The Banana Road

By Andrea Montgomery

When Andy and Jack walk away from their successful careers, leaving family, friends and Manchester to move to the Canary Islands, they hope to find a new adventure and quality time together in the sun. What they do not expect to encounter is the intriguing, often amusing and sometimes downright bizarre cast of characters that inhabit their new,

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cranthorpe Millner Publishers
• Release date: May 4, 2021
• ISBN: 9781912964680

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The Banana Road

It's Tenerife But Not As You Know It

by

Andrea Montgomery

Copyright © Andrea Montgomery (2021)

The right of Andrea Montgomery to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with section 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

Any person who commits any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

Cover art by Emily Flanagan

First published by Cranthorpe Millner Publishers (2021)

ISBN 978-1-912964-68-0 (eBook)

www.cranthorpemillner.com

Cranthorpe Millner Publishers

Foreword

What makes a couple of middle-aged, career civil servants want to step off the promotional ladder; abandon job security, good incomes, friends, family, and their cat to move from the UK to a small island off the coast of West Africa?

Looking back, it is hard to pinpoint that moment when the daydreaming, the alcohol-fuelled conversations, and the fantasising turned the corner from speculation to reality.  There was no momentous catalyst, no sudden loss of a loved one, no recovery from a life-threatening disease or jackpot win on the Lottery. Like a slow leak, drips began to appear on the canvas of our busy lives – another British summer of endless rain; unwelcome changes afoot at work; a work-life balance that had been seriously out of kilter for years – and as the months passed by, the drips became a dribble, then a trickle, and before we fully realised what was happening, we were being carried on a tide of change that washed away everything we had ever known, depositing us in the Canary Islands with no jobs, no income, no prospects, and not a clue what anyone was saying.

As an adult, moving away from the country of your birth and starting again somewhere completely alien pushes you way out of your comfort zone, presenting you with constant challenges to be overcome. It is exhausting, exhilarating, and highly addictive. In our case, moving to Tenerife took us on a journey that would change our lives inexorably, testing the limits of our relationship.

Looking back, were we the victims of a flagrant fraud, perpetrated and perpetuated by multiple parties? Or just the victims of a society in which corruption passes as custom and the means by which people sidestep endless bureaucracy, while maintaining their own interests? In the cold light of hindsight, I suspect the latter.

Despite everything that has happened to us since that October night in 2003, when we arrived in Tenerife with three suitcases and a Spanish phrase book; despite the unbearable stress, the frustration, and the heartache, I would do it all again in a heartbeat.  It is not until you have stood on the brink of losing everything that you realise what you have, or as my mum used to say: ‘you never miss the water ‘til the well runs dry’.

For Dad

An Honourable Introduction

I blame the kilt.

It is Saturday night in the function room of a hotel in Punta Brava, a small neighbourhood at the western edge of Puerto de la Cruz, in the north of Tenerife. There are upwards of five hundred guests in glittering gowns, DJs and bow ties, and Jack and I are on the brink of inadvertently causing an international incident. We have only been on the island for three weeks, how on earth has it come to this?

The event, arranged annually by the Tenerife Wine Society to promote Canarian wines, had promised to be an evening of good food and good wine, in good company, with awards being presented to various local bodegas (wineries). We had been invited to the event in advance of our move by the boss of our friend Jo, by way of a welcome to Tenerife. The event was to take place long before our shipment from the UK was due to arrive, putting additional pressure on our choice of luggage for the flight over. An evening gown, shoes, and bag had hitherto not had a chance of making the ‘essentials’ list that was to accompany us on the plane, let alone a full dress kilt, white shirt, jacket, socks, brogues, and sporran for Jack. As unwieldy as my glittery evening dress was when it came to trying to cram our suitcases to capacity, my struggle faded into insignificance beside the weight and bulk of Jack’s kilt and dress jacket. Between them, they made a sizeable contribution to the excess luggage charge we had to cough up at Manchester Airport.

The day of the big event dawned, and our good friend Jo had come across on the ferry from her home on the neighbouring island of La Gomera to stay with us for the weekend. We had all scrubbed up a treat, with Jack looking particularly resplendent in his kilt, and as we walked into the lobby of the hotel, many eyes turned towards us. We were, after all, strangers, and a somewhat motley bunch at that. In my evening shoes I stood a good six feet tall; next in height was Jack, a tall-for-Canario, average-for-Scottish, five foot nine inches in his brogues, while Jo was a petite-by-anybody’s-standards, five foot two inches in her pink, satin slippers.

