Life after 'The Good Life' on the Costa Tropical

Halfway up a hillside above La Herradura, on Granada's coast, sits 'Luz de Luna', or 'Juan y Gina'. the house of Juan and Gina, who made their life here for decades.

Juan refers to John Esmonde, the British television writer who, with his childhood friend and lifelong writing partner Bob Larbey, gave the world The Good Life, one of the best-loved sitcoms the BBC ever made, along with Please Sir! and Ever Decreasing Circles.

Gina is his widow, now 87, who still lives in the house they built together, high above the bay that gives the town its name.

They met as teenagers in Battersea, south London, when Gina and a friend were looking for someone to play the piano with them while they danced, and her friend happened to know a boy up the road who could. That boy was John.

It wasn't love at first sight - by Gina's own account, the two of them “didn't hit it off straight away”. They drifted in and out of each other's company as friends for a couple of years until they both found themselves at a friend's 21st birthday party and their relationship started. They married in October 1960.

Years later, once John's writing career had taken off and the money and freedom to travel came with it, the couple found themselves touring through France. They reached the Pyrenees and John turned to her with a choice: carry on into Spain, or head back to Paris. Gina said “keep going”. They crossed the border into Pamplona and, in her words, “felt completely at home” almost immediately.

It wasn't La Herradura straight away. That came a little later, and somewhat by accident - an English acquaintance staying in nearby Nerja happened to know of a house going for sale in the village, and the couple went to see it.

They bought it in 1972, a property they nicknamed 'Pavo Real'. For years afterwards, they split their time between Spain and England, where John's writing work still demanded his presence, before finally settling in La Herradura for good in 1998, in the house on the hill that would become simply: 'Juan y Gina'.

“We decided on La Herradura because at the time it was truly an authentic small fishing village. We did not want the more well known places,” she says. John Esmonde's professional life was built on being funny for a living, but those who knew him say the wit wasn't a performance he switched on and off. Gina remembers a family they knew well locally, whose daughter had brought a new boyfriend round.

Asked what he made of him, John didn't hesitate: “He's a dollop.” Told, gently, that he might have found a kinder way of putting it, he replied: “There is no better way.”

But when asked what drew her to him in the first place, Gina doesn't point to humour at all - she says it was his intelligence.

John's success occasionally carried them somewhere altogether grander than a village bar. In 1977, John and Bob Larbey found themselves due to perform in front of the Queen at a Royal Command Performance - a nerve-wracking prospect for two committed monarchists.

Gina still laughs about how the pair coped with the nerves beforehand: one of them, she recalls, would inevitably end up hiding in the men's toilets, the other pacing outside in the car.

While plenty of British arrivals on this stretch of coast gravitated towards other expats, John and Gina built their social life almost entirely among Spanish neighbours - local artists, musicians and the families who ran the village, and they would frequently host parties for them in their villa.

John picked up Spanish quickly, and more than that - he picked up the accent of the village itself, to the point where locals saw him as one of their own.

John died in August 2008, in the house the couple had lived in together. This month marks 18 years since then.

Gina rarely leaves the house now. At 87, she has a carer with her and her days are quiet - mostly doctors' visits and time at home. She says she doesn't mind it; she's always liked her own company and going out less doesn't bother her.

It's a simple way to describe what's been a full life: a career that made John Esmonde a household name in Britain and, afterwards, decades in a small Spanish village where, in the end, neither of them was known for that at all - just as 'Juan y Gina', a couple who came for a holiday and stayed.