Gibraltar: My Rock

My name is Ana Garcia, my home is the Rock of Gibraltar -

a tiny piece of Britain on the southern tip of Spain.

Gibraltar has spent 300 years torn between these old colonial rivals -

Britain and Spain - but for me, Gibraltar's home.

As I prepare to return to get married, I find myself

more curious than ever about my deep connection to this ancient rock.

Maybe if I can unravel the conflicted history of the Rock,

I can answer some of the questions

about who I am and where I come from.

My family played a prominent role in the recent

political wrangles over Gibraltar, so by exploring old archives -

some family Super 8 footage and new interviews -

I hope to fully understand the story of Gibraltar,

and the people on the Rock.

Gibraltar's paradise. There's nowhere, I challenge anybody

to tell me where there's a better place then Gibraltar.

Sometimes we get rain, but otherwise everything you want is here -

whether you're a Hindu, Muslim, Jewish, Catholic, Protestant -

we're all one big family.

Britain captured Gibraltar from Spain in 1704,

and with it took control of the strategy gateway to

the Mediterranean between Europe and Africa.

In the Treaty of Utrecht, the King of Spain signed Gibraltar away

to Britain for ever.

The Rock became a British military garrison -

and soon trade began with Mediterranean neighbours.

Eventually these merchants began to settle within the garrison walls.

The garrison became a country and it's countrymen, the Gibraltarians.

Gibraltar is a...politically, it is a country.

It has its own parliament, it has its own airport,

its own hospitals, its own schooling systems.

It has everything that a country has.

The only thing that makes me hesitate slightly is

because we're 30,000 people.

As you know, we say here,

British we are, British we stay, but Spanish we speak all day.

I'm a British Gibraltarian, I'm a Gibraltarian,

yet I love bull fighting, with all due respects to the RSPCA.

So we have the best of both worlds.

When people say we're more British than the British - I say you've

got it all wrong - it's not that we're more British than the British,

it's that we are more Mediterranean

about being British then the Anglo-Saxons.

Life on the Rock hasn't always been easy.

Spain believes Gibraltar should be Spanish,

and has spent centuries trying to regain it.

In 1954, Her Majesty the Queen visited the Rock

and trouble soon followed.

The display of sovereignty angered Spain's fascist dictator,

General Franco, and reignited Spain's claim on the Rock.

A broken society still suffering the aftermath of civil war

and now turning its aggression toward us.

We needed a plan,

and my grandfather Peter Isola was one of those who took a stand.

I am Rosie Isola. I'm your grandmother.

In 1956, we got married, went on our honeymoon

and when we came back he gave me the wonderful news

that he was going to stand for election with his father.

He knew I didn't like politics.

But he said, "I'll only be there a couple of years."

And a couple of years lasted...50.

SHE LAUGHS

My grandfather became the leader of the Opposition

and his greatest rival, Sir Joshua Hassan,

became the Chief Minister of Gibraltar.

People loved him so much because he was friendly with everyone.

Remember, Gibraltar is a very small place

and he knew practically everyone by name.

They were pretty bitter enemies.

There was a lot of personal animosity between them

but, having said that, it didn't stop them in the '60s

forming a coalition government.

Because of the pressures that Spain was putting on Gibraltar,

and they were very great indeed - you know, border troubles -

we felt that the state was in danger, and the two groups

came together because we thought the main enemy was Spain.

This was the era of anti-colonialism.

And in 1963 the United Nations had finally called for

the decolonisation of Gibraltar.

Britain resisted, but Spain took advantage of this

anti-imperial movement to re-stake her claim on the Rock.

We were in London with your mother when he got this phone call from

Sir Joshua's office to say, "We're off to the United Nations."

So Joshua came to London, met Peter and they both left

and I was left on my own with your mother.

We went there, it was like an emergency hall, you know,

48 hours' notice and we were on a plane, off to New York,

and we knew nothing of the procedures there.

We wanted to be British. Spain hadn't been particularly friendly.

Spain was a fascist regime, it made its intentions very clear,

it wanted to take over Gibraltar, so naturally you become defensive.

