"I'll give you a baby," Brenan told her, as he remembered in his autobiography, Personal Record. "Here and now, but I make it a condition that when the child has been weaned you hand it over to me to bring up in England and I will see that you don´t lose by it. And also that till you know you are pregnant, you will not leave this house unaccompanied after dark or speak to any young men. " (Brenan, 1974, p.217)
Gerald, Gamel y Miranda in Churriana, Málaga
This event happened in Yegen, in the Alpujarra, in 1931. The young woman (fifteen years old), Juliana, was finally pregnant and gave birth to a girl: Elena. Her name would be changed to Miranda Helen. Although it was said by the people in the village that the girl was not Brenan's daughter, but his friend: Paco from Yegen. According to the biographer Gathorne-Hardy, Brenan paid the mother one thousand pesetas.
Gamel Woolsey had not been able to have any children. In 1934, once the writer had his daughter, he went to live to Churriana (Málaga), where he had bought a house. After the outbreak of Civil War they left Spain and Miranda was educated in England. She did not learn to speak Spanish. Miranda married a French doctor: Xavier Corre, in 1950, in London. And she had two children: Stephane and Marina.
Juliana would look at all the English girls who came to Granada, she was obsessed with finding Miranda Helen. The girl was born with a peculiar mark on her toes like her mother. Juliana was looking for all the shoe stores to find an English girl with two toes united. Juliana was losing her eyesight because of diabetes. She died (64 years old) in 1980 without knowing that her daughter Miranda (49 years old) had died of cancer two months before.
Juliana is in the foreground and Brenan is the third one with hat
This sad story is investigated by the journalist Antonio Ramos Espejo in his book Ciega en Granada (She Died Looking for her Daughter, Brenan´s Daughter) published in 1990.
The Spanish director Fernando Colomo made the film South from Granada based on the Brenan´s autobiography and his book South from Granada, where the relationship is recreated as a tender love affair. But the relationship was a tragedy for Juliana.
Bibliographical sources
Brenan, G. (1974). Personal Record 1920-1972. London: Jonathan Cape.
Gathorne-Hardy, J. (1992). The Interior Castle. A life of Gerald Brenan. London: Sinclair-Stevenson.
Ramos Espejo, A. (1990). Ciega en Granada (Murió buscando a su hija. La hija de Brenan). Granada: Editorial Quijote.
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