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Today I will talk about two names that, although different, converge in the same place and time, but with a different history: the disappeared Granja de Gavà and the writer Terenci Moix.
To begin the story, we will place ourselves at the beginning of the 20th century, when on Calle Poniente 37 (since 1923, Joaquín Costa), there was an old dairy, something normal in those times in the city of Barcelona.
I particularly, who was born on May 14, 1942, almost in the middle of the 20th century), not only knew several, but also had one in the street next to my house, in the Clot neighborhood, with the dairy with an entrance through Ruiz de Padrón and the dairy with an entrance to the block on Besalú street, with about ten cows. In those days, milk was sold in detail with measures of a quarter, a half and a liter. It was freshly milked and raw and kept in ice coolers.
The consumers, when they got home, put it to boil and after three boils they let it cool and there was a cream over half a centimeter, which was used to put it on a slice of bread with a little sugar and we had a snack yummy.
In Barcelona there were many, but the lack of hygiene in the stables (not the milk) and the fact that the animals were hardly moving all day made it advisable for the stables to be moved out of the city. In areas where, apart from being able to move, they were loose and could graze freely as long as they did not have to be milked. This, apart from improving the quality of the milk, would eliminate bad odors from the city.
Little by little and with the modernities of the time, its owners thought about improving the business and, in 1921, they fixed up the place, decorated it a bit and put some tables to be able to sell, apart from milk, some products made by them. themselves, turning the establishment into a farm.
While this was happening on the ground floor, the other character in our story was born on the first floor on January 5, 1942. Ramón Moix Meseguer, better known as Terenci Moix, had come into the world.
The farm, in those days, did not have the client pull it needed to be profitable. To achieve a higher sales figure, important works should be carried out and the supply of products should be increased, so electric refrigerators should be purchased. This decided to transfer the premises in 1989 to a young couple.
The new tenants, Carlos Leoni, an Argentine, and Montse Sancho, a Catalan, arrived wanting to radically change the business, turning it into a cultural and bohemian space, where they could have a few drinks while having a friendly conversation.
Taste a dinner recalling the meals in Carlos's country of origin and later attend an evening in which they could recite a poem or sing a tango.
Soon the place began to receive many compatriots of Carlos, to meet again Argentines and also from other South American countries. There they could spend a pleasant evening.
Soon after, these impromptu meetings were organized by Xavi Sastre, a client who began scheduling them on the first Wednesday of the month, bringing together a group of amateur poets, known as Los ladrones de Lunas, who recited their poetic compositions. Some of them came to publish a book of poems, given their quality.
The place not only brought together poetry enthusiasts, but also encouraged the interest of music lovers of the time, to listen to the group Chester and Lester, evocative musicians of the rock and roll of the 50s and 60s. .
In recent years, the place was known in the neighborhood as La Gorda, since Carlos and Montse acquired a statue of a fat woman dressed in red that was in a pizzeria that had closed in the neighborhood and that they had placed at the end of the the counter.
Although Terenci Moix did not usually talk much about his childhood, in his memoirs he commented that he had been born on the farm on the eve of Three Kings in 1942, in the midst of the war. Her mother went into labor when she was on her way to the movies and for fear of not getting home on time, she took shelter in the farm that her aunts ran.
Moix was a self-taught writer. His first two publications were police: I will kiss your corpse, in 1963, and They have killed a blonde, in 1964, under the pseudonym Ray Sorel. His transgressive figure began in his stay in London, where he wrote in 1968 The Tower of Capital Vices. From Paris, he recounted that he had spent some night at the Shakespeare and Company bookstore.
A versatile person, he was also a television presenter between 1981 and 1987, with the program Terenci a la fresca. This success led him to the first on TVE, which hired him in 1988 to carry out an interview program known as More stars than in heaven, which ended in 1989, and which featured Joan Fontaine, Lauren Bacall and Kirk Douglas.
Moix passed away on April 2, 2003. After his death, Carlos and Montse, especially in poetic evenings, always had a memory to perpetuate the memory of Terenci Moix. The unforgettable writer who had been born and raised in that place.
Like most stories, they never end the way we'd like. Carlos and Montse retired dreaming that her daughter Escarlata would continue with the project, but despite her wishes, the evolution of the city and the rental prices forced her to transfer the business in September 2014.