But in those days, of course, the United Nations generally were

totally against Britain.

They regarded Britain as an imperial power.

I mean, you felt it when you were talking.

I mean, they couldn't understand why we wanted to stay with Britain,

you know, they just couldn't understand it, most of the delegates.

There wasn't anything bigger than that,

than going to the United Nations to fight for our freedom.

What more do you want?

My grandfather and Sir Joshua called for recognition of

the people's right to self-determination.

Spain objected, but the United Nations agreed to defer enforcement

of the decolonisation of Gibraltar, while discussions continued.

It was the first time Gibraltarians had gone to the United Nations.

You know? I mean, these were guys in a little village, you know,

actually appearing before the world! I mean, irrespective of the result,

everybody was going to welcome them, we all did.

And when I met him at the airport, when they came down from the plane

I said, "You don't know what's waiting for you, and Sir Joshua."

And they said, "What?"

And I said, "The whole of Gibraltar have come out to welcome you."

CROWD CHEERS

I think what people were celebrating was the fact that, all right, we

might not have come back with a great trophy, but Gibraltar had spoken.

And it was the first, if you like, whispers of a voice that would

slowly build into something more credible as the politics changed.

In those days, I was a bachelor and I had an MG Midget, red car,

sports car, and I was asked whether I wouldn't mind taking them

at the back of the car and I would drive them around the town.

I was delighted.

But I do remember it.

And it was obviously great sitting in the car between Sir Joshua Hassan

and my dad, until eventually they kicked me off.

HE LAUGHS

Whenever we were stopped, I drank water, they drank whiskey.

I had to make sure I was in my full senses.

The whole of Gibraltar came out to greet them and to thank them.

And that was very moving.

Their success, however, was short-lived. The United Nations

could not accept Gibraltar's wish to remain with Britain -

the battle had only just begun.

To say to the decolonisation committee,

set up by the United Nations to liberate people from imperialism,

how wonderful imperialism is, you know, is like committing hara-kiri.

For Gibraltarians, however, it was not about imperialism,

it was about a 260-year-old British identity.

Well, my father considered himself to be completely British.

In the sense that that's what he chose to be.

He had many friends in Spain but he loathed their system.

To him, you know, next to God, Winston Churchill and Nelson -

it was a tough call between either of them,

to be the greatest man that ever lived.

So, yeah, he was very, very British.

And he wanted us to have an English education

so he sacrificed his holidays and quite a lot of money to send us to

the UK for the doubtful privileges of a public school education.

To the guard room. Quick march.

I mean, Gib was structured in the classic UK style,

it was a class-driven society.

Where I think Gibraltarians

generally invented their own place in that class.

Along with the British military and the Gibraltarians,

there were the Spaniards.

Gibraltar's workforce came mostly from Spain,

with some crossing the border daily.

Slowly numbers increased as cross-border relationships grew

and the societies intertwined. The border was the lifeline.

When Franco began to increase pressure on the Rock,

it was the border that was first and hardest hit.

Here on the frontier, there are still some 90 or so cars waiting to

get from Gibraltar into Spain.

Some of them have already been waiting for three days.

Since October 1964, the Spaniards have only allowed

three cars an hour to go through into Spain and the frontier

is only open for 15 hours a day - so that's 45 cars a day.

We're just waiting here on the border.

Everybody here has been as kind as they possibly could -

the English have been very helpful to everybody here.

The real campaign against Gibraltar had begun.

Soon things were turned back at the border -

even medical supplies were stopped coming in.

There were difficulties, it was always uncomfortable to go to Spain.

There was always a queue and paperwork and you were

always stopped, and getting in and out of the car

and being searched and they were armed, you know.

Our officers were your friends, you know,

but their officers were enemies.

It was always scary because there were no freedoms there.

My aunt married a Republican. He and his four brothers

saw their father shot dead in front of them.

These are stories that we've been brought up with.

The rebels in Spain that escaped with their life escaped here.

And the one thing they taught their children

and their grandchildren, never go back to that lot, because

I'm lucky to have got here with my head on my shoulders - you see?

