The closure of the Gibraltar/Spanish border between the years 1969 and 1985 was a period which had enormous political and social impact on the small territory I call home. The full story of what led to these extraordinary circumstances, and what unfolded during and after, are perhaps not well known to the casual reader.
Despite the numerous belligerent sieges Gibraltar has undergone, no official border fence existed between Spain and Gibraltar till the year 1910. Before this date there were just two lines of British and Spanish sentries in their boxes looking at each other from a certain distance. Between them lay the neutral ground, a no man’s land.
(A sentry at the “fenceless” frontier between Spain and Gibraltar, a neutral ground, 1871.)
The smuggling of contraband from Gibraltar into Spain has always been rife, and tobacco was the prized item. Smugglers of the time were persistent and inventive, and tobacco was often carried across the neutral ground strapped to the bodies of specially trained “contraband dogs”. In their attempts at stopping these dogs, sentries from both sides would take shots at the animals and, in so doing, were sometimes in danger of shooting each other.
(A contraband dog shot while smuggling, 1890s)
The Spanish government was very anxious to stop this practice and suggested to the British government that some sort of fence or barrier be constructed to put an end to it.
As a result of their plea, a two metre high chicken wire fence was erected, running from one shore to the other. Soon enough, however, mysterious holes started to appear. In the end a full iron fence was installed, and it was thus that the border was born.
(Left, contraband dogs with their owners, right, the new iron fence built to keep them out, 1910)
Though a true physical border now existed between the Spanish and the Gibraltarians, mobility remained rather unrestricted. At the time, a person could walk to and from Spain without a passport, needing only to pass through customs. This went on for years without harassment.
Then things began to change.
The year 1954 was a turning point. It was the year Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II paid a visit to Gibraltar, which was seen as an insult by Spain’s then dictator Francisco Franco. It was from then on that Gibraltar began to suffer a string of restrictions. It was threatened that property in Spain belonging to Gibraltarians would be confiscated. As a result my grandmother quickly sold her villa in Campamento, a Spanish town just over the border.
(Queen Elizabeth II visits Gibraltar, 1954)
By the 1960s Spain had begun its campaign at the United Nations for the recovery of Gibraltar. This was headed by Spain’s Foreign Minister Fernando Maria Castiella, who served under Franco from 1957 – 1969. Castiella presented the United Nations with his now famous “Red Book”, a 1965 publication of documents which, according to Spain, evidenced that Gibraltar was rightfully Spanish.
Spain next began to intensify the restrictions on French nationals who were going back to France from Morocco via Gibraltar’s ferry. They were often kept in the sun for hours in a queue before they were allowed to cross. The next move was to make every Gibraltarian who wanted to cross into Spain apply for a special pass; the British Gibraltar Passport was no longer recognised. Very few applied for the pass and those who did needed to because they lived across the border and travelled to Gibraltar for work. When the UN rejected Spain’s claim to the territory, the Spanish government warned all Spanish workers in Gibraltar that they would close the border with Gibraltar. After that, there would not way for them to go home.
(Above, an image of the many Spaniards who travelled daily into Gibraltar for work. Below, an image of these Spanish workers leaving Gibraltar with their belongings and tools, before closure of the border, 9th June 1969)
To compensate for this massive job loss, Franco promised the Spanish workers that they had built a refinery in the bay which would give the men work and a large textile factory called Confecciones Gibraltar for the women. In truth, the refinery could only employ 200 men. Meanwhile, the textile factory never materialised because the director disappeared with all the funds for its creation (not an untypical occurrence). As a result the great majority of displaced workers had to immigrate to other European countries like UK, Germany, Holland, and France.
Many Gibraltarians who lived across the border had to leave their homes and come back into Gibraltar. Those who could not be taken by their families were housed in old empty barracks, which served as temporary transit centres until proper accommodation could be found. Eventually, in 1969, the Spanish gates were closed.
(A Gibraltarian couple in a transit centre with their belongings, 1965)
Click here to read part two.
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