HIS back ground couldn’t be more different to the majority of expats on the Costa del Sol.

For starters he speaks fluent Spanish, not to mention went to art school, before travelling off around the world to see India, Nepal and even Afghanistan. And then there is the creative, innovative side of Bish Witkowski that first saw him start an art gallery in Ibiza, design and sell for a local magazine and even mend vintage cars.

Now, the owner of Castles, in Sabinillas, the 69-yearold entrepreneur is happily settled into local life, enjoying the culture of Manilva, the nearby countryside and playing the occasional round of golf. “It’s a charmed life and great to have all my family around nearby,” he explains in his top floor office at Castles, surrounded by thousands of files from current and previous clients. “I know so many people and very much enjoy my job. On top of that we love to get away for trips to Portugal in our camper van or up to Jerez for a spot of golf and culture.”

He first fell in love with Spain when he and wife Poppy visited Ibiza for holidays in the 1970s and moved to the celebrated ‘white island’ in December 1975. “We had to do a bit of everything to survive in Ibiza,” he explains. “The tourist season then was only two months so in the winter I did a bit of everything from repairing cars, selling advertising space for a magazine and running my own art gallery.”

While there he put his art degree from Birkenhead college to good use and painted portraits and even set up a potter’s wheel, making pots and ash trays for tourists. “Anything to bring in a bit of money,” recalls Bish, who lives in nearby Valle Romano.

But eventually after six years of trying, they decided it was too hard and they moved to the Costa del Sol in 1982, via a short six month stint in Portugal. “It was a lot less closed off here and my brother had an old school friend in Duquesa so we decided this would be our area,” he continues. They soon identified that the recently finished port had few good places to eat so they opened the Ibiza Steak Bar, which became one of the key social hubs of the port within months.

“We had a complete mix of people turning up and it was a lot of fun,” he recalls. But he had other ideas and realised that more than anything the rapidly growing expat population of the area needed a company to help them in their needs and sort out their problems.

“I was thinking more of an asesoria, than an estate agency, as so many people needed my help with things. “But we combined the two with my wife and stepson handling the sales side and me doing the paperwork side.” He continues: “It grew very quickly and we have had probably nearly 10,000 clients over the years. “We have hundreds of clients at any time and we do literally hundreds of tax returns every year.”

These days, when not sorting out a myriad of issues for his clients, he likes to fix up a range of classic cars, having given up on boats. “Every time I went out on my boat it was a disaster so these days I buy and sell classic cars as a hobby.” In total, he has had dozens, including Rolls Royces, Bentleys, Jaguars and Mercedes.

And he also has a faithful camper van that frequently takes he and his wife on weekends to Jerez or Ronda, or further afield to the Algarve for holidays. “It is a lovely area to be based in. So near to so many amazing spots and with the most perfect climate,” he concludes. As they say, an Englishman’s home is his castle… well Sabinillas is well and truly Bish’s home.