We were constantly being insulted, on television, on radio, so

our backs were up all the time, you know, it was a silent war.

It's not even about being Spanish.

They don't want the Gibraltarians to be Spanish,

they want Gibraltar, period.

They don't care about the Gibraltarians, we can all get lost.

Look, if we're not the real owners

then I have to say that the first Bossano in Gibraltar,

who got married here in 1748, was the first guy to be squatting.

And I want to know how long, how much more than 300 years we have

to be squatting before we acquire some kind of rights to this place.

By 1967, it was clear that both the United Nations and Spain

were refusing to acknowledge that Gibraltar

wished to remain British. Under increasing pressure from Spain,

Britain called for a referendum in Gibraltar.

It was a final bid to show the world where our allegiance lay.

It was very exciting. We had a special meal, if I remember rightly,

and everybody had to go to vote, and we went along and waited outside.

It was your civic duty.

But a referendum is always a risk, because it's a very drastic step

to take on something as important as this was to us at that time.

If the result had been 80% or 70%, it would have been

very encouraging to the other side, and there was a risk in doing that

when we were under siege.

Ince's Hall, they counted the votes there.

I was there, on the first row.

Number of votes cast for alternative course A -

..44.

LAUGHTER

Number of votes cast for alternative course B -

12,138.

SHE CHEERS

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

The result came out and 44 voted for Spain.

Which I thought was, you know, I thought it was pretty wonderful.

And I remember my parents being utterly livid,

that it should have been zero, and it was that woman who they knew

from down the road, because she was Spanish, she would have voted.

I remember at the time also, even with the 44, they were saying

that there was one who had said yes to Spain because he'd ticked

the wrong box, so the suggestion was that it wasn't even 44.

The people had spoken, the results were overwhelming

but the anti-colonial mood was even stronger.

They took the result of the 1967 referendum

to the General Assembly for a vote!

And they lost the vote two-to-one!

But if there was a defining moment

when it was clear to the entire world that Gibraltar wanted

to remain British and that was the voice of the people, that was it.

Despite the wish of the people,

the United Nations ordered the decolonisation of Gibraltar.

Britain resisted,

she would not abandon Gibraltar to a fascist regime.

This angered Franco - and the people of Gibraltar united in defence,

but a small group of Gibraltarians had other ideas.

They called themselves the doves, and opened a dialogue with Spain -

there was outrage when their intentions were revealed.

Basically, there were these five people who phoned me up and said,

look, we've got this letter we'd like to publish.

And I read the letter and I said, this idea of coming to some sort of

a deal with Spain, I said, this is not going to be accepted very well

in Gibraltar at the moment. On the other hand, you have a right,

as far as I'm concerned. There's no libel in it, so I will publish it.

And in fact, I said, it's of such interest,

if you don't mind, I'll publish it on the front page.

That was one of my bad moments.

They were five...five businessmen and lawyers who took the view

that, long term, the best thing was to come to resolution with Spain.

As I understand it, they went to discuss matters,

with the Spanish government.

And they thought that was best for Gibraltar.

Clearly the Gibraltarian people,

especially having expressed their view in the referendum,

the year before, would have been... they were probably a bit

foolhardy to consider that. You know, possibly politically naive.

But do you think there's any room for negotiation with Spain?

Yes, well, I have said so very clearly that there is room.

We published certain articles in which

we actually put forward proposals for the negotiated settlement.

They didn't meet with the best possible response from Gibraltar, did they?

No, they were very unpopular, they're still very unpopular.

The people who went to talk to the Spaniards might have thought

what they were doing was the right thing to do

and in the best interest of Gibraltar.

They're entitled to have that view. What they're not entitled to do

is pretend that they spoke for the rest of us.

They had no right to do that.

It came out on the Saturday morning and we had the riots.

It was very frightening

because I'd never experienced any form of disorder or rioting.

PEOPLE CLAMOUR

Because you're used to a very peaceful,

quiet town that had erupted in a matter of hours.

And everybody was rushing,

and people shouting and women crying, what the hell's going on?

And we got a whiff. It was a tear gas bomb.

