Tony Bryant

  Seeing as the large foreign communities based along the coast rely on the efforts of volunteer-run charities, associations, clubs and informative platforms, my work often involves highlighting fundraising campaigns, and the work of those charities which struggle, and overcome huge barriers, to keep their ships afloat. Probably the most well-known Costa charity is Cudeca ( which derives from Cuidados del Cáncer) , the cancer hospice founded by Joan Hunt   in 1992. The charity began in her house and has since become a pioneer in palliative care in Spain. The volunteers and staff, along with a vast army of supporters, of the Benalmádena-based hospice have raised millions of euros over the years to help people die with dignity. Along with the hospice, the charity opened a new education centre in 2022, and also boasts the only children and teenager’s palliative care unit in Andalusia. All this, and a lot more than I have outlined, was achieved by the sheer determination a...

  One of the topics that attracted a lot of media attention in 2018 was the Spanish Congress agreeing to consider a bill drafted by the governing Socialist Party (PSOE) to make euthanasia a right that would be available through the public healthcare system in Spain. The proposal had a majority backing from left-wing Unidos Podemos, and from regional Catalan, Valencian and Basque parties. However, the main opposition, Party Popular (PP), opposed the bill, while Ciudadanos expressed its concerns. The debate was reignited in Spain after Madrileño Ángel Hernández was arrested for ending his wife’s life by administering a lethal dose of pentobarbital, a drug used in physician- assisted suicide in the Netherlands. Hernández spent a night in a Madrid police station, before appearing in court the following day. He was released on bail pending an inquiry. At the time, euthanasia was considered homicide in Spain, so the country’s criminal code punished co-operators in assisted suicide,...

Art is something that has fascinated me since childhood. Although I am no painter, art was one of the few subjects, along with drama and English, that I truly enjoyed at school. Two of my favourite Spanish artists are Murillo, whose realist portraits of flower girls, street urchins, and beggars I find irresistible; and Julio Romero de Torres, the Cordovan artist whose symbolist style portrays a reflection of Andalusian customs and traditions. His sombre painting titled Cante Jondo (deep song) is one of my favourite Spanish works of art. My early fascination with art began with Francis Bacon, for I found his raw, unsettling imagery somewhat arousing. The screaming faces in his series of Popes (based on Valázquez’s portraits of Pope Innocent X), and the Study for Three Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion confused me as a youngster. Did these eerie paintings actually reflect Bacon’s character? Art critic Michael Peppiatt claimed that ‘it would be no exaggeration to say that, if one cou...