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Hearts of Gibraltar: Sanjay Nankani
life
HEARTS OF GIBRALTAR Talking to Sanjay Nankani...
BY ROMINA MAYANI NANKANI, CYE-CYL
This will have to be one interview that I’m slightly nervous about, but at the same time super proud to conduct. I have been very involved in part of this person’s journey for over 13 years. Needless to say it’s been life changing, challenging, funny, emotional and sometimes slightly irritating. But with all that concoction, I couldn’t be more honoured to have witnessed him become the man he currently is. Sanjay Nankani, to me is a superhero (who by the way would tailor make an outfit after reading this). He is my husband and I may be obliged to say nice things, but truth be told I think readers would appreciate reading his story like all the other fantastic interviews written for The Gibraltar Magazine and those that are yet to come.
“You know I want to share your story, but I want you to take centre stage here and narrate - what experiences have shaped you to
who you are?” His eyes wide open in slight shock, “Wow! You’re going to talk about me? And no editing? So I was born and lived in Nigeria throughout my childhood and teenage years. My parents had migrated from India in the late 60s. I was your typical ‘play outside all day, with all the neighbourhood children’ kind of kid. I always included everyone and laughed my way through everything. I did have some difficulties (which took a toll on me in later years), but the simplicity of life shaped me to appreciate everything and never to think I was more than anyone because of my family’s financial status.
“We lived through some years of political and military unrest and were forced to emigrate to other countries for a short period of time. My family had to set up base a few times in Spain, India, and the UK. That is where the diversity of cultures made me eager to learn more and integrate into different communities. I came back to Lagos, Nigeria after being in Spain, and felt very different to the young lad who once grew up there. It was invigorating but also daunting and affected my attention to concentrate academically. Didn’t stop me though! I decided to emerge into the world of running and began training as early as 5am almost everyday. I competed a lot and very humbly can say, won quite a few good runs until the age of 18.”
He paused for a few seconds and smiled, “I forgot how ambitious and persevering I was since a young age. Well Romi you know my educational side didn’t go great and I didn’t pursue college. Instead, my parents thought best that I leave Nigeria and begin working in Spain with an uncle and build myself up work wise and financially. It was tough. I was a young lad in a new place with no friends and had to work hard. I am very grateful even though I wasn’t happy at the time, but today I believe it was the step I needed to get to where I am.
Fast forward a few years, I got married to you my sweet pea (he actually says this! We are the Hopeless Romantic versus Ice Queen love birds). As you remember, the economic crisis hit Spain in 2008 and by 2009 I got an opportunity to move back to Lagos. You were so supportive throughout. You would travel back and forth, adapting and yes getting very angry at me when you would get lost in different places. But let me add, it was through my new job that I was given the opportunity to get back into education and earn qualifications in business development. I was 35! And I never thought I would have ever been able to get a certificate let alone an entire qualification. I ventured to other countries working different projects and when time was up in my lovely African continent, I
joined you and Nooriya back here in Gibraltar.
“So here comes the interesting bit for everyone reading. And I’m going to probably get people a little uncomfortable especially those who know me well. I had a lot of highs and lows in life and I could never speak to anyone. If I did, the culture I grew up I was one of ‘don’t worry about it now, it will go away’ responses. I don’t blame anyone for my difficulties and struggles to cope, but I decided this method of coping won’t serve me.
“Around 7 years ago, I suffered from severe depression from not being able to deal with certain events in my life. It’s only when
I got very low and questioned whether life was worth living that you, my sweet pea, took the drastic decision to fly us from Ghana (where I was working at the time), to India and get the help I needed. It was a work in progress but I was determined to help myself and receive the help from the doctors and counsellors at the time. I worked hard and believed that I had what it takes to change my life and help others to live better and know they are worth it. Life still has its obstacles but the perception and approach I have to dealing with these challenges makes solutions appear sporadically.
“I am happy to live in such beautiful place like Gibraltar. Just last year I began running again thanks to the encouragement and support of amazing friends. In January 2020, I joined two very dear friends of mine and ran my first 21 km marathon in Seville.
And that is just the beginning! I encourage people to take up sports, arts, dance anything that liberates them and allows them to free themselves from their thought patterns and often self-limiting beliefs. Our power is limitless and I have always been and will continue to be an advocate to heal oneself and then help heal others. Together we can change the world one helping hand at a time.” - Sanjay Nankani.
GONE WITH THE WIND IN A HAIL OF BULLETS
Olivia de Havilland died of natural causes on July 26th at the age of 104. At the time of her death she was the oldest living Hollywood celebrity and was famous for her beauty, acting talent, her two Oscars for Best Actress and her star performance in the classic movie Gone with the Wind.
BY REG REYNOLDS
When Gone with the Wind was released in 1939 it was at the time the finest movie ever made. The acting, with Vivien Leigh, Clark Gable, Leslie Howard, Hattie McDaniel and de Havilland was superb, but the behind-the-scenes technologists and designers were also masters of their crafts providing, the lighting, the sound, the costumes, the sets and the wonderful colour film, far beyond anything ever seen before. Very few movies today, eighty years on, can compare in the quality of production. The producer of this masterpiece of film was Darryl O. Zanuck. It was directed by Victor Fleming and George Cukor from a screenplay by Sidney Howard and based on the novel of the same name written by Margaret Mitchell.
Gone with the Wind received 13 nominations for the 1940 Academy Awards and won 8 Oscars. The 22-year-old de Havilland was nominated for Best Supporting Actress but lost to 47-year-old Hattie McDaniel the first African American to win an Oscar.
What has all this to do with Gibraltar, you might well ask? Well in the movie de Havilland had the role of Melanie Hamilton Wilkes, wife of Ashley Wilkes, played by British actor Leslie Howard who was killed by the Germans when the plane he was a passenger in was shot down. The KLM passenger plane was attacked by a squadron of Junkers Ju 88 fighter bombers over the Bay of Biscay. All thirteen passengers and four crew perished. The plane was flying from Lisbon to Whitchurch, UK, but a few days earlier Howard had secretly visited Gibraltar.
It was a bright warm morning, June 1st, 1943, when the Dutch KLM DC 3, operated by BOAC, took off from Lisbon Airport. Scheduled airline service between Britain and neutral Portugal had continued throughout World War II. The unarmed commercial airliners often saw German fighter planes but so long as they maintained their course and made no threatening moves,
they travelled unmolested. There had been a couple of attacks by individual fighter planes but prior to this flight there had been no injuries or deaths. The plane was clearly marked, and the passenger list included a mother and her two daughters, one eleven and the other 18 months, some businessmen and entertainers and the actor Leslie Howard and his accountant Albert Chenhalls. The crew had made the same journey twice weekly for more than three years.
Why did the Germans do it? That was the question asked around Britain and America when the news of the tragedy was released four days after the attack. The official German explanation was that the Junkers squadron had been sent to protect two U-boats in the area, and although they were not under specific orders, it was their ‘duty to attack any Allied aircraft’. The real reason, however, was that Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels despised Leslie Howard, who had a patriotic BBC radio program where he often poked fun at Goebbels, Hitler and other members of the Nazi hierarchy. Another suspected reason for the attack was the presence of Howard’s friend and accountant Albert Chenhalls. The stocky Chenhalls had an uncanny resemblance to the Prime Minister, including a balding pate and a considerable paunch. He smoked the same cigars and wore a bowler hat.
When Howard boarded the flight at Lisbon he was returning from a promotional tour of Portugal and Spain. Gibraltar was not part of his government approved agenda, but we know he visited the Rock because U.S. Navy Captain Harry C. Butcher, Aide-deCamp to General Dwight D. Eisenhower wrote about seeing Howard and Chenhalls on the airport runway at Gibraltar in his book My Three Years with Eisenhower. He also commented on the subsequent attack on the Lisbon flight.
“This plane had carried, among other passengers, the actor, Leslie Howard, but the British learned
through secret channels that the Germans had shot the plane down because they believed Prime Minister Churchill was aboard. Just before take-off from the airport, the enemy had received information to the effect that a heavy-set man, wearing a bowler hat and smoking a big black cigar, had boarded the plane. The enemy, taking no chances, attacked the transport.”
Coincidentally, at the time of the downing of the aircraft Churchill was scheduled to be flying home from a meeting with Eisenhower in North Africa. Churchill believed the theory that spies had mistaken Chenhalls for himself and wrote about the incident in his memoires:
"The brutality of the Germans was only matched by the stupidity of their agents. It is difficult to understand how anyone could
imagine that with all the resources of Great Britain at my disposal I should have booked a passage in an unarmed and unescorted plane from Lisbon and flown home in broad daylight.”
As it was, Churchill had delayed his departure for a few days. He did travel back to Britain via Gibraltar on the evening of June 4th, 1943 in a Consolidated B-24 transport arriving in Britain the next morning.
Howard was 50 years old and the first of the major stars of Gone with the Wind to die. All but de Havilland died relatively young. Hattie McDaniel was 59 when she succumbed to breast cancer on October 26th, 1952. Vivian Leigh, winner of Best Actress for her portrayal of Scarlet O’Hara, was 53 when she collapsed and died of tuberculosis complications on July 8th, 1967 and Clark Gable, winner of Best Actor for his Rhett Butler role, was 59 when he died of a heart attack on November 16th, 1960.
Olivia de Havilland won many awards in her illustrious career. She appeared on Broadway, on television and in 49 feature films. She was nominated for an Academy Award five times and won Best Actress twice for To Each His Own and The Heiress. She had lived in Paris since 1960.
