Guy Wood wrote a letter on 12 December 1912, one that has been handed down through generations as a record of the times. The story of the letter is told in an article* in "The Guardian" which outlines its content: the rise of Germany, the sinking of the Titanic, the war in the Balkans.
Had there been a Mallorcan Guy Wood who had left a letter for his descendants, what would he have spoken about? One imagines that a knowledgeable Mallorcan of the time wouldn't have been ignorant of events that Guy Wood detailed, but what would he have had to say about Mallorca specifically? This is what Guido Fusta might have written in 1912.
"How I wish I could see into the future. What is life like in 2012? What has happened during one hundred years? I cannot look into a crystal ball, but I would speculate that science has had a dramatic effect on our island. There have been more innovations this year. At the fiesta of Sant Jaume the electricity system in Sa Pobla was lit for the first time, and it had come about so quickly. Sr. Enric Ordines had only presented his plan for an electricity factory to the town council on 30 April!
"And this year the new train between Palma and Sóller has started. What a Godsend for Sóller and for those of us who love to visit its orange groves. It has been so difficult to travel by stagecoach along the steep road over the Coll de Sóller. Now there is a steam train, but you have to hold your breath when the train passes through all the tunnels. And now also in Sóller is a radiotelegraphy station. It opened earlier this year at Cap Gros.
"The train started to bring fruit into Palma this summer. There are many families in Sóller who have bought shares in Sr. Estades' railway company. It is a pity I have none myself. It is said that the orange trade will become greater than ever and it is also said that the train will help to bring more of what are called tourists to Mallorca. It is seven years since the Sociedad Fomento del Turismo de Palma was founded. They believe this "tourism" will become a grand trade in its own right. There is much publicity being given to the natural beauty of the island; the Archduke Louis Salvador has certainly helped this. Foreigners are coming to the island and new hotels are being built. Sr. Borras and Sra. Martínez have opened a grand one this year in Puerto Pollensa. It is called the Hotel Miramar.
"There is great excitement because of this new industry and because of moving pictures of the island made with what is called the Chronochrome system, Monsieur Léon Gaumont's invention. It has pictures in colour, and there had never been such pictures made in Spain before this summer here on Mallorca; pictures of the Roman bridge in Pollensa, the orange groves, the Cathedral in Palma, on which the famous architect Sr. Antoni Gaudi has finished his re-modelling work this year.
"There has been much that has been inspiring this year, but we are worried about events in Spain and Europe. Sometimes, I think we feel that in Mallorca we are cut off from such events, but we are not. The talk is that the crisis in the Balkans could lead to a greater war, though we cannot see how the Balkans affect us. If there is a war, we hope, God willing, that Spain can remain neutral. We have too many problems of our own to contend with.
"As Mallorcans we should be proud that Sr. Antoni Maura of Palma has been a Spanish prime minister, but can we be? I am certain we have not heard the last of Sr. Maura. We have not forgotten the Tragic Week of 1909 or the execution of Francesc Ferrer. God rest his soul, a man does not deserve such a fate, even an Anarchist. And now there is word of a new and violent movement, Maurism. These are deeply troubling times, and we are not immune in Mallorca. The Liberal prime minister, Sr. Canalejas, was assassinated only last month. Ferrer, Canalejas, Maura, who they say has designs on returning, but this time as a dictator; God save us from these men. With all the strains against the Church and Monarchy from Socialists, Liberals, Republicans, Anarchists, Catalans, I fear Spain faces catastrophe. If not through Sr. Maura, then someone else.
"You will, by 2012, know of whatever the consequences have been: of the violence and troubles we are experiencing and of the great developments that we are witnessing. I wish I could know for myself what they will be. Or perhaps it is better if I do not."
Guido Fusta i Bauzà
Marratxí, 12 December 1912
* http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2012/dec/22/letter-from-a-century-ago
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Showing posts with label Sóller train. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sóller train. Show all posts
Monday, December 24, 2012
Tuesday, August 07, 2012
MALLORCA TODAY - Royals take Sóller train trip
Crown-Prince Felipe and Princess Letizia, together with their daughters, Leonor and Sofia, took a ride yesterday evening on the train to Sóller from Palma, then took the tram to the port before finally returning to the Marivent palace, home to the Spanish royal family in Mallorca.
