Winter in Madrid

For contemporary accounts of the Battle of the Jarama, Tom Wintringham’s English Captain (London 1939) tells the story from the icy viewpoint of an upper-class Stalinist; Jason Gurney’s Crusade in Spain (London 1974) from that of a committed, and later disillusioned, volunteer.

For details of life in Madrid during the early Franco years I have relied mainly on works by British and American journalists and diplomats who were there at the time. Even allowing for their mainly anti-Franco viewpoints, the picture they paint is a horrifying one. T. Hamilton, Appeasement’s Child (London 1943), E. J. Hughes, Report from Spain (New York 1948) and C. Foltz, Masquerade in Spain (London 1948) were particularly useful. The letters of David Eccles, economic attaché at the British Embassy in 1940, By Safe Hand, Letters of Sybil and David Eccles, 1939–42 (London, Bodley Head, 1983), provide a vivid and enthralling account of diplomacy and everyday life by a man who, however odd some of his political ideas may seem today, was clearly moved by the condition of the Spanish people. The story of the woman arrested when her dress blew over her head is based on an incident he recounts, as is the story of Hoare hiding under a table to avoid a bat. The Café Rocinante owes a debt to Doña Rosa’s café in Camilo José Cela’s The Hive (USA 1953).

Author Biography

C. J. SANSOM was educated at Birmingham University, where he took a BA and then a PhD in history. After working in a variety of jobs, he retrained as a solicitor and practised in Sussex, until becoming a full-time writer. As well as Winter in Madrid, C. J. Sansom has written three novels in his historical crime series featuring lawyer Matthew Shardlake. He lives in Sussex.