My House in Málaga

by Peter Chalmers Mitchell, George W. Nichols (Contributor)

In 1934 Sir Peter Chalmers Mitchell retired at the age of 70 from a distinguished career as Secretary of the Zoological Society of London. During his tenure he had been the driving force behind the creation of the Whipsnade Zoo, which opened in 1931. He moved to Málaga “for what I expected to be a peaceful old age” and spent his time writing his memoirs and translating novels by Ramón J. Sender. Then came the rebellion of 1936. While most other British residents fled to Gibraltar, Sir Peter was one of the few to stay in order to protect his house and garden, and his servants. Although an open sympathiser with the Anarchist cause, he provided a safe haven to the wife and five daughters of Tomás Bolín, members of a notorious right wing family, eventually helping them escape across the border. He later offered shelter to Arthur Koestler. When the Italian forces sent by Mussolini to support the rebellion took Málaga, they were both arrested by Tomás Bolín’s nephew, Luis, who was Franco’s chief propagandist and who had vowed that if he ever laid his hands on Koestler he would “shoot him like a dog”. This is his memoir of that period, first published in 1938.

230 pages, Print on Demand (Paperback)

Published May 3, 2019

About the author

Sir Peter Chalmers Mitchell CBE FRS FZS was a Scottish zoologist who was Secretary of the Zoological Society of London from 1903 to 1935. During this time, he directed the policy of the Zoological Gardens of London and created the world's first open zoological park, ZSL Whipsnade Zoo. On retiring from the zoo, Mitchell moved to Málaga, staying there during the first six months or so of the Spanish Civil War. Wikipedia
Born: November 23, 1864, Dunfermline, United Kingdom
Died: July 2, 1945, London, United Kingdom

Reviews

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

Firstly I should thank Karen O'Connor, who mentioned this book in her own, as I would probably have never found it.

This is one of the best books I have read in a long time and gives one of the best views of the Spanish Civil War that I have read so far. An insider view if you like.

Peter highlights a lot of the things that history later shows us to be true about what was going on before and during the events of these times. I would also suggest that there are some stark parallels with what is currently going on in our world. We should take them as the warnings they are and open our eyes to them. Learn form what history shows us!

[Joel · Rating 3 out of 5]

I bought this book because I ran into the story of Peter Chalmers Mitchell in the memoirs of Arthur Koestler about his time covering the Spanish civil war. How Chalmers had given him refuge in Malaga when Franco's rebels had seized the town. He'd been arrested (Koestler was a socialist) and eventually freed (unlike many others who were executed). Koestler is a famous dissident, a Hungarian man of Jewish heritage who fought first the Nazis but became most famous with his book "Darkness at Noon" which is about the totalitarianism of the Soviets.

Those were remarkable days, days in Europe where without much effort you could brush up against Hemingway, Ezra Pound, Gertrude Stein, Pablo Picasso, Arthur Koestler; Herzl and Werfel inhabiting the same town as Nietzsche and Freud and Hitler himself. Orwell and W. Somerset Maugham.

There is a paucity of significance in America's current 'Années Folles'. To put not too fine a point on it, the apogee of America's empire -- our Pax Americana (which has arrived at its end) -- blows. The coming Pax Sinica (God help us all) is gonna be worse. An empire of crappy stuff and digital espionage.

I wish I was in Sir Chalmers-Mitchell's house in Malaga with Arthur Koestler.

[Marta · Rating 3 out of 5]

Para mi gusto es una biografía no muy bien escrita pero un testimonio muy interesante de la guerra civil que no sale en los libros

[Luis Martín-Santos Laffón · Rating 4 out of 5]

It’s a nice and detail account of the life of the author in Malaga during the Spanish war. A moving and realistic testimony of an English writer during this conspicuous days of the war that reading now with the perspective of the years grows in value for a reader like me. I recommend it to any one that wants to know what happen in Malaga in those days…

[Simon Deefholts]

Brilliant memoir of an elderly English eccentric living in Málaga as the Spanish Civil War erupts about his ears. An anarchist at heart, he is eventually arrested for harbouring Arthur Koestler, who the fascist rebels had vowed to "shoot like a dog". Fascinating read.