See more: Diario de Mallorca
See more: Diario de Mallorca
Sunday, March 11, 2012
MALLORCA TODAY - Chemists under threat; Juan March; Sóller train
Another mixed bag of interest and which relates to stories on the blog.
There is a lengthy interview with the president of the Balearics division of the Spanish society of community pharmacists in which he reiterates a point regarding the difficult financial situation some chemist shops find themselves in and in which he suggests that some may have to close: Diario de Mallorca
More on the extraordinary life and times of Juan March, the founder of Banca March, whose death fifty years ago was celebrated (if this is the right word) yesterday. This is mostly about how he came to get hold of the Barcelona Traction company. An act of "financial piracy·, says the headline: Diario de Mallorca
And more on the Sóller train, celebrating its one hundred years this year, and its perhaps less well-known role as a post train: Diario de Mallorca
There is a lengthy interview with the president of the Balearics division of the Spanish society of community pharmacists in which he reiterates a point regarding the difficult financial situation some chemist shops find themselves in and in which he suggests that some may have to close: Diario de Mallorca
More on the extraordinary life and times of Juan March, the founder of Banca March, whose death fifty years ago was celebrated (if this is the right word) yesterday. This is mostly about how he came to get hold of the Barcelona Traction company. An act of "financial piracy·, says the headline: Diario de Mallorca
And more on the Sóller train, celebrating its one hundred years this year, and its perhaps less well-known role as a post train: Diario de Mallorca
Sunday, March 04, 2012
MALLORCA TODAY - Sóller train exhibition
A blog article ("Electric Light Orchestra", 20 February) referred to the imminent hundredth anniversary of the Sóller train. As part of the celebrations of this anniversary, an exhibition of photography, documents and materials used for working on the railway will open on 9 March at the Can Prunera museum in Sóller.
Monday, February 20, 2012
Electric Light Orchestra: Mallorca's electricity
Endesa's recent announcement that cold weather had brought about record gas consumption levels in Mallorca was hardly a great surprise. Not because of the cold weather as such, but because natural gas has been supplied to the island for only two and a half years.
Infrastructure can take an awfully long time to be developed. The introduction of natural gas does give rise to the promise that the days of hernias and back problems, thanks to humping butane bottles around, might soon be something of the past. Natural gas is on its way north and west from its Palma base - to Inca and then onwards to Alcúdia and also to Andratx.
The piecemeal approach to the development of a gas infrastructure has echoes of that which brought electricity to Mallorca. There was little danger of there ever having been any light pollution in Mallorca before the turn of the last century, and for some time afterwards the danger only slowly became a possibility.
Electricity arrived on the island, not as you might have expected in Palma, but, of all places, in Alaró. 1901 was the year that the first electricity network was established, thanks to the vision of one Gaspar Perelló, native of Alaró, who had been to Barcelona and realised what vision could really be, thanks to the city's electricity system.
From the first bulbs being lit at the town's Mare de Déu d'Agost fiesta in 1901, it was still several years before other towns started to catch on to the idea. In 1912 Sa Pobla got its first real spark of electrification. The hundredth anniversary of lighting up La Puebla will be on 24 July, coinciding with the Sant Jaume fiesta, and doubtless there will be a display of lighting that befits the occasion and probably results in an overload of the system and power cuts for everyone else.
We can expect a 1912 overture with full orchestral accompaniment in a Sa Pobla piper and whistler style, and there will be further ones over the next years until 2026, the one-hundredth anniversary of the lights truly going on all over Mallorca. But all that sound and light in Sa Pobla will probably be as nothing compared with another electrifying one-hundredth birthday, as the grand switch-on in Sa Pobla was overshadowed, three months earlier, by a fanfare for the common man not on the Clapham omnibus but on the Sóller train. 6 April 1912 was when it was inaugurated, though to be electrically correct, it was to be another 17 years before an electric train ran.
A mere one hundred years later, the electrification of the Palma to Inca railway has now been celebrated, but how long it might be before the extension to Sa Pobla gets its juices flowing, who can tell? He who holds the keys to the 45 million or so that will be required to do so, along with the extension to Manacor; that's who.
With all these electric jubilees knocking around, it is unfortunate that a hundred years of electricity have to coincide with grand switchings-off rather than switchings-on. And in an effort to help with household energy bills, the regional government has hit upon the idea of having meters show consumption directly as euros, instead of kilowatts per hour, something that no one understands, rather like an Endesa bill therefore.