Rescued by a glass of champagne, lifted from the silver tray of a passing waiter, we headed towards the ballroom and our allotted table, where six ladies were already seated, Jo’s boss among them. With the addition of Jo and myself, there were eight women, two empty seats, and Jack.

Ooh, hello handsome. You’re going to have to keep all us ladies happy this evening, you know, the powdered woman next to one of the empty seats winked at Jack, patting the chair beside her, and propelling her cleavage forwards so much that it rattled her dessert fork.

It was not the sort of opener you would expect from an octogenarian, and though the challenge of being the only man on a table of eleven, with only two seats still to be filled, was one that Jack would not normally shy away from, tonight, he was wearing his kilt. I watched his eyes dart nervously around the function room, mentally checking exits should his modesty be threatened with compromise beyond the levels of common decency.

There is something about a man in a kilt that seems to afford some women the sort of licence that would initiate another wave of #metoo social media outrage were such liberties taken with their own attire. For these women, the sight of a kilt prompts an uncontrollable urge to see beneath its heavy, voluminous pleats, to find out whether the ‘what a Scotsman wears beneath his kilt’ fable is indeed true. No surreptitious dropping of the napkin on the floor; no furtive glances beneath the tablecloth, not for these women. No, a direct lunge at the rear followed by a brisk upward thrust was their modus operandi. I have witnessed ‘The Kilt Effect’ every time this eponymous item has been worn, and that particular evening did not look like it was going to buck the trend.

Jack adopted rear guard action, quickly sitting down next to the two empty seats. The last two guests arrived at the table, a Canario couple, introduced to us as the Honorary Consul to Ireland and his wife, the guests of honour for the evening. It was soon discovered that Jamie had Scottish connections, despite being Honorary Consul to Ireland, so over the six courses, and a bottle of every award-winning local wine, Jack and Jamie chatted ceaselessly about Scotland and all things Scottish.

With the last dirty plate taken away, and before the serious business of award-giving could get underway, the host of the event gestured towards our table and introduced the guest of honour to the gathered elite of Tenerife’s viniculture. As award after award was collected from the stage, a bright flash from the photographer ensured that the whole event was being recorded for publication in the Living Tenerife magazine, copies of which lay on every table. The final trophy was collected and, as the band struck up ‘Sex Bomb’, our entire table headed onto the dance floor to boogie the night away, all except Jack, who opted to keep his tartan-clad bum right where it was, nervous of attracting the attention of dancing kilt lifters. I, along with a bottle of Viña Norte, opted to keep him company.

A third of the way down the glass and the photographer asked if he could take our photo. We consented, and Jack struck his Sean Connery pose for the camera. Alarm bells quietly started to chime in our heads, like the whirr of cogs turning just before the clock strikes, as the photographer leaned forward and whispered into Jack’s ear: Can you tell me your wife’s name?

Err, sure, it’s Andrea.

Thanks, the photographer smiled, moving off to catch the action on the dance floor.

Why doesn’t he need my name too? Jack mused.

The question hung in the air between us before slipping unnoticed into the shadows, but just as it pulled its toe from the lamplight, the Canario host of the event arrived at our table, shaking our hands warmly and thanking us profusely for coming.

Delighted, I mumbled something about us having a lovely time, thanking him for his thanks (British, don’t you know), whilst inwardly basking in the glow of the success we seemed to have made of our arrival in Tenerife, simply by showing up. I looked at Jack. The colour had drained from his glass, and his face had followed suit.

I think they think I’m the Honorary Consul, he said.

We looked across to the dance floor, where the real Consul and his wife were saying their goodbyes and heading slowly towards the exit. No-one had taken their photograph. No-one had thanked them for coming. Then we glanced down at the glossy covers of the Living Tenerife magazines scattered upon the table, all of them with ‘now published in the UK’ emblazoned in bright red across one corner. A mental picture formed of our photograph, with the caption ‘The Honorary Consul to Ireland and his wife, Andrea, enjoy an evening of wine and dancing at the Annual Wine Awards in Puerto de la Cruz’. There would be incredulity, not to mention a little confusion from the Scottish side of the family, when the folks back home read this.

