Miriam González Durántez: ‘We never holidayed with the Camerons'
I was eight years old when Franco's dictatorship in Spain ended in 1975, and it was only then that a lot of middle-class Spanish families like my own really had enough money to go on holiday and explore our seaside. I remember my parents, brother, sister, uncles, cousins and I cramming into a procession of cars with our pots, pans and bed linen for the ten-hour drive from my home town of Olmedo, in the centre of Spain, to Alicante, where we rented shoe-box-sized flats for a couple of weeks; I spent many happy hours playing on the beach there.
In my teens, my family and I drove all over western Europe, including Britain, and I've had an affection for the British Isles since then. The last of those trips was to Austria, just before my politician father, José Antonio, sadly died in a car accident aged 58.
After Nick became the MP for Sheffield Hallam in 2005 we got to know the Peak District well and loved going on day trips, walking and climbing in the magical, heather-clad hills around Stanage Edge. But we regularly returned to Spain with our boys in summer. Sometimes we'd visit lush, mountainous Asturias, on the northwest coast; other times we'd visit Menorca, and more recently Catalonia.
It took a while for Nick to adapt to Spanish seaside culture. In Britain, if there are a bunch of people on the beach, one usually goes somewhere quieter, whereas in Spain we love socialising and always sit right by the crowd of people. I think he's got the hang of it now.
Our holiday habits changed surprisingly little after Nick became the Lib Dem leader. Naturally, security was more of an issue when he was deputy prime minister, but we carried on going to the same parts of Spain that we had always visited. The only difference was that we had two more people with us, though we tried to integrate the security guards as much as possible into the family, which made it nicer for everyone.
Did we ever go on holiday with David Cameron or other politicians? No, it never really crossed our minds, and I have only visited Chequers once; indeed, I only met the Camerons three times socially for dinner. As far as I'm concerned, work is work in politics, and it is healthy not to make it a personal affair.
In 2017 our eldest son Antonio was diagnosed with lymphoma — thankfully he's now fully recovered —and to cheer him up during the chemotherapy treatment we told him that we'd go on holiday to somewhere of his choice when it was over, and he asked to go to California. We flew out there as a family and visited San Francisco, Los Angeles and Yosemite National Park. So when we told the boys the following year that Nick had been offered a job with Facebook in California, they were keen to go because they thought of it as a holiday destination.
We spent the next five years in the US. We didn't have green cards during the Covid years, so we couldn't leave the country. Therefore, we holidayed in America and got to visit everywhere from Arizona's Grand Canyon and Montana to Alaska, where we saw bears — it was a wonderful feeling to be surrounded by miles of nothingness.
The UK was going through Brexit so — speaking for myself — it was nice to be abroad and not to have to witness the economic and political self-harm that the Brexiteers inflicted on the country. Around then we started going on activity holidays, which involved things like ziplining, swimming with manta rays, jumping off waterfalls and canyoning. This appealed to the boys, and also to Nick; I always find it a bit challenging, but there is no way I am going to be relegated to the hotel.
Nowadays I spend weekdays in Spain leading [the non-partisan political organisation] España Mejor, but I return to our home in London to join Nick and my youngest son most weekends. I know it sounds crazy, but it sort of works. Miriam González Durántez is the founder of the Inspiring Girls charity (inspiring-girls.com)
In our weekly My Hols interview, famous faces — from the worlds of film, sport, politics, and more — share their travel stories from childhood to the present day. Read more My Hols interviews here
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