The story of Mallorca's electricity and indeed its trains at the start of the last century was one of lack of interest by government and a reluctance to invest in mostly any form of infrastructure. The story has changed in Spain as a whole, but in Mallorca the story is different to that of the mainland. Álvaro Middelmann, the director of Air Berlin in Spain and Portugal, has said that Mallorca and the Balearics should be compensated because of the islands' transport systems. The citizens of the islands pay the same taxes but they don't get the same benefits of motorway systems or high-speed trains.
Cost of energy is another disadvantage that the islands have. Investment there may have been in natural gas and also in electricity cabling from the mainland, but infrastructure is still lacking by comparison with the mainland. Part of the rail network has been electrified but it is inadequate and subject to political squabbles and funding cuts, as have affected extensions to Alcúdia and Artà.
Still, at least there is some public money. This didn't used to be the case. Alaró's electricity, Sa Pobla's electricity, the Sóller railway; they were all private initiatives. And in the case of the Sóller railway, it still is.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Infrastructure can take an awfully long time to be developed. The introduction of natural gas does give rise to the promise that the days of hernias and back problems, thanks to humping butane bottles around, might soon be something of the past. Natural gas is on its way north and west from its Palma base - to Inca and then onwards to Alcúdia and also to Andratx.
The piecemeal approach to the development of a gas infrastructure has echoes of that which brought electricity to Mallorca. There was little danger of there ever having been any light pollution in Mallorca before the turn of the last century, and for some time afterwards the danger only slowly became a possibility.
Electricity arrived on the island, not as you might have expected in Palma, but, of all places, in Alaró. 1901 was the year that the first electricity network was established, thanks to the vision of one Gaspar Perelló, native of Alaró, who had been to Barcelona and realised what vision could really be, thanks to the city's electricity system.
From the first bulbs being lit at the town's Mare de Déu d'Agost fiesta in 1901, it was still several years before other towns started to catch on to the idea. In 1912 Sa Pobla got its first real spark of electrification. The hundredth anniversary of lighting up La Puebla will be on 24 July, coinciding with the Sant Jaume fiesta, and doubtless there will be a display of lighting that befits the occasion and probably results in an overload of the system and power cuts for everyone else.
We can expect a 1912 overture with full orchestral accompaniment in a Sa Pobla piper and whistler style, and there will be further ones over the next years until 2026, the one-hundredth anniversary of the lights truly going on all over Mallorca. But all that sound and light in Sa Pobla will probably be as nothing compared with another electrifying one-hundredth birthday, as the grand switch-on in Sa Pobla was overshadowed, three months earlier, by a fanfare for the common man not on the Clapham omnibus but on the Sóller train. 6 April 1912 was when it was inaugurated, though to be electrically correct, it was to be another 17 years before an electric train ran.
A mere one hundred years later, the electrification of the Palma to Inca railway has now been celebrated, but how long it might be before the extension to Sa Pobla gets its juices flowing, who can tell? He who holds the keys to the 45 million or so that will be required to do so, along with the extension to Manacor; that's who.
With all these electric jubilees knocking around, it is unfortunate that a hundred years of electricity have to coincide with grand switchings-off rather than switchings-on. And in an effort to help with household energy bills, the regional government has hit upon the idea of having meters show consumption directly as euros, instead of kilowatts per hour, something that no one understands, rather like an Endesa bill therefore.
The story of Mallorca's electricity and indeed its trains at the start of the last century was one of lack of interest by government and a reluctance to invest in mostly any form of infrastructure. The story has changed in Spain as a whole, but in Mallorca the story is different to that of the mainland. Álvaro Middelmann, the director of Air Berlin in Spain and Portugal, has said that Mallorca and the Balearics should be compensated because of the islands' transport systems. The citizens of the islands pay the same taxes but they don't get the same benefits of motorway systems or high-speed trains.
Cost of energy is another disadvantage that the islands have. Investment there may have been in natural gas and also in electricity cabling from the mainland, but infrastructure is still lacking by comparison with the mainland. Part of the rail network has been electrified but it is inadequate and subject to political squabbles and funding cuts, as have affected extensions to Alcúdia and Artà.
Still, at least there is some public money. This didn't used to be the case. Alaró's electricity, Sa Pobla's electricity, the Sóller railway; they were all private initiatives. And in the case of the Sóller railway, it still is.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
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