Like watching a series of stills from a movie, my eyes darted from the Consul and his wife, as they inched closer to the door, bidding farewell to fellow guests en route, then to Jack who, like some tartan clad White Rabbit, was in hot pursuit of the photographer from Living Tenerife magazine who was just disappearing into the gents. They both emerged laughing and the photographer hurried after the Consul before he entirely vacated the premises.

Right, where’s that Canario host… Jack had got the bit between his teeth now and lunged forward to the top table to confront the host.

From my seat, I watched as Jack opened the conversation, a smile on his face, hands on his hips, legs astride. The host’s expression took a couple of moments to morph from professional diplomat, through confused-of-Puerto, to cartoon character as he looked down at Jack’s kilt, slapped one hand to his forehead, pointed to the kilt with the other, and audibly exclaimed:

"Dios mio! You’re Scottish!"

Jack pointed to the real Consul who, fortunately for our host, had been detained by the Living Tenerife chap, who was taking a couple of photos and ensuring he got the right names in his notebook.

Thank you, thank you! The host shook Jack’s hand with the enthusiasm of a condemned man receiving a last-minute pardon and sprinted towards the door.

Some ten minutes or so later, the photographer from Living Tenerife magazine arrived at Jack’s shoulder.

You’re not anybody famous, are you? he asked.

Not yet, came Jack’s 007-esque retort.

Deportation for impersonating a member of the Diplomatic Corp side-swerved, and another bottle of Viña Norte effortlessly imbibed, we left quietly, anonymously, and slightly unsteadily through the revolving door. 

Totnes via Tenerife

Living in Stockport, South Manchester, and commuting thirty miles and three motorways to my office in Middlewich, my working days began at seven a.m., in an attempt to avoid traffic on the M6. If I was lucky, my day ended twelve hours later, but often it was eight p.m. before I arrived home. The weekend was dedicated to shopping, cleaning, and DIY jobs, while Sunday was largely given over to more work, so I could start the week with less work than I had brought home on Friday night.

I was one of a team of five Executive Directors, in charge of the South and East Cheshire Training and Enterprise Council (TEC), one of the many quasi-autonomous organisations, or quangos as they became known, set up under Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative government in 1990, to replace the Manpower Services Commission. But the writing was on the wall for the company’s future, as the election of Labour under Tony Blair in 1997 had led to a realignment of policies, and TECs were to be replaced by Learning and Skills Councils (LSCs). With the emphasis switching from the business and enterprise side of operations, where my expertise and enthusiasm lay, to the education sector, which held no interest for me at all, I decided it was time to re-think my career.

When I left school, I wanted to be a journalist. With three A Levels, a handful of O Levels, and a JMB Certificate in Creative Writing behind me, I started a joint BA honours degree in English and Philosophy at North London Polytechnic. After a year of naval gazing in Philosophy, dull tutorials in English Literature, and unbridled hedonism in the Big Smoke, I made an appointment to see the Careers Counsellor, who assured me that journalism was the one remaining career where academia had no real footing. She told me that if I was serious about going into the profession, I should enrol into the London School of Journalism (LSJ); it was all the encouragement I needed to quit the course.

Moving back to Stockport at the start of the long, hot summer of 1976, and renting a flat in Heaton Moor with one of my brothers, I decided to simply enjoy the summer before enrolling at LSJ in September. Three gloriously hot weeks and a deep suntan later, I went in to the Dole Office to sign on as usual and was told by the clerk that they were recruiting Clerical Officers and that I should apply. Worried that they might stop my money if I did not, I went to the interview and was offered a job. The money was good – to be honest, compared to the pittance of a grant I had been living on, the money was amazing – so I accepted the job, and started working at the Department of Employment in January 1977. Thirteen years, two promotions, and countless pay rises later, I was invited to join South and East Cheshire TEC where I spent another ten years, ultimately becoming one of its Directors, in charge of a budget in excess of a million pounds and responsible for more than eighty staff across three offices. My dream of becoming a journalist was a very distant memory.

With the impending transition to LSC afoot, I had started talking to Jack about wanting to make drastic changes to our lifestyle, and gradually, over the course of two years or more, we both committed to the idea of stepping off the corporate ladder and taking back control of our lives. For the first time since I left college, I decided it was time to do what I had always wanted to do: write.

We should move to Totnes, I declared that evening, dropping an unprovoked bomb on Jack’s life before taking another forkful of dinner.

