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The Town Hall of San Roque has been organising literary tours in Guadarranque, where the British spy from the book “The Time in Between”, Rosalinda Fox, lived and died.
There are clues left behind by Rosalinda Fox in the village of Guadarranque (San Roque) which have been there for all to find for many years, but have gone unnoticed to those who are not familiar with Guadarranque.
She was the British spy immortalized by María Dueñas whose bestselling novel has now been turned into a TV series, “The Time in Between”.
On February 7th, it will have been two years since the Town Hall of San Roque first started the literary walking tour, and it continues to generate great interest.
“The Time in Between”, organised by the Department of Libraries and directed by the writer María Angeles Chozas, introduces its audience to the woman who became a legend, and who is also the main character in Boris Izaguirre’s book, “Un jardín al norte”.
This tour will help you rediscover Rosalinda Fox, a beautiful woman of character, according to those who knew her. Although she denied it, she was in fact the British spy that Franco’s first Minister of Foreign Affairs, Juan Luis Beigbeder, fell in love with. She also received high praise from Winston Churchill himself.
The walk starts with a visit to her first home in Guadarranque, where she arrived in a Rolls Royce and an impressive fleet of removal vans.
She extended the house to liken a Moroccan riad. Today it stands in ruins, but a certain air of nobility still lingers. This is where she organized parties and met with the ‘movers and shakers’ of the era.
Fox arrived in Guadarranque in 1957 and fell in love with this corner of the Campo de Gibraltar. Her arrival had a great impact on this small fishermen’s village of masonry houses.
Her blonde mane and intensely blue eyes, her elegant clothes from Chanel and other prestigious brands from Paris, as well as her intoxicating perfume left her mark whenever she passed by. She was a pioneer in many things. Among other curiosities, she wore a bikini in an area where people still wore mourning. This, without a doubt, caused a revolution in Guadarranque, but it wasn’t all glamour.
According to Chozas, Rosalinda Fox had nothing to do with Maria Dueñas’ character.
Some of those who knew her say that she had a strong character and treated them badly. It is also said that she treated her neighbours disdainfully, while others have nothing but praise for her.
Rosalinda Fox wanted to buy the willingness among locals in order to turn Guadarranque, a dream-like area at the time, into a luxury urbanisation similar to Sotogrande.
The tour then takes you to other buildings she constructed and lived in. Each entrance features a figure of a dog of prey, the same as the one engraved on the ring she wore, together with the slogan, “God Willing” – a phrase Rosalinda frequently repeated.
However, the end of the tour will leave you with a bad taste in your mouth. This is the last house she lived in. Here, visitors will learn about this surprising woman’s final destiny, an end that, like everything else about Rosalinda Fox, will leave you feeling intrigued.
Rosalinda died in extreme poverty at the age of 96 and she had to resort to the support of Caritas and the Social Services. Her ashes were scattered under a rosebush located in the last dwelling she lived in. No one from her family kept vigil for her. It was a sad end to a life of luxury, intrigue and glamour.
To compensate for this eerie sense of unease, Chozas will talk you through the dozens of photographs that will give you an insight into who Rosalinda Powell Fox, the British Spy of Guadarranque, really was.
Rosalinda died in poverty at the age of 96. No one from her family kept vigil for her: A sad end to a life of luxury, glamour and intrigue.
NEXT: The Spy’s Maids: The Life of Rosalinda Fox, Ángeles Chozas
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