Yellow ribbon loops have become a frequent sight around Catalonia in recent weeks, a symbol of support for the ministers and pro-independence leaders held in preventive detention without bail near Madrid. Last Thursday, a photo went viral of the ticket inspector on a train to Brussels wearing just such a loop, as thousands of Catalans made their way to the city to fill its streets in protest. The story behind the photo is one of two neighbours and their improvised loops and a curious ticket inspector, who has Spanish family and doesn't support independence, but decided to show solidarity with the political prisoners.
At 11pm on Tuesday 5th December, just five hours before catching the coach to Brussels, Montse Xuclà was at home making yellow loops. An expert in theatre and TV costumes, she thought that the yellow EVA foam she had lying around at home would be useful, making loops which could withstand anything, wind and rain, and remain upright for the whole day. "Straight as an arrow", she says. She cut the rubber into strips and prepared the safety-pins so people without could put them on.
Two days earlier, one the landing of her apartment block, she met a neighbour. Mònica Fiblà thought it was a great idea to make some spare loops from the material to take with them, so they split the EVA foam between them to get making. "It was a coincidence. We met on the staircase and we shared it: you share them out in the coach and I will with my friends," said Mònica.
Montse left around 4:30am from Arenys, a short distance north along the coast from Barcelona, in one of the coaches put on by the organisers. One of the last, in fact, that they hired for the demonstration. Once aboard, she started handing our her loops. "In the coach there were lots of people without loops and when they saw them they said: great!"
Mònica went by car to France then caught a train to Brussels from Thiers. About to get onto the train, they meet the guard who sees their flags and asks them if they're going to the demonstration in Brussels. He addresses them in Spanish. He has family in Galicia and isn't an independence supporter. "He checked our tickets, told us he had family in Galicia, told us to have a good time and went".
"I hadn't had time to make the loops. And as I hadn't finished making them, I sat down on the train and, at the table, started making loops. When the inspector passed he saw me making loops and asked me what they were for. I explained that they were in solidarity with the political prisoners, we explained that part of the Catalan government was in Belgium".
That was when the inspector asked for a loop for himself. Mònica put it on him and some friends took a photo. "We didn't post the photo, we kept it as a souvenir."
But the image of the inspector with the yellow loop ended up going viral. As he walked through the train, checking tickets, with the loop on his coat, other Catalans on the train took photos of him, which they started posting online, and other people asked him what it was.
Many kilometres away, in the coach that had left Arenys, passengers starting shouting to Montse. "They were saying: these loops are the same as ours! When I told them that they were ours they shouted: Ours are like the inspector's!" says Montse, laughing at the memory.
Mònica's train arrived in Brussels and, whilst all the Catalan passengers were trying to check it was the right stop, they were surprised by a message in Spanish telling them it was their station. "It was the inspector and everyone started to applaud," says Mònica.
"And that is the story of the yellow loop," says Montse. "Nothing more to it, but it's nice, because it spread and spread until the photo reached us," concludes Mònica.