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I grew up in the time of Germany after the war.

Whatever the reasons may be, I was very much affected by events of the 1930s - the Spanish Civil War, for example, though I was barely literate.

I spent a little time in Germany as a schoolboy learning German, and it's a country I knew very well, spent a lot of time in. I knew the history very well. I've always wanted to do a piece of work about the post-war period, of one sort or another.

I didn't know a time when there wasn't a war because I spent all my time from the age of two or three to eight in a coal cellar really.

In France, when there was a war, we fought and our ancestors fought, though many had real reason to flee the Germans.

I loved everything about Spain - the people, the language, and the food!

Spain is an important historical ally of the United States, and if confirmed, I will add to our more than 200 years of diplomatic history to further our shared interests.

I speak Spanish because I grew up overseas in Spain, Uruguay and Argentina.

I went to live in Barcelona in 1975, when I was twenty. Even before I went there, I knew more about the Spanish Civil War than I did about the Irish Civil War. I liked Barcelona, and then I grew to like a place in the Catalan Pyrenees called the Pillars, especially an area between the village of Flavors and the high mountains around it.