Fans of Michael Portillo’s TV documentaries know he has a thirst for history as he straddles the globe, bringing us the sights, sounds and smells of foreign cultures.
Often, the former Tory minister adopts the role of the slightly eccentric Englishman with his broad sun hats, orange and purple jackets and vibrant red trousers. But his latest six-part series on the Andalucia region of southern Spain, which starts tonight on Channel 5, is closer to home than ever before.
For Portillo and his wife, Carolyn Eadie, found history, quite literally beneath their feet, in their second home in Carmona, near the Andalucian capital Seville. The ancient town’s roots lie in the Phoenicans whose traders transformed it into a trading hub. It later became the Roman stronghold of Hispania Baetica, renamed Carmo during the time of Julius Caesar.
“It kind of came about by accident when we were looking for a new project,” Portillo tells the Daily Express. “We bought a house in Carmona and we began to find wonderful things, all sorts of historic remains. We found three Roman mosaics from the 1st Century AD under the floors.
“Then we discovered, carved in stone, a cross and a chalice. We also discovered three Islamic arches in a row, pre 1248. They bend in on themselves at the bottom with the pillars beneath them. All these things were hidden from sight.
“The mosaics were a long way down. The chalice and crown had been sort of hidden in a wall and the arches were completely covered over with plaster and the floor of the bedroom. All this had to be teased out again and so it has been a fantastic project for us. It’s given us a most unusual, lovely house.”
Great care was taken to preserve the artefacts and restore them to their full glory.
“We had to take the mosaics out for a while because we wanted them cleaned and restored,” Portillo, whose father was Spanish, explains. “For the period they were out, they were lent to a museum, so the whole town had the opportunity to enjoy them. Now the mosaics are back at our house, sitting at their original level under glass.”
News of the charming discovery makes a terrific introduction to the 70-year-old’s new series – as ever a fascinating mix of the
personal and public.
In the first episode, the former Tory politician turned broadcaster focuses on the breathtaking city of Granada in the shadow of the Sierra Nevada mountain range.
Portillo introduced the magnificent Alhambra Islamic Palace, built in the 13th and 14th centuries by Muslim rulers. “A Palace and a fortress, the extravagance of the architecture stops you in your tracks,” he tells viewers as he strolls through beautifully maintained gardens.
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His father Luis Gabriel Portillo Perez was a Catholic pacifist who fled his home country to escape certain death under dictator General Franco. While in exile in Britain, he met and married Scottish born Cora and they had five sons, including Michael.
Before fleeing Spain, Luis travelled to Granada to meet the poet and playwright, Frederico Garcia Lorca, who was later murdered by Franco’s thugs during the Spanish civil war.
While walking around Alhambra, Portillo explains: “When he [my father] was a very old man I brought back here and we walked in these gardens and enjoyed one of our last conversations. That memory, in my later life, has drawn me to re-discover Andalucia.”
One of his father’s sisters, Ana Maria, became a nun and taught at a children’s school in Malaga, which Michael visits in a later episode.
“Ana Maria became a godmother to me, but I didn’t meet her until I was 12 years old in Malaga,” Portillo tells me. “We got on extremely well. All my father’s brothers and sisters are dead now. For the programme I went along to the school, expecting to reminisce about the experience of meeting my aunt. Unbeknown to me the producers had lined up an old nun, who had been a pupil of the school.
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“She had been inspired by my aunt to take a vow. She told me she went on to teach at the school and she actually taught two of my cousins. Then she produced all these photographs of my aunt. So that was an absolute emotional ambush. It was amazing to see the photographs and speak to her. It was a wonderful moment of re-connection, a lot of memories.”
Portillo’s eyes mist as the childhood memories rush through his mind. Those who remember that notorious “Portillo moment” in 1997, when the Tory MP and national “hate figure” lost his parliamentary seat of Enfield Southgate to Labour amid resounding cheers, will understand just how far the ex-MP has come.
A former Defence Secretary, Portillo was seen by many as a hard man of the Conservatives. Today, having found his feet post-politics as a broadcaster and presenter he is many miles distant from the somewhat buttoned up right winger of old.
His transformation came about, fortuitously, after losing his seat when he was asked to guest present an episode of a BBC series called Great Railway Journeys – taking in a trip to Spain to better understand his father’s roots. In 1999, a by-election caused by the death of Tory grandee Alan Clark saw him returned to Parliament in one of the safest Conservative seats in the country.
After he finally retired in 2005, when the BBC came to launch a new railway series, they remembered his Spanish odyssey and commissioned him. It turned out he was a natural broadcaster. Such was his appeal that he eventually spent more than a decade on his Great British Rail Journeys programme, travelling all over the globe. Which brings us pretty much up to date, and his latest travel series.
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“One of the points I make in my new film is that Andalucia is regarded as very Spanish,” he continues. “It has no ambition to separate from Spain. It doesn’t look towards any other kind of authority in a way that other regions do.
“Many parts of Spain look down on Andalucia because they think it is agricultural and they don’t like the way people speak. The people of Andalucia have a reputation for being lazy, which I don’t think is true. Andalucia is a place where you get flamenco dancing and bull fighting and both of those cultures and traditions are very strong.”
Also for the series, he watches a flamenco dancer perform, but he does not attend a bullfight and today he declines to say whether he supports this part of Spanish culture which many people outside the country struggle to understand.
“My view doesn’t matter,” he insists. “You can’t understand Andalucia without understanding it is absolutely part of the culture. Not everyone is a supporter of it but many people are. I have seen extraordinary things. I have seen people rush to Seville when they have heard about a bullfighter being particularly brave or effective in the ring.
“They rush to see the bullfighter carried on the shoulders of people from the bull ring to his hotel. My father supported bullfighting and wrote poems about it. He was clearly fascinated and drawn to it. He was a pacifist and during the Spanish civil war he wouldn’t carry a weapon. He had a great respect for life and wouldn’t allow us children to kill flies, so there is a paradox there.”
One aspect of Spanish life that clearly appeals to the nattily-dressed former politician is its sartorial elegance, particularly
during the week-long festival of traditional, dancing and singing in April in Seville.
“The south of Spain has a very formal culture,” he tells me approvingly. “At La Feria in Seville, they arrive on horseback or in beautiful carriages for the festival. Even in the sweltering heat no gentleman removes his tie or his jacket. The women wear wonderful dresses with flowers in their hair. Even the crowd who come to see them are dressed to the nines.
“In those situations, foreign tourists in T-shirts and shorts feel quite uncomfortable. My programs are seen in Spain and I think they are fairly intrigued by the colours I wear. They like to get into their best jackets, which might be light blue or dark red, but not orange or purple as mine are.”
In the last episode, he throws open his house in Carmona for a party for his new friends in southern Spain. Some arrive on horseback wearing stylish formal dress and wearing wide brim hats. Amid the flamenco singing and fun, a poem is read celebrating the bravery of a bullfighter killed in the ring.
An old matador costume is laid across a chair as the poem is read by a woman over the mosaics Michael and his wife found under their new home.
“I think it is going to look quite dramatic,’ confides Portillo with a smile.
- Michael Portillo’s Andalucia launches at 9pm on Channel 5 tonight
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