By Richard Torné
A street in the village of Palomares will be renamed in honour of a Spanish duchess who campaigned to uncover the truth behind the 1966 nuclear accident.
Known as the ‘Duquesa Roja’ (the Red Duchess), Luisa Isabel Alvarez de Toledo y Maura, whose real title was the Duchess of Medina Sidonia, was a historian, novelist and – remarkably for an aristocrat – a political activist and member of the Socialist PSOE party when it was banned during Franco’s rule.
The duchess was jailed for eight months in 1969 after taking part in a protest in support of 50 farmers who were demanding compensation for the contamination of their land caused by the Palomares accident.