SHOUTS AND EXPLOSION

I do remember being on the street when a crowd, a mob,

of very angry men went down to the house of one of the Triays,

one of the doves.

At my house, they broke into windows,

they burst into the entrance,

and they broke everything that they found on their way.

At the office, they did exactly the same thing,

they assaulted and beat my brother. They also burnt a yacht of mine.

And two other doves, they overturned buses belonging

to their businesses, they broke into their shops.

They said, let's go and get the Chronicle.

So I, probably foolishly, on my own, I wandered back,

got in to the Chronicle office and sat there,

waiting for the attack, which never came.

INDISTINCT SHOUTS

Well, it wasn't...it wasn't right. It wasn't right.

At the end of the day, people are entitled to their views.

I may not agree with them, but they're entitled to them.

It was a pretty horrific day, episode in our history,

and certainly not one to be proud of in any shape or form.

And eventually it's the straw that breaks the camel's back.

So in itself, the one issue may not have been that important

but if you add it to everything else,

it's like a blood-letting or a release of tension.

Do you regret publishing that letter?

No, from my point of view, it was freedom of expression,

which was rapidly disappearing in Gibraltar.

To put a good word for one of these doves, this man is a good man.

But a lot of people in Gibraltar owe him a lot because he used to

take them across to Algeciras when they couldn't go to La Linea,

to see their families or whatever, but for an emergency,

even to take people to hospitals and things like that.

In his own private yacht.

The new one he bought because the original was burnt.

That man should be honoured for that because, despite what they did

to him, you know, like they say - pay a bad debt with a good one.

You know, there you go.

Next Tuesday, the Spanish government has announced that it's going

to close the border to all traffic from La Linea going to Gib.

This will mean a very serious blow to the Gibraltar tourist industry

but worse may follow, because the story in Gibraltar is that

the permits of the 5,000 Spanish workmen who every day come

from La Linea to Gib to work in the docks and in the offices

and the hotels may be withdrawn.

And if they are withdrawn, the border may then be closed completely.

If this is true, it will be in fact the biggest step taken

so far by the Franco government in its current blockade of Gibraltar.

I think the cars was the first.

And my husband and I had just got married, we got married in '66,

September '66, and we were on honeymoon.

Coming back, driving down, we were in Madrid when my family called us

and said that the frontier was shutting and we had to drive

to Lisbon to take a ferry from Lisbon to Gib.

And thank God, we were lucky, it was the last ferry.

And we were taking the car back to Gib but just to go round

and round in circles, around Gib, because we can't go in to Spain.

But there it is, that's what we did.

In '66, things got very bad.

Spain stopped the female labour force from coming through

the frontier, arguing that they were in danger here from the men,

would you believe it.

I mean, there was no end as to what the Spanish government

would invent to offend us.

So what we did is, we formed the Women's Housewives Association

and, do you know, every single job in hotels, hospitals, private homes,

anywhere, in Gibraltar, was manned by a volunteer woman.

In June 1969, the Spanish government struck its hardest blow

against Gibraltar.

Angered by Britain's refusal to hand over Gibraltar,

Franco decided to take matters into his own hands.

Overnight, the Spanish labour force was removed from the Rock and

the land frontier was closed.

Men who had worked in Gibraltar for a lifetime

trooped across the frontier into Spain for the last time.

Can you imagine, stopping them coming in to work?

I mean, what would they live from?

How very sad that they were all crying and so upset.

They gradually had to take their things back,

you know, all their tools and whatever they had.

There were a lot of people, you see, who had houses,

mostly mixed marriages with Spaniards and Gibraltarians,

who had to make a big decision, either to give up their house

in Spain and come to Gibraltar where they had the job.

Or stay in Spain without a job.

I remember the frontier closure.

What I remember was the number of people weeping.

That was my memory of it. Just lots of people weeping.

# Santa

# Santa Maria

# Santa Maria

# Madre de Dios

# Ruega por nosotros pecadores

# Ahora y en la hora de nuestra muerte

# Amen

-ALL:

-# Ave

# Ave Maria

# Llena eres de gracia...

And there was so much sadness because there were

so many Spanish people who worked here for years who became part of

local families and who were suddenly told

that's it, it's finished now.

