Manuel Chaves Nogales

In 1927 he won the most prestigious journalist prize in Spain, the Mariano de Cavia, with a feature article on Ruth Elder, the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic.

In 1931 he was appointed editor in chief of the influential newspaper, Ahora, ideologically supportive of the Republic and Manuel Azaña, and he became one of the most incisive and unbiased political analysts in Spain.

In the prologue, Manuel Chaves writes that, "brutality and stupidity reigned in Spain, fed equally by the fever of communism and the blandness of fascism".

Owing to his many articles denouncing the advance of German fascism, his name was included on the Gestapo list and he was once again forced to abandon Paris when the German army approached the French capital, expressing his most profound disappointment and even outrage at the behaviour of French politicians on both the right and the left, and most of the Parisian populace.

In 1940 he arrived in London and between 1941 and 1942 he directed The Atlantic Pacific Press Agency, worked at the Evening Standard where he had his own column, and collaborated with BBC Overseas Broadcasts.