Statues in the centre of the city, in particular that at Cibeles Square, are being divested of their sandbag and reinforced concrete shelters. This statue, beloved of Madrilenos, represents a goddess seated in a chariot drawn by a pair of lions. It suffered in the first air raid of the war, when a single plane bombed the near-by war office, and splinters damaged the Goddesss nose.
The statues in the West Park, where heavy fighting took place for more than two years, still stand grotesquely transformed however, amid the debris of a damaged bandstand and wrecked park seats, blasted trees and zigzag trenches.
The chief shopping centres are windowless, and the shops bereft of goods, but restoration is proceeding with rapidity. For the first time for 33 months women are going about the streets again wearing hats. When the civil war and revolution started in 1936, it was considered a sign of a fascist for a man to wear a collar, tie and hat or a woman to wear anything, either hat or mantilla, on her head.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.