I have a rich uncle. He has made many fortunes (and lost a few), but his biggest success has been in the Spanish property markets. Back in the 1970s he started buying in Andalusia. At the time you could pick up a big farmhouse for £10,000 and a village house for almost nothing. He liked the look of it.

“I, Franklin D. Roosevelt, president of the United States of America, do declare that said national emergency still continues to exist and pursuant to said…”

Flying low across the jungle and the Caribbean in a tiny 10-seat prop-engine plane that had seen better days, we sputtered out of the sky and onto the bumpy dirt road that served as a runway.