British writer makes life under Franco a Spanish soap hit

Amidst the endless daily diet of chat shows filled with "celebrities" famous for being famous and poor South American soap operas, one television programme shines out.

Cuentame como paso (Tell me how it happened) tells the story of one family in the dying days of the regime of General Francisco Franco. An entertaining family saga, it relates the daily trials and tribulations of the Alcántaras family. But it has taken on a wider significance with references to what life was like under El Generalisimo, dispelling to some extent the taboo on talking about one of Spain's darkest eras. It has allowed Spaniards, through one TV programme, to examine life as it really was then.

Seen through the eyes of an adult looking back at what life was like when he was a boy, the success of Cuentame has made it a phenomenon in Spain. But most extraordinarily, for a series which provides such piercing insights into Spanish history, it was partly dreamed up by a British scriptwriter, Patrick Buckley, who lived through the that era as a young man in Madrid. The series was the brainchild of Miguel Ángel Bernadeu but Buckley helped bring the Alcántaras - Antonio, his wife Mercedes, their troubled children and the ever present grandmother, Herminia - to life. It is partly because these characters ring so true for so many Spaniards that the series has been such a success. They are a typical lower-middle-class family, with three generations living under the same roof, aspiring to a better life during the final years of the dictatorship.

The popularity of the show also partly reflects the greater willingness in Spain to talk about this chapter of recent history, which only ended in 1975 with the death of Franco.

Buckley, 59, who divides his time between London and Madrid, said: "I grew up in Madrid. We wanted this family saga to reflect what was happening then. But it had been tierra incognito [unknown land] for many Spaniards as the Civil War and Franco years were hardly taught in schools or university.

"It took us eight years before a television channel would put it on because none of them thought Spaniards would want to watch this.

"The success of the series has surprised me a lot. There was a lot of criticism from the right and the left when it started, but people seem to like it a lot. But I suppose it tells the way Spain itself has evolved itself into a richer country."

As Buckley juniorgrew up in Madrid, the family's Republican sympathies left it always fearing reprisals during the dark days of the dictatorship.

Buckley's father was a foreign correspondent for Reuters during the Spanish Civil War who wrote a book praising the beaten administration, called The Death of the Spanish Republic. He married the daughter of a Catalan businessman, during the final decisive Battle of the Ebro and they spent their honeymoon with the retreating Republican forces.