Trouble in paradise: The loneliness and isolation of Brits in Spain

When Margot Campbell-Parton's husband died in an accident in 2006, her dream of a carefree life in Spain was shattered.

After police officers knocked on her door one Sunday morning with the grim news, the 65-year-old Glaswegian was left completely alone, having had to identify his body herself.

“It was just a horrible time,” she told Euronews. “No one asked me how I was. I didn't see anyone.”

Her sons soon arrived to support their mum, but more nightmarish problems befell the family.

Margot and her husband Alec had borrowed money to set up a business in Port de Sóller, Majorca, with a third person who promptly “buggered off”, leaving her lumbered with a €250,000 loan.

In the months that followed, heartbreak turned to severe depression, as she struggled to sell her house, clear the debt and process her husband's passing - all without the option of returning to Scotland as she had sold her home there.

“I was never a hard person. I was always someone who would cry very easily. But everything that happened made me really cold,” she said.

“It was a very lonely time. A very sad time.”

Some 307,000 British citizens live in Spain as of 2022, according to figures from epdata.

A vast majority tend to be older, heading south to spend the later stages of life somewhere that is cheaper - and certainly sunnier - than Britain. 

However, Dr Kelly Hall, a Reader in Social Policy at the University of Birmingham, who has researched care issues facing British migrants in Spain, says some can run into "really big problems".

She details a textbook scenario where "healthy" Brits move to Spain in their 50s or 60s to areas with high concentrations of other British people and do not learn Spanish because they either "struggle or don't need to" - despite