I rang my friend Marie last night to ask her some questions about our wonderful childhood days in Famagusta, Cyprus when we were five. What brought this on was a conversation with Mr S and how we perceive death as a child. It may be a bit of a long one...but I hope it is worth the read.
We lived in a block of flats next to The Grecian Hotel in Famagusta. The flats were right on the beach, lucky us! It was 1968, my mother had four children at the time, she was 24 years old. I was five, the terrible twins two and a half and Christian just a baby. We lived on the second floor and Marie, her mum, Pauline and Dad, Tom and siblings lived some 8 flights up from us.
The beach was beautiful, white sand, calm, clear, blue seas and you often had difficulty telling the sea from the sky. The heat haze shimmering over the sand and very few tourists lazing away the day. We finished school at lunchtime and at the age of five we swam like little Gobi's and were often allowed on the sand, being watched carefully by our mothers, pegging out washing on their balconies. My mother would lower a bucket, containing my lunch, to me on the beach but we were never allowed to swim unless our parents were there. Then my father would come off shift, pull off his uniform and put on his trunks, put me on his back and swim out with me and show me the wonders of this new underwater world through his snorkel and mask. We would dive down together, me grabbing a little shell, him, able to stay down much longer and coming up with much more interesting things.
An idyllic life, apart from when someone got into trouble. The tourists were mainly German with a sprinkling of well off English (this was 1968 after all). The red flags were posted when it was too dangerous to swim. There may have been a bit of an offshore breeze but the water looked the same. Clear and calm but danger lurked within, as Famagusta beach was well known for its little eddies and undercurrents. They were extremely powerful and if you got dragged into one, you had to fight for survival. We had, had this drummed into us by our parents, the tourists did not have that knowledge.
I suppose my first memory of someone in trouble was my mum shouting at me to grab the twins and follow her. My father and Tom worked different shifts so if dad was on shift then Tom was probably sleeping off nights. Mum would run up all 8 flights dragging us four behind her and call for Tom to help as someone was in trouble. Tom would roll out of bed, pull on a pair of shorts and go after the poor man/woman/child in trouble. He (as I remember) was a strong swimmer. A stocky but not a particularly big guy. I talked to mum about it today as I wanted to know how Pauline felt about it at the time and she did admit to Pauline being a little upset on only one occaision. There was another guy, I think his name was Ian, perhaps a Navy diver and he went out with Tom a few times.
The German tourists were I suppose 'voyeurs', they watched but did not step in to help, whatever nationality was in trouble. Some days Tom and Ian saved people (plus other guys from our flats) and other days the people that got into trouble drowned. Marie and I both remember a body being dragged from those beautiful blue waters. Trouble is....we did not realise what was happening.
A body, pulled fresh from the sea, much like a fish, looked like it was sleeping. Our mothers busy, content in the knowledge that we were on the sand and would never dare to swim in the sea without supervision. Us, looking at the dead body with no emotion. They looked like they were asleep, peaceful and content. We did not realise what death was. I think I saw about seven dead bodies by the age of six. Do not forget, we had no TV very little radio and no knowledge of the world outside our happy existence.
Marie and I explored why we felt like that in our phone call last night. We decided that we were wrapped in the cotton wool, that WAS a forces child. The 'was' is in big letters because most forces children today do not experience those Halcyon days that we had. We spent most of our young life on 'Camp' and did not have to deal with any crime, old age or sickness. If any person committed a crime, dared to get sick or old, they were shipped off to the UK. So the body pulled from the sea meant nothing to us because we did not understand the cycle of life.
There is a moral to this story. I was so naive that I married a Forces guy, thinking all Forces guy's were perfect. I was in my 20's and finally realised a couple of years later that crime, death and old age existed within our small world. I think the term 'Cotton Wool Children', is apt. Hey, it wasn't a bad life....think about the beach!
Namaste and respect to My Uncle Tom
Muse x
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