# Y bendito es el fruto de tu vientre

# Jesus

# Santa

# Santa Maria

# Santa Maria

# Madre de Dios

# Ruega por nosotros pecadores

# Ahora y en la hora de nuestra muerte

# Amen. #

Well, of course, when the border closed,

all the Gibraltar cars came back to Gib and they had nowhere to go

so they just went round and round in circles.

Especially as you got older, the freedom to move around,

that you...you just couldn't just go in the car or go for the weekend

to Spain or whatever, you were pretty much stuck here.

It was a surprise that somebody could do that, shut off 30,000 people,

inter-marriages, people from both sides of the border.

So suddenly all these things just disappeared from local life.

Although, I mean, Spain had been a strong presence here,

the man who sold the bread and all this kind of thing.

It wasn't just that, it was the maliciousness, if you can call it

that, to cut off the telephone lines, for example, there was no need.

That wasn't any part of any political campaign

but to shut off the telephone lines was particularly nasty, in my view.

And the Spaniards were left on the Spanish side with no work

and nothing, absolutely nothing. And that's how they did it.

They didn't care about their people, so if they didn't care

about their own people, how would you expect them to care about us?

You've got to remember, when the frontier closed, there was

no industry and no trade in Gibraltar.

The only way we could survive was through development aid

from the UK or hand-outs from the UK or a heavy reliance

on the UK military within Gibraltar.

So it really was a massive weapon to hit us on the head with.

'When Franco forced on them the choice of Spanish citizenship

'or the sack from Spain, where many Gibraltarians lived, they chose

'the Rock, in spite of the dismal accommodation available there.

'Many refugees are still living in very squalid

'so-called temporary accommodation.'

What sort of bathing accommodation have you got here?

None, sir.

What about lavatories?

Well, we've got one over there.

How many families use that?

-Er...

-SHE COUNTS SOFTLY

Nine families. Families.

What's it like here in the winter?

-Terrible.

-In what way?

Well, water coming through the ceilings, sir, through the windows.

Do you ever regret the fact that you chose to come to Gibraltar?

Oh, no. Never.

Don't you think it's a heavy price to pay for being British?

Heavy price? I wouldn't say, sir.

We were a village of 30,000 people under attack in every possible way.

It was an effort to bring us to our knees.

And, unfortunately for them, and fortunately for us,

like happens in many of these cases, when you push communities,

it has the opposite effect.

As far as I was concerned, being so-called locked in,

I felt no different.

There were enough things to be done here to forget to go to Spain.

MUSIC PLAYS

The Rock, for a lot of people, was swinging.

I mean, people must have drank more than they ever would now.

Clubs and cocktail parties left, right and centre,

there would have been, you know, the military were obsessed

with cocktail parties.

The sergeant's mess would be swinging, wife-swapping parties

on the balcony and, you know, just everything was happening.

You made friendships that you hadn't made before

because you were going out, now you were there.

Sport blossomed in Gibraltar because it was a way of...

It was an entertainment.

Dancing, dances developed. There was a lot of social life developed.

The one habit I remember very distinctly was that the bar

that's in the air terminal was super popular.

And people would go down to the bar and see who was

coming in even if...not because they were expecting anybody,

they'd just go out of curiosity to see who was arriving on the plane.

After Mass on Sundays, we would all troop into the car

and do the Sunday drive and we'd go round Gib

in a sort of crocodile line at five miles an hour.

I think people used to call it the Scalextrics, like the toys -

you just keep going round in a circuit.

People went round and round the Rock.

What you do is, you want to make the best of the situation,

to show them that you're absolutely fine.

I think in many ways it was, well,

if this is the price I have to pay for being British, I'll do it.

People started speaking English,

people stopped watching Spanish television.

It had a very dramatic effect on Gibraltar society

but one which you took on with a siege mentality.

You took on - we're not going to be defeated.

What happened is that Gibraltarians have opened their eyes to the world.

