Jon Clarke is a Londoner who worked at the Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday as an investigative journalist before moving to Spain in 2003 where he helped set up the Olive Press.
After studying Geography at Manchester University he fell in love with Spain during a two-year stint teaching English in Madrid.
On returning to London, he studied journalism and landed his first job at the weekly Informer newspaper in Teddington, covering hundreds of stories in areas including Hounslow, Richmond and Harrow.
This led on to work at the Sunday Telegraph, Sunday Mirror, Standard and even the Sun, before he landed his first full time job at the Daily Mail.
After a year on the Newsdesk he worked as a Showbiz correspondent covering mostly music, including the rise of the Spice Girls, the rivalry between Oasis and Blur and interviewed many famous musicians such as Joe Strummer and Ray Manzarak, as well as Peter Gabriel and Bjorn from Abba on his own private island.
After a year as the News Editor at the UK’s largest-selling magazine Now, he returned to work as an investigative journalist in Features at the Mail on Sunday.
As well as tracking down Jimi Hendrix’ sole living heir in Sweden, while there he also helped lead the initial investigation into Prince Andrew’s seedy links to Jeffrey Epstein during three trips to America.
He had dozens of exclusive stories, while his travel writing took him to Jamaica, Brazil and Belarus.
He is the author of three books; Costa Killer, Dining Secrets of Andalucia and My Search for Madeleine.
Contact jon@theolivepress.es
Jon Clarke (Publisher & Editor)
let the poor man rest…….. why are these leftwing socialists always stirring up the past? you lost the war…. get over it!!! now it is your turn to screw up spain……and you are doing a very fine job of it…. carry on…….
Dear Queen’s Own,
The Shakespeare of Spain was murdered by right wing thugs, – and that took place within living memory. Lorca was probably tortured, mocked – made the leave the world brutally, in utter desolation. He has become a symbol of all the other victims of right wing brutality in Spain. Is this something we should ever “get over?” Perhaps you think the Jews should “get over” Auschwitz? In my book, the word Falange and the phrase “Lorca killers” go hand in hand, just as the Falange went hand in hand with the death squads.
Queens Own, that’s the sort of comment someone who’s embarassed about the(ir) past would make. If you lived through that time period, i expect you wore a black shirt (if in Spain, it was blue); if not, shame on you for that sort of comment, you have no right! What people affected by the horrors of the SpCvWr are trying to do is not open old wounds, but heal them; it’s a case of acceptance of what happened, so that THEN they can get over it. People like you will never understand this, because you think everyone is as violent as you, so you think your victims families will come looking for you (not you yourself, just a turn of frase, you understand) Lorca’s family wanted to turn the burial site into a tourist attraction (pay-per-view, mind), which is something the Ministerio de Cultura will never allow, and the same goes for the spanish people.
Gary, Queen’s Own isn’t the only one getting a message. Please specify which “Falange” you mean, as Jose Antonio’s original party was meant to help the peasants, acting as a sort of right-wing version of socialism, copying the principals of Mussolini’s, but without the blood-shed. The Falange i think you mean is the “Falange Española Tradicionalista y de las Juntas de Ofensiva Nacional-Sindicalista” (FET y de las JONS), which was the original Falange mixed with carlists, monarquists and sadists: many original Falange members left because they didn’t agree with the new party’s morals. Jose Antonio’s death actually helped Franco (neither saw eye-to-eye), as now he could run the party as he and his brother-in-law saw fit. As it is, Lorca wasn’t shot by Falangists, but imprisoned by them and then shot by local scumbags who wanted to be in the Falange’s good books, and not for being “left-wing” as most people believe, but for having progressive ideas, and was, as one of his executioners boasted, “shot in the arse for being a fag”, not for being a socialist: he wasn’t a politician, he was an artist.
Dear Queen’s Own,
Forgive me, I am not an expert – far from it, thank goodness! – concerning the miserable hierachy of the Falange and its followers. I leave that to people with a personal interest in extreme right wing organistions. You will know – or I hope you know, – that the Gypsy Ballads were recited and sung by the soldiers of the left during the Civil War.
You will know – or you should know – that Lorca was suspected of being a left wing radio operator in Granda.. and you will know, or you really should know – that Lorca insulted in print the conservative right wing of Grenada – these facts alone should guide you from the error of believing that the only reason the poet was killed was because he was gay. I hope I have enlighted you, somewhat.