with whom she could have a proper conversation. “Un kilo por favor”, “cuanto cuesta?” and “no entiendo” did not really count. It was harder to find English newspapers and magazines, too many of their precious Euros were going on bottled water, and you had to be so careful out on the street, especially at night. Beryl was not usually an impulsive person but she too was homesick. The next day, they booked on a flight leaving four days later.

Extract from the Daily Mail, the day after Tim and Beryl left the Malaga apartment to travel home.
‘Hundreds of passengers were stranded at Malaga Airport yesterday when protestors invaded the departures concourse in a vain attempt to prevent the Interior Minister, Roberto Perez, from leaving the city. The protest, called by the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo trades union, was against the government’s recent decision to raise income tax by 30% to give a starting rate of 31% and a top rate of 56%, and to slash unemployment benefits for the newly jobless from 70% of recent earnings down to 50%. The sharp downturns in the construction and tourism sectors have increased the unemployment rate to 18%, compared with 11% two years ago. Several dozen British passengers were caught up in the protests but none were seriously injured although some suffered from heat exhaustion and all flights were delayed by at least 12 hours.’

Bracknell, a week later. Beryl is talking to her friend Christine.
“I have never been so glad to get home in all my life. It was frightening, all these Spanish men chanting and shouting and carrying placards and some had sticks and were waving them about. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if they weren’t carrying guns as well, the police certainly were, and they fired too. Tim said it was just warning shots, but I was afraid there’d be a massacre. I still don’t know what it was all about. Us passengers were just left to fend for ourselves, there was no water and the air conditioning was turned off, I began to feel faint but an English girl, her name was Beth, had brought some water with her and she shared it with me. After what seemed ages, I think it was four hours, the police allowed us to go to the toilets, but we had to wait another eternity until we could board the plane. I don’t feel safe travelling anywhere now.”

Christine had read the Daily Mail, and told Beryl that angry trades union members were behind the protest.
“I hope our unions will be more civilised,” commented Beryl. “I think we should avoid violence at all costs.”
“You mean passive resistance, like Gandhi’s before the independence of India, is better?” suggested Christine.
“No,” said Beryl, surprised. “Not any kind of resistance. We choose our leaders, this is a democracy, after all.”

Note: Unemployment in Spain in August 2008 stood at 11.3%. The starting rate of income tax was 24%, rising to 43%.