Island Of Dreamers

"Far, far away on the island of dreams." Far, far away on the island of dreamers. Far, far away is what Mallorca once was. It is why I said of the American painter Ritch Miller, who had come to Mallorca in the early 1960s but of whom virtually nothing was known, that it was once comparatively easy to make a break with the past. I say once. It shouldn't be so easy now, but there are those who still try. As I also said in my article about Miller: "Mallorca is a home to those who, for various reasons, have something to forget. It is a home also to those who can turn this forgetfulness into a revision of their own histories. They become other people."

In a different article (in June), I considered the existence of "über-fakes": "There are all sorts of "other" people knocking about. At its most extreme, the creation of whole new personas or the previous persona having been consigned to history or not being admitted to can lead to the worst sort of fakes - the criminal ones. A court in Yorkshire is soon to hear about one such fake ... one that involved millions of mainly Calvia euros. No one had the faintest idea until collars were being felt and the past was revealed."

I had never heard of John Hirst. But I came to hear about him when I started to receive messages about him. About Allied Dunbar. It was some days later that this connection became public knowledge in that it was presented in the British press. But of course, it was already public knowledge. You had to put two and two together, but the information was there. Reports from the early 1990s were just a click or two away on the internet.

I know about not finding out. In Germany I was the one who recommended appointing someone who, it was discovered some time later, was (or had been) the head of strategy for the British National Party. There had been no mention of this past. It was very understandable that there wouldn't have been, especially as the person in question, one also learned later, was a Holocaust denier. You don't make a point of being known for denying the Holocaust in Germany, unless you want the police to pay you a visit.

So yes, I know how pasts can be overlooked either because it doesn't occur to anyone to check or because someone seems plausible. There again, appointing a BNP activist (either ex or current) is not the same as handing over life savings.

John Hirst is an extreme example, but there are other John Hirsts. Most are harmless. Inventing a past, neglecting to mention one, embellishing or altering one don't mean wrongdoing, but Mallorca is somewhere to gravitate to for charlatans, flim-flammers and the downright crooked, whether there is a crooked past that needs obscuring or not.

You come across them. And they include those who, for whatever motive, will seek to portray a picture of Mallorcan expatriate social life which isn't strictly accurate. Take the one who wore a good deal of bling, made reference to the boat and to the Porsche he used to drive "when in the city" and yet insisted that no one was bothered in Mallorca about who you were or what you had. Well, if you don't want people to be bothered about what you might have once been, then you probably would say this. The point is that people are bothered if it is a case of having one-upmanship challenged or implied.

The expatriate social life isn't as egalitarian as this bling-wearer claimed. John Hirst, I suspect, understood this only too well. While he was guilty of running an illegal scheme that was a get-rich-quick one for him, those he took advantage of were only too content to buy into a getting-rich scheme, if on a far lower level than Hirst was. If returns of the sort that Hirst had been offering were so easily made, then why weren't (and aren't) all investment schemes realising such returns?

The desire for wealth creation will exist anywhere, but the impulse is accentuated within communities where wealth can often be the currency of status, and within the expatriate community, especially that which encompasses the signs and symbols of wealth in and around Calvià, a craving for such status will exist; not among all, of course not, but among some, certainly.

Combine this desire with the throwing together of expatriates into a social world of the yacht, the cricket, the golf club, the regular charity events, the associations, the Rotary, the you name it, and you have a ready-made target market. Hirst was stupid in thinking his scheme could ever last but he wasn't stupid in recognising the social elements and dynamics that could make it work.

There will be other Hirsts. Not those running Ponzi schemes necessarily but those who are, nevertheless, fake in some way, with a past that is hidden perhaps. The island of dreams attracts them and their peddling of dreams.  


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.