Making a dream come true, back home

Some readers might remember Ana Katrina Giles-Myers' mother, Anne Giles, who ran an English academy on the promenade in the Carihuela area of Torremolinos during the 1980s.

Well Ana Katrina has, in a roundabout kind of a way, followed in her mother's footsteps, but adapted to the 21st century: instead of giving in-person classes like her mum (often on the beach with exercise classes mixed in, apparently), Ana Katrina gives classes online, to some rather interesting clients.

Born in Malaga, Ana Katrina lived in Arroyo de la Miel until she was nine, when she and her mother went to live in the UK. Ana Katrina says that she had been to the UK, but to Sussex, which is where her mother's family was, so she was expecting to continue to live by the sea. However, upon learning that Stratford-upon-Avon, where they ended up moving to, was not by the seaside, Ana Katrina remembers it being “a bit of a shock to the system”.

This was England in the 1980s (Ana Katrina celebrated her 50th birthday earlier this year) and she admits that the other children at the village school she was sent to near Stratford, had never seen a Spanish person, never heard of olive oil and even referred to her as 'Paki' (an offensive term sometimes directed at people of Pakistani or Indian heritage) “because I was brown”. Ana Katrina adds, “ I can't say it was a great experience, I spoke English but with a very strong Spanish accent. The UK was a very different place at the time.”

Ana Katrina stayed in the UK until she was 16, then returned to Spain for three years, went back to the UK and spent the next 20 years “yo-yoing” between the two countries. She did stay for an extended period of time in the UK, having studied art and trained as a set and costume designer for theatre, which led to a job at the BBC's famous Pebble Mill studio.

However, a car accident left her with a back injury which meant that the job in set design which had involved “lugging heavy costumes and bits of scenery” was no longer possible and so she found work in London with a recruitment agency that specialised in hiring staff in the museums and galleries sector. “At least it was still with the creative industries which made sense, given my background,” Ana Katrina recognises.

But a long spell in London and a hectic work life eventually led to exhaustion and a conversation with her mother Anne led to the decision that perhaps it was time to get out of London. So, Ana Katrina started to look at different options and sought the help of a life coach to guide her.

Yet it was a conversation, or perhaps a dream, she had shared with a friend at university which led her to retrain as an English teacher. She moved back home with her mum - “at the age of 40, which was, umm, interesting” Ana Katrina laughs - where she did the intensive month-long Cambridge University Celta diploma.

That dream was that she and her friend were going to retire to Sicily where Ana Katrina would “wear a kaftan, sit on my doorstep and watch the world go by and paint”.

She goes on to say, “That was the only thing that brought me some joy when I was working in London. I just followed it and that's why I decided to train to become a teacher as it would allow me to work and live anywhere.” The idea was to travel around the world, teaching and painting. “I wanted to learn how to cook real Italian food by grandmothers in Italy,” Ana Katrina admits.

She would need to earn a living to finance the creative side, so teaching made sense. Bilingual in Spanish and English and with conversational French and Italian, Ana Katrina says, “I have always had languages to fall back on.”

In 2016 Ana Katrina already had a suitcase of belongings in Italy - although not Sicily - she found a teaching job in a town near Rome but was planning to move further south. However, a quick trip to Malaga before the permanent move changed everything.

“While I was back I realised that really Malaga is home. I think Sicily represented Malaga but I couldn't make the link. I think it was me not being able to voice the fact that I wanted to come back home and Malaga is home,” Ana Katrina explains.

She adds, “I think the attraction of Sicily is that it's actually quite similar to Malaga - you know - it's in the south of Europe, its history is similar - it has Arabic influences and of course food is very important. They use a mix of influences like we do in Malaga.”

She stayed in Malaga almost like a sixth sense that something about the decision “felt right”. Of course just four years later, in 2020, the Covid pandemic struck and Ana Katrina says, “In retrospect I am really pleased I decided to stay in Spain when I did. I wouldn't have liked to see myself on my own in Italy during Covid.”

She first lived in Torremolinos, an area that of course was familiar to her, with friends and family nearby (her father is Spanish). But wanting more space, particularly to be able to continue her dream to paint, Ana Katrina moved to the village of Alcaucín in the Axarquía in 2025.

Now she has just completed a course offered in Vélez-Málaga town hall aimed at small businesses and startups, to help her focus and find direction in the world of English teaching and to help her find time for the art. She teaches online, working with agencies all over the world who look for teachers for very specific sectors, rather than following the more typical route of preparing students for official and school English exams.

“I teach English for specific purposes and have all sorts and weird and wonderful clients from pharmaceutical companies making nappies for adults, the adult industry, coffee roasters and beer breweries, airport staff, health and safety in vertical transport, immigration, TV production crews, public speaking,” Ana Katrina laughs.

All of the classroom preparation takes a lot of time, especially with such specific and technical vocabulary, but she is finally finding time and space to be able to do what she left London (and planned to go to Sicily) to do almost ten years ago.

Her last exhibition was in May 2025 and the next objective is to get involved with the arts scene in the Axarquía. Her art she explains is “large-scale abstract” based on colour and texture and using the automatic painting and drawing technique.

From Torremolinos to Stratford-upon-Avon and Peckham in London back to Torremolinos and now Alcaucín, Ana Katrina says she has “spoken more to people here” than she did in the bigger towns and cities.

She says that some Spanish neighbours always bring her the English newspapers back from their trips to the coast and the local Spanish and foreign communities all got together to help her celebrate her 50th earlier this year with a barbecue: “Everyone brought a dish and the banana bread was a huge revelation to the Spanish,” Ana Katrina, who bridges the gap between her Spanish and international neighbours, concludes.