el camino de los ingleses

Antonio Banderas made a film a few months ago called “El Camino de los Ingleses”, the Englishmen’s road. Many people must have wondered about this “road”, which does exist. It all started when George William Grice-Hutchinson, a London lawyer, bought a finca in the Churriana area in 1926. He was very kind to the local people who worked for him, as a well as those who didn’t. When the Civil War broke out in 1936, Grice-Hutchinson helped 80 people escape the wrath of the Republican militia in Malaga, taking them on his yacht Honey Bee to Gibraltar. After Franco’s troops took the area, Grice-Hutchinson then helped many Republicans to escape. After the war, when the area was ravaged by famine and disease, the Grice-Hutchinson family shared out a considerable sum of money - 12,000 pesetas, which was a fortune in those days - among poor families every month. They also bought an X-ray machine to detect the tuberculosis which was rife in the area at the time. The road all these needy people took to the finca was officially called Paseo de Grice-Hutchinson, but the local people knew it as “el camino de los ingleses”, which eventually became the set for the Banderas film. His daughter Marjorie lived in Malaga until her death four years ago.