Let’s move abroad instead, Jack retorted, trumping my bombshell with a nuclear device. The plates had been cleared away, the wine glasses had been refreshed, and we were sitting at the dining room table in the front room of our mill worker’s cottage in Stockport, discussing our future.

"If we’re going to leave here and move somewhere warmer, why not move somewhere a lot warmer?"

Over several hours, we discussed possible locations and feasible ways to make a living. Having been avid travellers for as long as we had been together, we had opted to forego a fancy church wedding and hotel reception in favour of a registry office and Stockport Railway Club, so that we could afford a honeymoon in Sri Lanka. At that time, few Brits were travelling to Sri Lanka, as the Tamil Tigers were still active and more or less had complete control of the eastern side of the island, adding a frisson of danger to an already exciting destination. Taking long haul holidays to the Far East, the Caribbean, and South East Asia every year since, we were both drawn towards tourism.

The trouble with the tourism industry is that it’s seasonal, I mused. We’d have to be somewhere that had year-round tourism.

You mean like the Canary Islands?

Our close friend, Jo, had relocated to the Canary Islands some six years earlier, along with her partner, Ricky; they had bought a small finca (farm) at the edge of the Garajonay rainforest, on the little island of La Gomera. In those intervening years we had only been out to stay with Jo a couple of times, but had fallen hopelessly in love with her little slice of paradise on the mountainous island that lay off the southern tip of Tenerife. With the Canary Islands enjoying a perfect year-round climate and commensurate tourism, it seemed like a good option for kick-starting a business in the tourism industry. We decided to plan another visit to La Gomera to see if we thought it could be our permanent new home.

Falling head-first into an age-old cliché of Brits abroad, our immediate solution when considering how we would earn a living once we had relocated was to open a bar. Of course, we were going to buck the trend of the run-of-the-mill stereotype; our bar was going to be a sophisticated glass-and-chrome, wine-and-cocktails bar, far more redolent of Manchester city centre than Majorca. For years we had been collecting ideas from places we had visited across Europe and the Far East: there would be Funk and Jazz music, mood lighting, and creative finger-food; the bill would come in smart little jewellery boxes; the glasses would be as inventive as the cocktails, and the wine would be excellent. We even imagined there might be random theatre, perhaps a woman on stilts walking blithely through the bar, followed by a juggler wearing a top hat and tails.

The décor was going to be designed by art students; the wine was going to be supplied directly by local vineyard owners, and the food was going to be created by a local chef. Yes, we decided, we were going to bring avant-garde sophistication to La Gomera, an island inhabited by ageing Canarios, scratching a living from their family farms, and by middle-aged German hippies; an island where the busiest bars were those that had stood on shabby streets for decades, their plastic tables and chairs populated by old men nursing bottles of Dorada beer and cortados, and where the neon green cross outside the farmacia was the closest thing there was to the bright lights of the big city…

It took just two days for us to realise that an avant-garde wine and cocktails bar on La Gomera would be about as welcome as a fart in a confined space.

Why don’t you think about Tenerife instead? Jo proffered.

Only ever having used Tenerife as a stepping stone to La Gomera, catching the daily ferry service from Los Cristianos on its south coast, and feeling frankly appalled at the idea of even holidaying on the island, let along considering relocating there, our faces must have registered our horror.

Don’t dismiss it until you’ve been to the north, it’s like a completely different island, Jo assured us.

With La Gomera off the radar and another week at our disposal, we had nothing to lose. We took the ferry back to Los Cristianos, hired a car, and planned to spend the next few days driving gradually north, stopping overnight anywhere that looked interesting en route. Picking up a map with the hire car, we were once again faced with the harsh reality of our own ignorance: it would not take us a few days to drive north; even if we stopped for lunch we would be there in time for dinner. Revising our plans, we decided to take it slow and stay one night on the west coast before heading north.

Leaving the sprawl of Los Cristianos and Playa de Las Américas in the rear-view mirror, we drove through the rapidly advancing developments of Costa Adeje, which at that time was being marketed as Tenerife’s shiny, new, up-and-coming area, with five-star hotels springing up like designer mushrooms. This would probably be the perfect location for our planned gastro-bar, but our instinct was to run a mile; it was precisely the sort of purpose-built resort we had spent the last twenty-five years fastidiously avoiding. Were we really going to make it our home? Not even bothering to get out of the car, we drove on.