And we know that there's life beyond Spain and beyond the Rock

and there's a big wide world out there which Gibraltarians

started to explore, and that's thanks to Franco.

Before the frontier closure, we used to go to Spain a lot, obviously,

And my aunt lived in Algeciras, in Los Pinos,

so we used to go there a lot.

In the summer, we used to spend a couple of weeks with her there.

They had three children. They had Evaristo, Maddy and Antonio.

Maddy is exactly my age.

We've always, all our lives, adored each other.

From a very young age.

My Aunt Magda wanted her sons to be educated in Gibraltar,

to get some of the Gibraltarian identity.

I mean, we were at school and then suddenly we heard, you know,

they're not going to be able to come to school here any more,

the frontier's closing, Maddy's going to have to stay in Spain.

And I remember being devastated. Really devastated.

And it was awful because I knew that once she went back to Spain

I couldn't see her, I couldn't talk to her.

We had friends in Tangier and we'd call them and say,

call Magda and ask her, you know, and call us back.

And that's how we could be in touch with my sister in Spain.

My uncle, your great-uncle Lawrence,

he wrote a song and it was accepted, and your grandma sang it.

-Oh, my God.

-SHE LAUGHS

It was something I never thought I'd ever do.

MUSIC PLAYS

# Roma es la dulce tierra

# Que me trae recuerdos... #

No, I never went to the gates.

I think there was that feeling of, you know, if they want to

shut down the frontier, fair enough, you shut down the frontier.

I'm not going to go to the frontier and shout across.

Fijate, ahora me veras en la tele!

Well, you know, the frontier closure did affect us. We were the ones

who were in the cage and we suffered the scars of that cage.

Almost everything that's happened,

from the closure of the frontier to the campaign of the Spaniards,

each and every one of those elements has helped to weld us

more and more into a closer and closer knit community.

You know. I often say the only good thing Franco did in his entire

history was to close that border, because it made us look inside.

And ask ourselves, who are we? And we found ourselves.

Franco died in 1975 but the border did not fully reopen

until 1985 - it had been closed for 16 long years.

Spain had agreed to open the frontier several years

before it actually did,

but, because of the Falklands conflict in particular, it postponed

the opening, no doubt believing that a negative outcome for the UK

in the Falklands might strengthen their hand on the Gibraltar issue.

'The Spanish government decided not to make a big thing

'of the opening but even they might have wished that

'the lock had worked rather better. The key just wouldn't turn at first.'

It was a very odd event because, you know, I think

people had really mixed feelings about it in Gib at the time.

There was a good crowd there. And there was some... I think

there was a band or something was playing.

'The bolt is back, the lights are flashing and the gates are open.

'An historic moment in the history of Gibraltar.

'The land frontier open now. No longer is Gibraltar an island.

'Everyone was in high spirits.

THEY SING

'And a visiting Welsh Choir was in very good voice.'

I went to see my sister. I went to see Magda.

So we had a car waiting on the other side, we drove to Magda's house.

And we gave her one of the biggest surprises she ever got in her life.

And when I got to her house, she heard me.

She was in the garden and she heard me.

And she couldn't believe it, and she ran out to greet me.

I had people saying to me... come into my office

and bang on the table and say, "I will never go across that frontier,

"I'd cut my legs off before I cross the frontier."

And then I'd meet them shopping in Continente and say,

"How are your legs?"

HE LAUGHS

A part of us was scared of enjoying an open frontier too much,

in case they took it away from us again.

You know, it felt as though somebody was going to say to you,

hang on, you're not meant to be here, go back, you know, get back.

There was that feeling of, is it true?

Is it real? Am I allowed?

I was four years old when the frontier opened.

I don't remember a closed border life

but crossing has never been easy, even today.

The ongoing queues at the frontier are a constant

reminder that there is that separation between us.

Sadly, my grandfather is no longer with us.

One thing I do remember him saying

is that the problem is not Spain, because we know exactly what

Spain wants and it's easy to defend yourself against that.

If anything, the British Foreign Office is the one you have to keep

an eye on, because you're never quite sure what it is they're after.

