Consuelo Font

Updated Saturday, March 23, 2024-02:38

  • Icon Ramón Tamames: his dandy male 'look' is one of dukes and communists

Almost coinciding with the anniversary of the motion of censure against Pedro Sánchez sponsored by Vox in March 2023, where Ramón Tamames surprised the Chamber with

his oratory and mental capacity

despite being close to 90 years old, the politician and professor of Economics has once again been news. This time not because of his intellectual capacity, but because of a tragic event, since last March 12, his youngest son and only son, also named Ramón, who was familiarly nicknamed Moncho, died at the age of 55.

He suffered from mesothelioma,

a cancer that affects the mesothelium

, the layer of tissue that covers vital organs such as the lungs, abdomen, or heart. Buried two days later in the Madrid cemetery of La Almudena, his death has devastated his family, especially his father, with whom he had a very special relationship. The two used to meet for dinner every Friday and talk about politics and other current affairs. Furthermore, Moncho was one of those close to him who escorted him when Tamames Sr. presented himself as a candidate in the motion of censure.

THE LOVE OF HIS LIFE

He was born from his marriage to Carmen Prieto-Castro Rumier, a graduate in Political Science and daughter of the jurist and professor of Procedural Law Leonardo Prieto-Castro. Ramón and Carmen married in 1960 and had three children: Alicia, born in 1961, Laura, a year later, and Moncho in 1968. They lived in a penthouse with a huge terrace in the Feygon de la Castellana building, on Professor Waksman Street, next to the Bernabéu. Thirty years after his wedding, the politician, who was a communist militant and was imprisoned in the Carabanchel prison during the Franco regime - although he ended up active in the centrism of Adofo Suárez -,

renewed his vows

in an emotional ceremony in the presence of his three children. with Carmen, the love of his life.

The great importance of family for Ramón Tamames has to do with a tragic event that occurred during his childhood that marked him forever.

Son of a very prestigious doctor,

her mother, Carmen Gómez, committed suicide when he was 7 years old because she did not feel loved by her husband and feared that he would abandon her.

To know more

Motion of censure.

The story of Ramón Tamames and his wife, Carmen Prieto-Castro, present today in the Congress tribune

  • Editor: LUIS FERNANDO ROMO

The story of Ramón Tamames and his wife, Carmen Prieto-Castro, present today in the Congress tribune

This maternal absence marked his education, since his father, an intellectual of vast culture, wanted to instill it in his son Ramón who, in addition to mastering several languages, studied Law and Economics, took the examination for State commercial technician and the

chair of Economic Structure

at the Autonomous University of Madrid.

A solid education

that Ramón Tamames also instilled in his son Moncho, who was educated like his father at the French Lyceum, then at Colegio Estudio, where he attended COU, and at the prestigious Antioch High School in California. In addition,

he had three majors

: Economics, Journalism and finally, in 2022 he graduated in Clinical Psychology from the Uned.

Ramón Tamames, in the motion of censure against Pedro Sánchez that he carried out last year in Congress and in which his son accompanied him.ÁNGEL NAVARRETE

However, his passion was music, to which he dedicated much of his professional life behind the scenes, as he worked at the Sony company (CBS), where he was a

manager

, focused on advising artists to achieve greater impact, and in 2000 in the Catalan record label Blanco y Negro music, specialized in dance and electronics, during which time he lived in Barcelona.

HIS FRIENDSHIP WITH BONO, FROM U2

Lately he ran the Musifilm platform, for recorded media, and had a company for recorded records, CDs and magnetic tapes. In that environment arose his friendship with Bono, the singer of U2, of whom at the age of 22 he published

the only authorized biography of the group in Spanish

. It was also the first installment of Salvat's Trivial Rock collectible.

Moncho had been a fan of Bono since his adolescence and shared concerns with the Irishman such as the

eradication of poverty in Africa

or the cancellation of the debt of the Third World, in addition to communing with the pacifism that led the musician to be a candidate for the Nobel Peace Prize. .

Also a writer, Moncho Tamames's following books had greater political content, such as Spain and the Maghreb countries, and the most famous, the essay

The Culture of Evil

. A guide to anti-Americanism,

very critical of American imperialism

.

"With five Coca-Colas you finance the bullet that enters the Iraqi's body and with a year of smoking Marlboro you subsidize the projectile that destroys a residential building in Gaza," he declared.

Very critical of the

political

establishment

, Moncho was, according to his friends, a being very consistent with his values ​​and a free spirit, whose youth reference paradise was hippie Ibiza, his refuge.

Traveling was another of his hobbies and he had friends all over the world, from Barcelona, ​​where he lived for a time, to New York or Argentina.

He was also the father of

a teenage daughter, Chloé

, whom he adored, born in 2009 from a relationship that broke down. The girl lives in Germany, but she recently traveled to Madrid to say goodbye to her father, who died too soon.