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Times
6 days ago
- Politics
- Times
Miriam González Durántez: ‘We never holidayed with the Camerons'
Miriam González Durántez, 57, is an international trade lawyer and the founder of the Inspiring Girls charity. She is married to the former Liberal Democrats leader Nick Clegg, who served as deputy prime minister in the coalition government with the Conservatives from 2010 to 2015 and was subsequently president of global affairs at Meta, the parent company of Facebook. She was born in Spain and divides her time between her home nation and London, where her husband is based. She is the mother of three boys — Antonio, 23, Alberto, 21, and Miguel, 16. I was eight years old when Franco's dictatorship in Spain ended in 1975, and it was only then that a lot of middle-class Spanish families like my own really had enough money to go on holiday and explore our seaside. I remember my parents, brother, sister, uncles, cousins and I cramming into a procession of cars with our pots, pans and bed linen for the ten-hour drive from my home town of Olmedo, in the centre of Spain, to Alicante, where we rented shoe-box-sized flats for a couple of weeks; I spent many happy hours playing on the beach there. In my teens, my family and I drove all over western Europe, including Britain, and I've had an affection for the British Isles since then. The last of those trips was to Austria, just before my politician father, José Antonio, sadly died in a car accident aged 58. After Nick became the MP for Sheffield Hallam in 2005 we got to know the Peak District well and loved going on day trips, walking and climbing in the magical, heather-clad hills around Stanage Edge. But we regularly returned to Spain with our boys in summer. Sometimes we'd visit lush, mountainous Asturias, on the northwest coast; other times we'd visit Menorca, and more recently Catalonia. It took a while for Nick to adapt to Spanish seaside culture. In Britain, if there are a bunch of people on the beach, one usually goes somewhere quieter, whereas in Spain we love socialising and always sit right by the crowd of people. I think he's got the hang of it now. Our holiday habits changed surprisingly little after Nick became the Lib Dem leader. Naturally, security was more of an issue when he was deputy prime minister, but we carried on going to the same parts of Spain that we had always visited. The only difference was that we had two more people with us, though we tried to integrate the security guards as much as possible into the family, which made it nicer for everyone. Did we ever go on holiday with David Cameron or other politicians? No, it never really crossed our minds, and I have only visited Chequers once; indeed, I only met the Camerons three times socially for dinner. As far as I'm concerned, work is work in politics, and it is healthy not to make it a personal affair. In 2017 our eldest son Antonio was diagnosed with lymphoma — thankfully he's now fully recovered —and to cheer him up during the chemotherapy treatment we told him that we'd go on holiday to somewhere of his choice when it was over, and he asked to go to California. We flew out there as a family and visited San Francisco, Los Angeles and Yosemite National Park. So when we told the boys the following year that Nick had been offered a job with Facebook in California, they were keen to go because they thought of it as a holiday destination. We spent the next five years in the US. We didn't have green cards during the Covid years, so we couldn't leave the country. Therefore, we holidayed in America and got to visit everywhere from Arizona's Grand Canyon and Montana to Alaska, where we saw bears — it was a wonderful feeling to be surrounded by miles of nothingness. The UK was going through Brexit so — speaking for myself — it was nice to be abroad and not to have to witness the economic and political self-harm that the Brexiteers inflicted on the country. Around then we started going on activity holidays, which involved things like ziplining, swimming with manta rays, jumping off waterfalls and canyoning. This appealed to the boys, and also to Nick; I always find it a bit challenging, but there is no way I am going to be relegated to the hotel. Nowadays I spend weekdays in Spain leading [the non-partisan political organisation] España Mejor, but I return to our home in London to join Nick and my youngest son most weekends. I know it sounds crazy, but it sort of works. Miriam González Durántez is the founder of the Inspiring Girls charity ( In our weekly My Hols interview, famous faces — from the worlds of film, sport, politics, and more — share their travel stories from childhood to the present day. Read more My Hols interviews here
The Sun
08-07-2025
- The Sun
30 things you'll definitely remember if you went on holiday as a kid in the 80s and 90s
CHEAP Ryanair flights, AirBnb, iPads - holidays of today are practically unrecognisable from the 1980s and 90s. Back in the day, you were more likely to spend 10 hours sweltering in the air con-free car as your dad drove across the whole of France, with two cassette tapes for company the whole way. 5 If that's making you feel nostalgic, we've asked all the Millenials and Gen X-ers we know about their best (or worst) memories of holidaying abroad in the Eighties and Nineties. 1. Ridiculously long flight delays that were like two days of waiting. 2. Not being to wear any of your clothes for at least six weeks before going away as they were 'for holiday'. 3. Smoking on the plane - and being just five years old and sitting in the smoking section. 4. Shell suits to travel in, along with dayglow 80s leisurewear as well as jelly shoes, tasseled t-shirts and bermuda shorts. 5. Only having five cassettes tapes to play on rotation and then fighting over the cassette player in the car. Or having to just listen to local French/Spanish radio stations (and hearing bands like Vengaboys a year before the UK. 6. Buying your holiday off Teletext or from the classified ads at the back of the newspaper and having no idea where you are staying. 7. Severe sunburn in a desperate attempt to tan - and only parents only using Factor 2 suncream or even tanning oil. And then peeling sunburnt skin off your body including your face. 8. Always getting an ear infections from the pool. 9. Being terrified of drinking the tap water. Look around historic 200-year-old lido with stunning seaside views abandoned for decades 10. Being mystified by how to use you the French squat loos. 11. The smell of diesel and vomit when using the cross Chanel ferries. 12. Buying 200 fags in duty free, as well as knives, straw donkeys and dolls in local custom dress as souvenirs. 13. Naked Germans playing volleyball on a none nudist beach in France 14. Discovering calamari for the first time on holidays. 15. French milk which was always disgusting but there was no other option for your cereal. 16. Sleeping in the boot of the car on long journeys. 17. Foreign currency such as Francs and Pesetas - or even travellers cheques. 18. Having to make the most of the most basic games such as Travel Battleship, Connect Four and Space Invaders, or those early Nintendo games like Snoopy Tennis. 5 5 5 19. Parents having to change the colour of headlights and stick the GB stickers on car. 20. Spending all your holiday money on a hair wrap . 21. Your dad squeezing into a pair of budgie-smuggler speedos. 22. Being jealous of people with air con cars after having to get out yourself to cool down because of the sweltering journeys. 23. Getting left on the beach because there were so many kids. 24. Having no seat allocation on the plane but being able to take as may suitcases as you want. 25. Pez dispensers in France, long strips of individual sweets you can buy, giant red baby dummies made of rock. 26. Putting Sun In or lemon juice in your hair so it would go blonde. 27. Having pen pals that you would write to all summer then never again. 28. Getting the massive map out in the car which took up the whole space to find out where on earth you were going. 29. Having to buy phone cards or find the nearest internet cafe. 30. Buying a copy of the Sun from two days ago to find out the football scores.
