[10] Nancy had convinced Archie to resign his job as a sub-editor on the News Chronicle, and to build a hotel.
On arrival in Tossa de Mar, they found a thriving artistic community, including the German architect Fritz Marcus, who they asked to design their hotel, as well as the artists Marc Chagall, Oskar Zügel and Dora Maar.
[12] When the Spanish Civil War broke out the following year, the Royal Navy destroyer HMS Hunter appeared in the bay to rescue British residents.
The day before Tossa fell to the Nationalists, the Johnstones piled 70 children into a truck, and drove them to safety in France, being chased throughout by Francisco Franco's troops.
[18][19] Until the border with France opened, the Johnstones and the children spent three days in the Edison Theatre in the Republican stronghold of Figueres.
They made plans to travel to Mexico, and sailed on the German ship Iberia from Cherbourg to Veracruz.
Archie taught in an English School; Nancy wrote another travel memoir, Sombreros are Becoming (1941)[22] and a novel, Temperate Zone (1941) set in Mexico.
[24] Johnstone returned to Tossa in 1947 and again in 1951 but, dismayed by Franco's Spain, sold the hotel, and went to live in Guatemala.
On 26 January the two women were involved in a car accident, which killed de la Mora and badly injured Johnstone.