![\"\"](\"https:\/\/ibiza-style.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/ibiza-style-tricia-templeton-05.jpg\")
<\/p>\n\u201cHoliday-makers were happier back then\u201d, Scotland-born island icon Tricia Templeton says as she recalls her years working as a tour guide in Ibiza back in the 1970s.<\/p>\n
\u201cTimes have changed so much. It felt like we were part of a family, as all of us tour guides worked together all the time\u201d.<\/p>\n
Tricia has lived on Ibiza for 46 years and seen how the island has changed.
\n\u2018Lady T\u2019 as she is affectionately known, started working here in 1978 for the holiday company Intasun, followed by Thomson Holidays, now known as TUI.<\/p>\n
\u201cI always remember arriving into Ibiza on the ferry. We sailed into the harbour of Ibiza Town, with the castle at the top, the little white houses and all the fisherman\u2019s cottages. It was an \u2018oh my God moment\u2019 \u2013 so pretty! The thing was at the time I didn\u2019t know where Ibiza was, I had to look it up on a map. I had been in Lloret del Mar on mainland before. I got off the ferry and saw all the old banks and bars in the old port \u2013 it looks so different now with all the super yachts. I went into a bar and had the strongest Spanish coffee!\u201d she giggled, recalling the first time she stepped foot on the island, which has long since become home.
\nIbiza is well and truly home for Tricia, having brought up her son and daughter here, now with grandchildren too. She spends her time being a \u2018good samaritan\u2019 helping many residents with the endless issues of bureaucracy. Juxtaposed her Lady T title, she\u2019s also been nicknamed \u2018Queen of Ibiza\u2019, in view of her sparkling personality, longevity on the island, extensive knowledge, and of course her British roots, charm and good manners.<\/p>\n
Starting out as a tour guide she recalled having to swot up on all the historical facts of the White Isle. She said, at that time, because people didn\u2019t have the internet, tourists would book excursions as that was the only way to see the island.<\/p>\n
Remembering one anecdote in particular, she told me it took more than 50 years to build the walls around Dalt Vila!, under the watchful eye of Italian engineer Giovanni Batista Calvi.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had my notebook \u2013 I was so nervous \u2013 getting out my book at each stop to make sure I had remembered my facts correctly. People were interested in the history \u2013 and Ibiza has so much history having been a target for pirates over the years, and occupied by so many people over time\u201d.<\/p>\n
She recalls taking visitors to the Salt flats: \u201cWorkers used to dig the salt by hand and put it on a rail track \u2013 they used to fill the carts by hand. They would take their salt to La Canal and make it into big piles, and then they would clean it. Rowing boats would come in to take it out to the big ships. It would mostly go to fish packing factories in Norway and Sweden; also to the UK for salting roads.<\/p>\n
Salt was a very valuable commodity, the people who worked on the salt flats could be paid in salt. Sometimes prisoners from the mainland used to work on the salt flats too\u201d.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Tricia talks fondly about the different places they would regularly take holidaymakers to, including a location in Salinas national park where tourists could meet \u2018local\u2019 camels and have their photos taken. \u201cWe obviously didn\u2019t have camera phones then, so everywhere we went there would be photographers who would take official photos of people and they would buy them to take home as souvenirs. I was always a bit wary of the camels though\u201d, she laughs.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe would take people to Barbacoa, which is now Sluiz in Santa Gertrudis. The casino in Passeig Joan Carles I, where there would be flamenco dancing and the restaurant next door, called Jackpot was really popular. Everyone would go there, good food, good service\u201d.<\/p>\n
She remembers how they would go to what is now Es Jardins de Fruitera, and holidaymakers would ride donkeys there. \u201cWhenever I go there, I can still smell donkeys but it is just in my mind \u2013 it is now a lovely place to go, but I am haunted by the donkeys\u201d, she laughs.<\/p>\n
Other nights they would take people to the former Sa Tanca venue in San Antonio, where tourists would enjoy a Medieval Night banquet and entertainers would perform jousting on horses.<\/p>\n
\u201cEveryone would sit on these long banquet tables and they would get food and jugs of sangria \u2013 but then we would have to gather them up and get them back to the hotel, which wasn\u2019t always easy when they\u2019d had a lot to drink. Some things don\u2019t change!\u201d<\/p>\n
She says, Playa d\u2019en Bossa used to be very family orientated: \u201cIt was pure families, very normal people all the way down the beach. It was buzzing with life. When the all inclusive hotels started to open, the bars closed down. The Cockney Rebel bar, Finnegan\u2019s Irish bar – well known bars, they were packed out. The only one still there is Murphy\u2019s bar. The all inclusive deals just killed it\u201d.<\/p>\n
Unlike these days of post-Brexit, Tricia explains it was relatively easy to work in Spain in the 70s and 80s. \u201cWe used to have to queue up at the Spanish embassy in the UK and then we would be given these work permits. We would have to go every year and they would issue these physical paper permits\u201d.<\/p>\n
Sharing nostalgic memories of showing guests around Dalt Vila; Tricia says she would love walking around the cobbled streets; \u201cI fell in love with it. You would see the stall holders wearing their traditional Ibicenco dress with the eight petticoats, which you would think would be so hot in the heat of the summer \u2013 and they were black. I loved walking around the port \u2013 it was so simple \u2013 no pretentiousness, just normal people\u201d.<\/p>\n
She recalls going to Teatro Peyrero, which has re-opened this year after renovations, when it was a cinema in 1983. \u201cI remember exactly the year because we saw the film Little Woman, and I was pregnant with my daughter and the seats were wooden and really hard!\u201d<\/p>\n
Listening to Tricia reminisce so passionately about her life and times in Ibiza, it becomes clear how – and why so many refer to her as \u2018Queen of Ibiza\u2019!<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/ibiza-style.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/ibiza-style-tricia-templeton-07.jpg\")
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
[…]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":36877,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-36901","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-people-en"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n