Pepe Domingo squeezed life to the end

The day dawned rainy and with bad news: everyone's friend had died. I found out, on the radio, where Manolo Lama spoke. At first, his goodbye made me think that he was retiring, an idea he managed during the last years. Suddenly I was struck by the harsh reality: I had passed away.

Since we are neighbors (wall to wall) and our wives are very friendly, three days ago I learned he was sick, but it sounded like little thing: a throat infection. Last night my wife, so observant of everything, told me that Pepe must be already well, because she saw that there was no light in the house, from which she deduced that they had left. They went out very often, always with friends. They lived in the happy spirit of a young and recent marriage.

But no, this time the light off meant they were in the hospital, in the last trance, which he spent surrounded by his wife, Tere, and their children. He left unexpectedly, but he went well.

More information

Historic radio host Pepe Domingo Castaño dies at age 80

She squeezed life, thanks to the love with which she embraced all things: radio, music, friends, sports, travel, family from which she formed (an ideal family) the sun, which she greedily took readings. He did his own thing well and spread the good around him, always leading, he and his better half, Tere, groups of friends who at the same time made friends with each other easily, because they were all good people.

"Until I run out of words. My memories of radio and life", is the title of his autobiography, which I estimate will not be even two years old, and whose purchase and reading I recommend for anyone who wants to know more closely this friend of all who left. And also those who want to know better the course of this country in the last eighty years, its society, its radio, its music, its politics. The profits, by the way, went to charity, after much resistance to putting his life in ink, until he agreed at the insistence of a tenacious publisher. And in good time he gave in. His reading made me cry in some passage (when I learned that the sister who helped him hang from the window to escape to Santiago to try on the radio died) and laugh in some humorous episode.

He was born in Iria Flavia, next to Padrón, in a very large family. It was never explained how their parents had so many children if they could not support them. In fact, he was sent to the seminary so that he could eat and acquire a formation. When at the first rebellion of the flesh he saw that this was not his thing, he returned unexpectedly and met with his father's displeasure: "And now what do I do with you? What are you going to eat?" The father passed Cain's to feed the offspring and resorted to smuggling trapicheos that he himself discovered in walks through the attic, but he never found out.

He started working in an office, but his dream was in radio. And one day he escaped without saying anything to present himself to a test with twenty aspirants. The last one arrived and they caught him. The plotted sister warned the mother: "Mom, turn on the radio at five this afternoon." And there he learned that his son had left the office to embark on the insecure profession of 'speaker', as it was said then.

More information

Photo gallery: The life of Pepe Domingo Castaño

Then came the jump to Madrid, in a first failed attempt that angered its director in Santiago, plus a second that cost him hunger and hardship until the triumph that his talent, enthusiasm and bonhomie deserved. A long triumph, first in music radio, with appearances on TV and notable successes as a singer (with 'Motivos' he was number one in Mexico), then in sports. First in Cadena SER, where that legendary trio began in Carrusel Deportivo with him, Paco González, then his adopted son (now his adopted brother) and Manolo Lama. That triumph opened a panorama of offers that led them to COPE, where the trio maintained their iron cohesion and success.

He has left in active. Some time ago he flirted with the idea of retiring and resting, he said it a lot, but with a small mouth. His voice was already a little skidding, but he did not lack words, much less the desire to participate, to be, to work, to live. Suddenly it is gone, and it has gone quickly.

The absence hurts, of course. It will not be easy for so many friends to lose their word and their look, and I do not say for their beloved Tere, the usual companion, their children and their grandchildren. I do not know if it can be any consolation, but I cling to the fact that he has gone active, happy, surrounded by the affection of everyone and accompanied by his family. He has squeezed life during these 80 years and has not known the difficult trance of decrepitude, that threat that everyone feels when the final stretch of life approaches and that for him, energetic, vitalistic and, if I may, a flirtatious little point, would have been especially hard.

Rest in peace. The words are over, but the memory and the friends remain. The example remains, especially the example. Theirs was an exemplary way of living.

You can follow EL PAÍS Deportes on Facebook and Twitter, or sign up here to receive our weekly newsletter.

Subscribe to continue reading

Read without limits

Read more

I'm already a subscriber