We never spoke about these things. I wish we had.

When people say, you know, where were you when 9/11 happened,

I remember very distinctly - about to fly out to interview

Peter Hain to land a bombshell on Gibraltar.

You'd had quite a lot of developments

in Northern Ireland with the Blair government and I think

there was a sense in the UK that they wanted to somehow resolve

this Gibraltar issue, get on with it, have good relations with Spain.

I recall travelling to Madrid for my first visit with

the Spanish government and beginning to explore the thorny

issue of Gibraltar. It just struck me that we

needed to do something very radical to try and break this impasse.

Hain came out and started fishing around. Had met Caruana,

was talking to people and, of course, it's the biggest mistake,

thinking that it's worth getting into trying to solve a little

problem like Gibraltar, which is such a big problem for Spain.

I want to reassure the people of Gibraltar that they have

nothing to fear from dialogue with Spain,

which we're conducting through the Brussels process.

We did not agree to take part in the dialogue that they were

already having, not telling us what they were discussing,

and it's, with hindsight, clear that what they wanted was,

by hook or by crook, to get me to participate in that dialogue.

Not because they were going to pay any heed to what I said.

They had already cooked up the deal themselves.

What they wanted was my presence to give it democratic legitimacy.

And Peter Hain called me from the airport actually and said,

"Look, can you come over to London next week

"and I'll give you an interview."

So I flew out and the interview was so striking for me because it

sort of teased out as I went along with it, that I realised, you know,

in the middle of this, that they had a plan.

And Britain started trying to pursue this particular programme

of some kind of a joint deal.

It was totally outrageous. I mean,

how can this man move to negotiate on behalf of the British population

of Gibraltar without even consulting the elected leaders of Gibraltar?

Tony Blair, who was very close as Prime Minister to Aznar, the Spanish

Prime Minister, agreed that we needed to try and find a solution.

It was very much a sort of Number Ten fantasy that had come to saying,

"Well, we can do this, because we can do anything."

The essence of the deal was that

they would exercise joint sovereignty.

For Britain, this was for ever.

Joint sovereignty for ever, as if sovereignty,

which ultimately boils down to power and allegiance and affinity,

as if that could be shared for five minutes, let alone for 500 years.

I couldn't, as Britain's Europe Minister, even Tony Blair

could not have, somehow signed a co-sovereignty agreement without

the Gibraltarians giving their acquiescence to it, of course not.

But what you had to do is sign the agreement

and then discuss it with and present it to the people of Gibraltar.

If there were aspects of it maybe that they wanted to revisit,

we could have looked at that, of course with Spanish agreement,

and said yes or no.

It then becomes, you know, a very distraught

visit for Jack Straw, who had to try and come and sell it.

How did that go?

Well, I mean, he was spat on,

and there was a lot of tension in the air.

-Traitors!

-Listen to us.

But he was a brave man to go there.

I mean, he knew he was going in to the lion's den and he chose to go.

He felt that he could offer some kind of explanation,

which of course he couldn't.

Well, I wasn't... Yes, what do you expect from the man?

He's an absolute shyster. But we weren't having it.

That is one of the biggest fears Gibraltar has.

They fear a sellout.

And the nearest we got to that was with Jack Straw when

he actually told Spain, yes, we're going to come to an agreement,

we are both going to rule Gibraltar. Hey, hang on a minute!

Any change in the sovereignty of Gibraltar will be subject

to the consent of the Gibraltarian people, which in practice means

a submission of these proposals to a referendum in Gibraltar.

The Government has criticised Gibraltar's decision

to hold its own referendum on the colony's future.

Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said it wouldn't stop negotiations

going ahead with Spain about sharing sovereignty.

Don't you understand, Mr Straw and Mr Hain, that by committing,

in principle, to the principle of our future,

you are violating our right to decide our own future.

I don't think that could have been done in any different way.

I don't think, given the politics on the Rock,

given the fact that people feel besieged by Spain,

feel constantly betrayed by London, that is a kind of a mindset.

I do not think you'd have got anywhere if you'd

just allowed a veto to happen, from the Rock, from the beginning.

