Last week, Faberllull resident Margaret Flaws visited Espai Cal Marques in Camprodon. It is a museum about the retreat at the end of the Spanish civil war and the exodus of almost half a million people across the eastern Pyrenees into France from late January to mid-February 1939.

For many years, Lluis Bassaganya Sánchez, who runs the museum, has used a metal detector to find and gather together objects abandoned by people as they fled through the ice and snow. Many of the objects on display were left behind by Republican troops but there are also remains of suitcases, crutches, carts and personal items left in the mountains by civilian refugees.

Margaret’s project at Faberllull Olot is to develop and write poetry on the experiences and barriers faced by migrants and asylum seekers crossing borders into Europe today.