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Authors: Michael Morpurgo
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was my grandson. I felt it was in some way his birthright, his inheritance. I knew too that he expected the truth from me. So I told him the truth, the whole truth.
“If I tell you something, Antonito,” I said, “it’ll have to be our secret. No one else must know, not until you’re a father yourself, and then you can tell your own children. That’s only as it should be. After all, it’s our history I’m talking about – yours, and theirs too. Not a word till then, promise?”
“Promise,” he said, and I knew he meant it. I could feel his eyes willing me on. So I began.
“I haven’t always lived here in town, in Malaga. But you know that already, don’t you? I’ve told you before, haven’t I,how I was born on a farm, how I grew up in the countryside with animals all around me?”
Over the years I’d told him dozens of tales about my country childhood in Andalucia – he loved to hear all about the animals. But I’d promised him something much more exciting this time, and I could see he was full of expectation.
“This is not just another of my animal stories, Antonito – well, in one sense it is, I suppose. But this is the most important story I could tell you, because this story changed my life for ever. I’ll begin at the beginning, shall I?”
∗ ∗ ∗ ∗ ∗
I was born in a small farmhouse just outside the village of Sauceda on the first of May, 1930. There was my older sister, Maria – ten years older than me to the day – and Mother and Father. Just the four of us. We had uncles and aunts and cousins all around, of course. The whole village was like one big family. But we can skip all that. It was another birth about five years after my own that really began it all.
The farm didn’t belong to Father. Hardly anyone owned the land they worked in those days – we just farmed it.It was a hard life, but I knew little of that. For me it was a magical place to grow up. There were cork forests all around – we’d harvest the cork and cut it off the trees every nine years, to make corks for wine bottles. We had our little black pigs wandering everywhere, and dozens of goats for our milk and cheese, and chickens too. Never short of eggs for an omelette. We had mules too, for bringing the cork down from the hillsides, and horses. Everyone had horses or mules in those days. I could ride almost as soon as I could walk.
But mostly it was cows we kept. Not those lovely reddy brown Rositos you often see out in the countryside. Ours were black, black and beautiful and brave. My father bred only black bulls, bulls for the
corrida,
for the bullring. Wemust have had fifty or sixty of them, I suppose, counting all the calves. Magnificent they were, the best in all Andalucia, my father always said. As a small boy I’d spend hours and hours standing on the fence, just watching them, marvelling at their wild eyes, their wicked-looking horns, their shining coats. I loved it when they lifted their heads and snorted at me, when they pawed the ground, kicking up great clouds of dust and dirt. To me they were simply the noblest, the most exciting creatures on God’s earth.
At that age though I had no real idea, no understanding of what they were kept for. They were just out there grazing in their corrals, part of the landscape of my life. I didn’t ask such questions, not at five years old. Out in the cork forest I’d see the red deer in amongst the trees, the wild boar bolting through the undergrowth and the griffon vultures floating high up there in the sky. I didn’t ask what they were there for either. Life seems simple enough when you’re five years old. Then Paco came, and the war came, and the bombing planes came, and nothing was ever to be simple again.
There was a terrible thunderstorm the night Paco was born. Father asked me if I was frightened, I remember, and I said no, which wasn’t true. And Maria said Iwas. She and I fought like cats sometimes; but I thought the world of her and she of
“If I tell you something, Antonito,” I said, “it’ll have to be our secret. No one else must know, not until you’re a father yourself, and then you can tell your own children. That’s only as it should be. After all, it’s our history I’m talking about – yours, and theirs too. Not a word till then, promise?”
“Promise,” he said, and I knew he meant it. I could feel his eyes willing me on. So I began.
“I haven’t always lived here in town, in Malaga. But you know that already, don’t you? I’ve told you before, haven’t I,how I was born on a farm, how I grew up in the countryside with animals all around me?”
Over the years I’d told him dozens of tales about my country childhood in Andalucia – he loved to hear all about the animals. But I’d promised him something much more exciting this time, and I could see he was full of expectation.
“This is not just another of my animal stories, Antonito – well, in one sense it is, I suppose. But this is the most important story I could tell you, because this story changed my life for ever. I’ll begin at the beginning, shall I?”
∗ ∗ ∗ ∗ ∗
I was born in a small farmhouse just outside the village of Sauceda on the first of May, 1930. There was my older sister, Maria – ten years older than me to the day – and Mother and Father. Just the four of us. We had uncles and aunts and cousins all around, of course. The whole village was like one big family. But we can skip all that. It was another birth about five years after my own that really began it all.
The farm didn’t belong to Father. Hardly anyone owned the land they worked in those days – we just farmed it.It was a hard life, but I knew little of that. For me it was a magical place to grow up. There were cork forests all around – we’d harvest the cork and cut it off the trees every nine years, to make corks for wine bottles. We had our little black pigs wandering everywhere, and dozens of goats for our milk and cheese, and chickens too. Never short of eggs for an omelette. We had mules too, for bringing the cork down from the hillsides, and horses. Everyone had horses or mules in those days. I could ride almost as soon as I could walk.
But mostly it was cows we kept. Not those lovely reddy brown Rositos you often see out in the countryside. Ours were black, black and beautiful and brave. My father bred only black bulls, bulls for the
corrida,
for the bullring. Wemust have had fifty or sixty of them, I suppose, counting all the calves. Magnificent they were, the best in all Andalucia, my father always said. As a small boy I’d spend hours and hours standing on the fence, just watching them, marvelling at their wild eyes, their wicked-looking horns, their shining coats. I loved it when they lifted their heads and snorted at me, when they pawed the ground, kicking up great clouds of dust and dirt. To me they were simply the noblest, the most exciting creatures on God’s earth.
At that age though I had no real idea, no understanding of what they were kept for. They were just out there grazing in their corrals, part of the landscape of my life. I didn’t ask such questions, not at five years old. Out in the cork forest I’d see the red deer in amongst the trees, the wild boar bolting through the undergrowth and the griffon vultures floating high up there in the sky. I didn’t ask what they were there for either. Life seems simple enough when you’re five years old. Then Paco came, and the war came, and the bombing planes came, and nothing was ever to be simple again.
There was a terrible thunderstorm the night Paco was born. Father asked me if I was frightened, I remember, and I said no, which wasn’t true. And Maria said Iwas. She and I fought like cats sometimes; but I thought the world of her and she of
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