Our first stop was at Playa de San Juan, a small coastal town lying further along the south west coast. Not wishing to be left behind by the developments of its flashy new neighbour, Playa de San Juan had imported golden sand to line its main beach, but even before the first tourist parasols had been erected, the heavier, volcanic black sand had started to show through; the finer, golden grains had been washed out to sea on the tide, and the beach had been left looking like bleach-at-home hair dye gone wrong. Despite this, we liked Playa de San Juan’s authentic feel and its sunset views over La Gomera, but its lack of a hotel, its small size, and the fact that we could only discern a handful of tourists on the seafront made it a less than suitable location for our gastro-bar. 

We decided to stay overnight in Puerto de Santiago, further along the coast. Originally a small fishing port and the hub of communication between La Gomera and Tenerife, this town had been expanded by the addition of a string of hotels and holiday apartments along its coastline, overlooking the giant cliffs after which its better-known neighbour, Los Gigantes, is named. Booking into the only room available at Barceló Santiago hotel, set on a headland with the resort’s best views, we planned to wander along the coast and take a look at Los Gigantes later that day. Checking in alongside us at the Barceló was a tour rep, who asked us how long we were staying. We told her about our plans.

So where are you heading after here? she asked.

Puerto de la Cruz.

Ah. You’d better enjoy the sunshine while you’re here then, she smiled knowingly. I’m not saying it’s never sunny there, at times it can get just as hot as it does here, but you’ll find it a lot cooler and cloudier most of the time.

Her words somewhat dinted my enthusiasm for our journey further north. Granted, I had no desire to spend my days stretched on a beach, acquiring a tan the colour of old leather, but I did want a good climate and warm sunshine, and to be able to live my life predominantly outside. I pushed doubts to the back of my mind and consoled myself with the knowledge that, however much ‘cooler’ Puerto de la Cruz proved to be, it would certainly be warmer than the UK.

Despite the jaw-dropping drama of its position, tucked at the foot of those five hundred metre sheer cliffs, and its pretty marina, where fishing boats and yachts danced on the water’s shimmering surface, we were less than impressed by the distinctly British vibe in Los Gigantes. The pretty main streets, lined by whitewashed buildings, were marred by the sight of a pub, its outside terrace regaled with hand-made signs advising such dictates as the minimum number of drinks to be bought during a televised football game; advising customers to not stand drinking at the bar, and warning parents to control their children. Other bars sported blackboards advertising that night’s karaoke line-up and the times at which they would be screening Brookside and EastEnders.

Wasting no further time, we checked out of our hotel straight after breakfast and headed up the steep cliffs towards the north of the island. Passing through the pretty village of Santiago del Teide and then climbing towards the north west coast, the scenery changed as suddenly as if the curtain had fallen between acts; there was practically a straight line where the scorched, arid landscape ended and the lush, green pine forests began.

Our hearts raced as we drove ever further north, the landscape morphing into rich, green hills, embroidered with pine forests and palm trees; the surreal profiles of Mount Teide and Pico Viejo coming into view, wispy clouds playing around their lower slopes, while Teide’s peak soared into the brilliant, blue heavens. This was a Tenerife we never knew existed, and for the first time since setting foot on the island, we remembered that we were abroad, very much abroad, off the coast of Africa in fact. Jo was right, this really did feel like an entirely different island.

Joy turned to frustration when we reached the outskirts of Puerto de la Cruz and found ourselves being sent on a detour, as the main road into town was being refurbished. Time would later teach us the invaluable life lesson that things work best when I drive, and Jack navigates. Unfortunately, Jack was driving, and I was navigating, using the free map we had been given when we hired the car.

Where are we? Jack asked, as I glanced nervously from road to map and back again.

I don’t know.

Well, look at the map. His voice was beginning to acquire a certain volume and urgency.

"I am looking at the map, but I don’t know where we are." The more I looked, the less I saw, the map becoming a blur of incomprehensible lines and Spanish names.

Which way do we go?! We had reached a junction and Jack’s voice had made the shift to shouting.

I don’t bloody know! How can I say which way to go if I don’t know where we are?! Now I was shouting too, and the car behind us was blowing its horn.

That’s the whole point of the map! Look at the map!

But if I don’t know where we are on the map in the first place, how am I supposed to find out where we are?!

To me, my logic was impeccable; to Jack, it