The Accidental Historian

The first golf course in the Balearics was opened in 1934. This may surprise you, though any of you who might have read something I wrote for Alcúdia tourists last summer about this golf course would not be surprised.

The "revelation" of the first golf course comes from "Mallorca Magazin", the German weekly. This, in turn, is based on a study that has appeared in the "Jornades d'Estudis Locals d'Alcúdia", a dry and academic tome that is published irregularly but which is a gold mine of fascinating historical information.

I first came across this journal purely by chance. I was whiling away some hours at a printer and found it in a book case. Though all the papers were in Catalan (a pre-requisite for the inclusion of papers in the journal) and were all, in typical academic fashion, highly off-putting in terms of presentation, there was stuff within its covers that demanded a bit of perseverance.

It helps, I guess, to be both a historian by degree and to have had a previous publishing life in which I was fed a diet of heavy academic material. For many, irrespective of the language, the journal would be a complete turn-off. Understandably so. Even in English, much academic publishing might as well be presented in Klingon, for all the sense that it makes.

The copy I found, which remains the only copy I have seen, included a paper on the history of the fiestas of Sant Jaume, the patron saint of Alcúdia. It was one that transported you back to the thirteenth century and to the origins of the fiestas. It was a story that was completely new to me.

The story of the golf course was also new to me. Again, it was something I came across by accident. The article I was writing was in fact an interview with someone who has a far longer association with Alcúdia and Mallorca than I do, Graham Philips, estate agent of the parish. During the course of the interview, Graham explained that there was once a golf course in Alcúdia (and not the present one in Alcanada). It was short-lived. The Civil War led to its being converted into a landing-strip for airplanes.

Unexpected as the story was, I asked around to try and find any other recollections of the golf course. There was as much surprise as I had felt when told about it. Someone though spoke to an old man, and he confirmed the story. He could recall the planes that flew in and out of what is today the residential and tourist area that combines Alcúdia's Bellevue and Magic districts.

The golf course history comes apparently from the sixth edition of the journal. The seventh will include something on the British squadron in Alcúdia (and Pollensa) in 1924 and something else on the application of "the model of tourist enclavement" in Alcanada in 1933. Both are potentially interesting and of far wider interest than the narrow audience that an academic publication appeals to. As with the history of the golf course, the development of a tourist area in Alcúdia's Alcanada area is precisely the sort of thing that grabs tourists' interest.

One of the problems with the portrayal of Mallorca's history, and it is a problem that is compounded by the historical information that is put out by the tourism agency and town halls, is that it tends to all be pretty ancient. In Alcúdia, the default historical information is that of the founding of Pollentia by the Romans and the Moorish occupation and the consequent naming of Alcúdia from the Arabic. It's not without interest, but it isn't that relevant to most tourists who are turned on far more by recent history, such as the development of Alcúdia and the island as a tourist destination.

There is a wealth of historical information - documents, photos - that sits in archives in the town halls. Alcúdia's journal is not unique. Most towns have these studies and they come under the umbrella of the university. Yet it rarely comes to light, and when it does is in forms, the largely impenetrable language of academia and in Catalan alone, that simply do not translate to an audience which is hungry to hear about it.

And when you come across it, it is usually by chance. There's another example; the time I found the original 1936 article from "The Railway Magazine" about the planned extension of the railway to Alcúdia (which of course has still not been built). But this, the railway, is another subject with the potential to fascinate.

The point is that, for all the desire for tourism attracted by Mallorca's history and culture, far too little attention is paid to what really can excite or to what can be more understandable to a tourist market - that to do with tourists' own experiences: of tourism. This more recent history, that of tourism development and the changes brought about by tourism, exists in archives and in people's memories.

It really needs to be made available.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.