Writing and painting from Spain to London and back again

'It seems impossible," laughs Joaquina González Marina, who now lives with her second husband, Desmond Savage, in a retirement home in Benalmádena. There, the signs are written in English and Spanish, reflecting a multicultural atmosphere, in tune with what she has been all her life: vibrant, creative and multilingual. The miracle Joaquina refers to is that a family scattered halfway around the world got together to celebrate her 90th birthday on Wednesday.

As part of the celebration the walls of the home were decorated with several dozen of her paintings, which could soon find a home in the Academy of Fine Arts of San Telmo. She was a member of this arts institution and contributed on its behalf to Diario SUR from London, the city where she lived for more than fifty years, from 1970. Three years ago she returned to Spain, first to Alicante, and then to Malaga, the province not where she was born, but with which she has had very special ties all her life.

SUR takes Joaquina a special birthday present: a selection of Spanish newspaper articles that narrate fragments of her life as a writer and artist and many others of which she herself is the author.

"I have never seen this before. This is a woman who never ceases to amaze me," Desmond says, looking fondly at Joaquina, coquettish in a scarf neatly knotted around her neck, with freshly manicured nails and perfectly outlined lips.

"She always looks perfect," her daughter observes. She is, and was, beautiful, as the cover of Semana magazine that featured her shows. Even Salvador Dalí was captivated by her when she and a German journalist went to Cadaqués to interview him. Now Joaquina, modest and afflicted by the absences that come with age, with the exquisite British manners that she has adopted, moves on to what really interests her: "I really liked writing, painting and teaching."

"A poetess is born." It was 1953. This is how Joaquina González Marina, who had written her first book, Dieciocho Segundos, was introduced in SUR. "Now we, the people of Malaga, are witnessing the admirable spectacle of a poetess who will give much to talk about (...) Although born in Madrid, she is from Malaga because, daughter of Rafael González Sáenz, from Malaga at heart, and a Marina Bocanegra, she carries this love and concern for Malaga that touches her blood," wrote the chronicler.

Two decades later, in the mid-seventies, SUR's newspaper archive of this newspaper brings us another great milestone of her life: José Luis Estrada Segalerva, then president of San Telmo, reported that Joaquina was in London and gave more biographical notes of her family connections with Malaga in an article entitled Una Malagueña en Londres.

It was - and still is - normal for the British to come on holiday or to live on the Costa del Sol, but Joaquina did the opposite: she went to live in England, where she gave talks on the main Spanish writers, and where she also translated into Spanish British authors such as three from Liverpool: Adrian Henri, Brian Patten and Roger McGough.

From London, Joaquina also contributed to the Malaga cultural magazine Caracola. And, of course, she wrote articles for SUR, often as an academic of San Telmo of which she is now an honorary member.

But how did Joaquina end up in London? Her daughter, Teresa Jacobson-González, tells us about her eventful life: Joaquina was born in Madrid and three weeks later the family moved to Barcelona, where her father had been awarded a professorship. In Barcelona, Joaquina studied philosophy and literature and learned several languages - she became fluent in five - which she combined with stays in Bonn and Vienna: "She enjoyed travelling and learning new cultures," says her daughter. A woman in the 1950s studying, travelling alone, and earning scholarships... says a lot about both her determination and the advanced ideas that ran in her family.

It was while travelling alone that Joaquina met her first husband, Antony Jacobson. He happened to be working at the British Institute in Barcelona, so the relationship prospered. Five weeks later, he proposed.

"It was an infatuation of minds," says Teresa. They were both brilliant, with great intellectual concerns; they had both seen a lot of the world and would see even more together. In Barcelona, for example, they were part of the city's cultural scene and established a relationship with the Lara family and their publishing house Planeta. Antony Jacobson was director of foreign copyrights and Joaquina also spent much of her life editing texts and books. The two also worked together on projects for the BBC.

From Barcelona they moved to Switzerland, to Geneva, where the family lived for about a year. From there, when Joaquina was pregnant with Teresa - the couple already had Max (1963) and André (1968) - they left for London, where Antony worked for an American multinational.

Joaquina, who spoke and wrote in English like a native, continued to work as a university lecturer in London, which was the job she had also done in Spain. She also continued to paint and write verses and literary contributions.

Zoom

She was a member of the Royal Academy of Arts and gave many lectures and presentations on Spanish artists. She was, therefore, a kind of ambassador for Spanish culture in London during the five decades she lived there, but she also informed people in Malaga of what was happening on the other side of the English Channel.

"She was a poet, artist, journalist, writer, teacher, she was all that, yes. She had a very creative world. I remember her always writing or painting," Teresa says. "We lived in Hampstead, the most bohemian place in London. Our neighbours were all artists. The parents of my school friends were very interesting," continues the daughter of the Benalmádena birthday girl.

The marriage between Joaquina and Antony did not last and the couple broke up. Then, in the early eighties, Joaquina married for the second time to Desmond. With him, a General Motors manager, she would travel to China, Japan, Korea, New Zealand, South Africa...

From then on, with Joaquina, Desmond fell in love with the idea of Spain, they bought a house on the Costa Blanca and spent years living between Alicante and the United Kingdom. Joaquina also took part in the cultural scene of Alicante: there she not only continued to give language classes, but also exhibited her paintings.

Three years ago, ill health brought the couple to the retirement home in Benalmádena where they live. It is a cosmopolitan, European atmosphere that has characterised their whole life. And, at the same time, Joaquina has many memories of her childhood summers on the Costa del Sol.

Desmond takes care of her. They take care of each other. But he makes it clear that at 95 years old, he is "five years her superior". Now it is his turn to take care of her a little more, although they share, like all couples, in addition to love, mutually infected colds, which they are now overcoming with the help of this early spring that Malaga is experiencing in February.

Joaquina's loyalty to Andalucía remains solid: "I have always been very Andalusian," says the birthday girl.