Adam Martín: “My home was England within Catalonia”

Adam Martín Skilton (Tossa de Mar, 1973) is a journalist and writer specializing in health. He won the 2024 Ondas Award for his podcast on mental disorders. Ordinary people. The second season will arrive in early 2026.

To understand Adam Martín's childhood, it's necessary to start with his parents. "My mother hitchhiked to Tossa de Mar with some friends from England when she was 18, in '62. And she never left. She met my father, who worked at my grandfather's bar, Casa Martín, and they married six years later."

Humble origins. "They both come from very humble families. That was partly one of the reasons my mother left England. She's a child of the Second World War. And my paternal grandfather was from Andalusia. He arrived in Ripoll during the Spanish Civil War and stayed." And what did his parents do? "My father started learning languages at the bar and worked in Germany for a while. There he met American soldiers and started bringing them to Tossa on vacation. From there he created a travel agency. My mother helped him; she acted as a guide."

There are four siblings. "Two girls and two boys. I'm the second oldest. The first three were born close together, and the fourth was a surprise." I ask him what it was like having an English mother in Tossa. "I was only in Tossa for a year, then we moved to Blanes. There weren't many foreigners, but the few English women there were all knew each other. I've experienced a very interesting mix of cultural influences. On one hand, my Andalusian grandfather, on the other, my father and grandmother from Ripoll. Christmas Eve, December 24th, the 25th, Saint Stephen's Day... We celebrated the Tió de Nadal, the Calcetín, Santa Claus, and the Three Kings."

He explains what differences he saw with his classmates' families. "My home was like England within Catalonia, because I've always had British schedules. We had dinner at 7. The latest we ate was on Sundays, maybe at 2, but that was exceptional." What did he eat at home? "A gastronomic blend of English and Catalan recipes. The mother is a very good cook, but she learned here, so the diet was more Mediterranean."

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She went to Santa María School in Blanes, "a school run by Father Manyanet's Congregation." "Afterwards, I went to the nuns' school in Lloret for my pre-university studies, and I did my university entrance exams in Girona." She enjoyed learning, especially language and history, and that's thanks to her teachers. "I especially remember my Catalan teacher, whose name was Amadeu, who was magnificent."

After school, she did swimming and judo. "Sport has been very important in my life, also because of my mother's influence. She's a tennis fanatic. I've seen all the Grand Slams for as long as I can remember." Her mother's schedule affected her extracurricular activities. "I would have dinner at 7 and go to judo at 8, after I'd already eaten. And when I had to change my belt from blue to brown, at 14, the class was at 9 at night, and my mother wouldn't let me go because she didn't want me to get home so late."

As a child, when asked what he wanted to be when he grew up, he would say: "A writer, because I've always been a great reader, like my mother, and because my paternal grandfather, who has been a very important influence on me, wrote poetry. He was a man of very humble origins but very cultured."

He eventually studied journalism. "I knew I wanted to write, but in my second year of high school I asked myself: what kind of degree is it to be a writer? Back then the options were philology or literature, but I would have had to work as a teacher, something I didn't want to do. And journalism came along. I've never been a journalist by vocation. What did happen, though, is that once I started the degree..."