Galicia

MANOLO LARGHO

He became the youngest deep-sea fishing captain in the Spanish State. Here 83 years old, he remembers how he first sailed across the ocean to Newfoundland in Canada, aboard a fishing boat in search of codfish.

Manolo is no longer alive.

Xandobela, Galicia - Spain

THE GHOST CAR

Vigo, 1936. Franco dictatorship in Spain. The car of Montenegro, a falangist shipowner, roams the streets of Bouzas (Vigo) covered by the darkness. His men arrest union leaders, left-wing intellectuals and teachers: their bodies start appearing dumped in ditches. Antonio Monroy, here in his eighties, tells a story about his father, one of Montenegro’s victims.

Xandobela, Galicia - Spain

CELSA, HORTENSIA, AMPARO AND THE STORIES.

In the long winter they all gatheres in the kitchens of their neightbour's homes to tell stories: Horror stories, funny storieas and stories about the wolf, always prowling around. It was a goo pastime, since there was no television. The houses were full of people, while women sew a little, the old people poked the fire, ther heard and learned the tales, because the had to know them by heart in order to be able to tell them the next day. Hard times but also happy!

MARÍA SOUTO BRAÑA, MANUELA ÁNGELA TOMÉ CAAMAÑO, LUCHA, Mª BENEDICTA TOMÉ CAAMAÑO

Those days they were always singing. There was a song for every occasion: for having fun, for looking for a partner, for not being afraid, to say goodbye, for the ones getting married, to help bearing the hard work. Everybody sang and it was common. Every Sunday, at the call of “ajrú”, the girls got together and they organised parties in the barns, as there were not any discos, and then the boys of the surroundings came, and they spent all the night singing, playing the tambourines, dancing and flirting. They had such fun with so few things.

RAMIRO CORTIZO TABOADA

This is Ramiro's story, about how he learned the family business and how he sepnt up to 20 days away from home, going from village to village, from fair to fair, riding his mule, castrating pigs, rams and oxen. He whistled and they all knew Muras' castrator was coming: "There he comes, the castrator from Montes". He took out his pocket knife and needle and many were almost hypnotised just looking ata him.

It is also Ramiro the bag-piper's story, about how he wanted to become a bag-piper since he liked watching the musicians and their jokes. With his parents at the drums, they travelled every town's party of the sorroundings. He wanted to become a bag-piper and he managed to. The one who could play more songs in his area.

Galicia

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