And this is where Peter Caruana was

so right in what he did in calling that referendum.

You know, this is against human rights,

what you're trying to do here.

When 20,000 Gibraltarians have cast their vote, to attempt to deny that

that is not the political and free expression of the democratic

wishes of the people of Gibraltar, will lack all credibility.

But that is a matter for them and their own political consciences.

For the yes vote - 187.

APPLAUSE

(FAINT) For the yes vote, 187.

PEOPLE CHANT No! No! No!

For the no vote - 17,900.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

One of the positive things of this whole sorry and sad exercise

was that it flushed out Madrid. What it really did do, ultimately, is

that when Madrid was offered a joint sovereignty package, notwithstanding

lack of Gibraltarian consent, they could not come to accept it.

I realise I'm not welcome on the Rock. I realise people

think I was up to all sorts of dark plots to try

and do Gibraltarians down. Believe me, what I was doing was

finding a solution to this problem and I negotiated it with Madrid.

It's a shame they walked away.

Well, after the defeat of the joint sovereignty project,

we actually extracted from them, solemnly and in writing, declared at

the United Nations, that the United Kingdom government would never again

even sit down with Spain to discuss sovereignty without our consent.

So it was a thoroughly disreputable period of time,

it was a thoroughly worrying period of time,

challenging time for Gibraltar as a people and government, but,

having survived it and won, we then actually emerged with some prizes.

On my wedding day, I wonder what the future holds

for generations of Gibraltarians to come.

It's almost as if the only people who recognise

the Gibraltarians are the Gibraltarians themselves.

And we feel this need to constantly reassert our identity.

And our right as a people tends to be questioned so often and by

so many that we feel this need for reassertion almost as if to convince

ourselves, you know, that we deserve to be here, sort of thing, you know.

The Foreign Office has never defended us. We've had

huge queues at the frontier, they've never once retaliated.

We're expendable, we're not worth the fight.

But it's worth the fight for us?

It's worth the fight for us, yeah.

Ever since I've been alive, all I've known is Spain trying to suppress us

into becoming Spanish and, as a friend of mine once said, you know,

you'd be foolish to walk up the aisle with a man who's beating you.

The Spanish closure of the border left a deep scar on my parents'

and grandparents' generation,

but I hope things will be different for my generation.

We grew up with our family on the other side -

and this is a family we don't want to lose again.

We spend more time in Spain now, and, unlike my parents'

and grandparents', my wedding will take place in Spain.

The beauty of Gibraltar is how all these different ethnic peoples

have integrated to become one family

and becoming one family is vital for the future.

Gibraltarians have come from all over the world, my family

came from Italy, we have Maltese, Spaniards,

and Portuguese that have come together to form today's Gibraltar.

They're all Gibraltarians, irrespective of where they come from.

So if you ask me what a Gibraltarian is, it's somebody who's been

there for a considerable period of time and shares the identity

and ideals that we all do.

I just hope that one day they change their ways

and accept Gib for what it is.

And the day that happens is the day like in 100 years,

we'll integrate, I'm sure.

I don't know, I like my Gibraltar. We have a saying in Spanish. We say,

la cabra siempre tira para el monte -

the goat always goes back to the rock.

You know, perhaps I'm one of the those.

HE LAUGHS There's no place like home.

We as a community,

no matter how small we are, we have elected to have this way of life.

INDISTINCT SPEECH

Today I am offered marriage advice -

how to unite two different people and two different families.

The main foundation for a happy marriage is real love.

Respect each other, has to be equal, the moment one side fails,

the marriage will stumble and

that is what's happening between Spain and us.

We're still friends, even though

one of the partners in this marriage keeps knocking us.

SHE LAUGHS

I think, if my grandfather were here, his advice would be

to never forget who you are, or where you're from -

we are Gibraltarians and Gibraltar is our home.

I hope this film will act as a reminder to my generation

of the struggles our parents and grandparents went through

to protect our rights to call Gibraltar home.

And that it will also help the world understand us better.

In the meantime, we can only hope for a happy future.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd