Daughters of Spain gives a gripping account of the hard won changes within society for the women of Spain, through the eyes and experiences of the women themselves.I first began to think about writing this book in the late 1980s, when I lived in Spain for a brief period. I was impressed by the way the Spanish women I met had embraced the freedom of modern life in the short period since the death of Spain's dictator General Franco, in 1975. However I did nothing about it. The years went by and I began to realise that if I didn't make a start soon, most of the women I wanted to interview would be dead. So in 2007 I began to interview as many women as I could; I began with friends, then they introduced me to their mothers, aunts, neighbours and so it grew. I also read all that I could lay my hands on about the Spanish Civil war and the Franco era.The women I interviewed were from all walks of life and spanned a wide range of ages. Because the interviews covered a period of immense social change in Spain's recent history, I decided to link them together with short commentaries on topics such as divorce, abortion, contraception, domestic abuse and education, thus putting them into context. The result is a mosaic of their lives, a vivid and unique picture of what life was really like for women in Spain over the past seventy years, of the hardships they endured and their aspirations for a more egalitarian future.