In the early part of the twentieth century, Spain was a country relatively
httle known in Britain. There was no linguistic tourism to bring Spaniards to
Britain, and the flow of refugees in the nineteenth century had more or
less dried up by its final quarter. The number of British nationals to be
found in Spain was likewise small, so much so that the writers Laurie Lee
and Robert Graves were both, as recorded in their books, picked up by
British warships sent specifically for them at the start of the Civil War in
193
