About Nick Snelling
Author – Journalist – Realtor
I am a journalist and author of six books (three of which are about Spain). I live permanently in Spain with my family and, whilst not writing, I run Casalasafor Consultancies, a real estate agency for properties located around Gandia in Spain.
Of the six books that I have written, four have been factual. These have included ‘How to Buy Spanish Property and Move to Spain – Safely!’ and ‘The Laptop Entrepreneur.’ I have also written the text to several books by one of the world’s top documentary photographers (Jurgen Schadeberg).
I have undertaken investigative journalism on a wide range of matters concerning Spain. This has included tackling subjects as diverse as corruption, the economy, divorce and domestic violence, drugs, the Spanish property crash, immigration, the Spanish culture of brothel use and even a profile of a high-class call-girl!
I have been a columnist for the A Place in the Sun magazine and I have featured as an expert on programmess by the BBC (Radio 4 and BBC 1), ITV and Channel 4 (A Place in the Sun). I have also appeared on numerous programmes for House Hunters International (US TV) – with regard to matters concerning Spain and Spanish property. This has complemented the time I have spent co-presenting a TV program for a Spanish TV channel, voice-over work for documentaries and ‘fixing’ that I have undertaken for a major TV production company.
I am also involved in international humanitarian missions, which has included working within Afghanistan, Ukraine and Jordan/Gaza.
AWAITING THE TEMPEST Part 3 Imagine it is the early 1970s and you are in Spain… Needless to say, the building boom has had an extraordinary affect upon the demographics of Spain. In fact, since 1960, well over a million Spaniards have left the countryside for the towns and coast. This has been encouraged by Franco after his adoption of conventional economics and his issue of the Stabilisation Plan of 1959. This explicitly recognised that Spain could no longer remain an agricultural society (Franco’s natural instinct) and needed to expand into industry and tourism, if it was to evolve into a modern, successful state. However, for many Spaniards, particularly from rural areas, the tourist industry is a shock. Indeed, this…
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AWAITING THE TEMPEST (Spain from dictatorship to democracy) Part 2 Imagine it is the early 1970s and you are in Spain… Of course, in some ways, life is better than it has ever been in Spain. There is negligible crime, the economy is undergoing miraculous growth and there is more money in the country than ever before, which is producing a burgeoning middle class. This is an extraordinary phenomenon within a traditionally impoverished state, noted for the wealth of a few and the poverty of the vast majority. After the Second World War (1939-45), Spain (along with the UK) received no help from the USA’s far sighted and extraordinarily successful Marshall Plan, which was aimed at regenerating a ruined Europe. …
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AWAITING THE TEMPEST Part 1 Imagine it is the early 1970s and you are in Spain, with the country still firmly in the grip of General Franco (El Caudillo). He is in his late 70s (he was born in 1892) and has held absolute power for the past thirty plus years, since the end of the brutal Spanish Civil War (1936-39). Over 500,000 Spaniards were killed during the Civil War and memories of it are still fresh, with many Spaniards having first-hand experience of the war. Almost everyone is scarred by this and the awful White Terror, during which Franco sought to cleanse the country of any opposition or past opponents of the Nacionales. From 1936 to 1945 there were…
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The Spanish Civil War 1936-39 was a conflict notable for its brutality and for the way it savagely divided Spain. It resulted, of course, in General Franco’s long dictatorship (which only ended in 1975) and was a defining moment for Spain – the results of which can be felt even now. However, the Civil War in Spain was also notorious for being incredibly ‘messy’ politically – so much so that understanding what was happening can be extremely difficult. Everyone, it seems, was fighting everyone, at one time or another, as a bewildering array of political views sought dominance in Spain from extreme anarchists through to communists, socialists, fascists and republicans. Different areas, different members of families and competing regional interests…
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