End of March 2014. The Sanxenxo City Council, or rather, the mayor, Catalina González, questions the ownership of the A Lanzada beach and discusses it with the O Grove Council.
The emblematic sandy area, located between the two municipalities, is involved in a controversy that causes concern among residents and irritates those who know that there is no doubt or possible margin of error because A Lanzada is, and will continue to be, of all Grovenses .
To understand it you just have to look at the past. If we were to do an exercise in historical memory, we would have to anchor ourselves at the end of October 1889, when a commission of locals from Groves met in the Bao -as the isthmus of A Lanzada is known-, and more specifically in the so-called Pozo de Las Sollas, as this is the place that, according to the elders of the town, from time immemorial defined the two town halls.
Otero Goday's father
There, under the mandate of Francisco Otero Moraña, the father of the Otero Godays and the longest-serving mayor in the position we had, a stonemason was ordered to build a stone cairn eight feet high, with enough base to place on the side, facing North, the name of the Grove Town Hall. That was one of the first demarcation that was made.
Over the years, another mayor would repeat the same steps. In 1928, Joaquín Alvarez Lores, during the dictatorship of Miguel Primo de Rivera, would have to return to the isthmus with a new commission to demarcate the municipality. He was surprised that after sending the offer or invitation to the neighboring town hall, with the intention that they attend the demarcation act, the absence of communication for a few months was the only answer.
After the civil government intervened in the administrative conflict, Sangenjo responded five months later. In the document they appointed a commission that would take charge of the marking. Among that group of neighbors there was a character who had been mayor from 1905 to 1916, Juan Miguel Sueiro Carballa. A man with great experience in the demarcation of farms and who knew very well the limits of his town. Arrived on June 23, 1928, the mayor of Grove, accompanied by three councilors and two elderly residents, stood at the so-called Bao bridge, near the "Pozo de las Sollas" and there they waited for two long hours for the commission of Sangenjo.
The fact is that time passed and the only thing they could hear was the loud clamor of silence in the Sangenjo demarcation. No one came, no experts, no mayors, no living soul.
With the help of the stonemasons, four stone milestones of three meters high and forty wide were arranged in the places previously established, in the marking of 1889, and after signing the act they left.
The fact is that with the inexorable passage of time the landmarks disappeared, and not precisely because they were under the sand of La Lanzada.
Then came the new confrontations with the various corporations of the fifties, until the ruling of the Supreme Court of 1961 that put an end to the dance of landmarks in the Lanzada beach. Even after this date the winds blew from one side to the other on the beach, although not with the same force and vigor.
Now, half a century later, some are back to their old ways, or at least want to review not only the boundaries, but the history.
Sometimes we are too willing to believe that the present is the only possible state of things and it is always an exercise in reflection that we look to the past to realize the place we occupy and the huge stones that one day our ancestors put to be seen and respected.
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