EOKA and Cyprus.

The Git is on half term, staying with the parents. He has been away for 24 hours and I miss him. He is just at the stage when we can have an adult conversation and he will still kiss me on the cheek. This stage will not last long. I am hoping that he will be like my lovely James and just pass it by. James was always great and never gave me any angst, apart from not washing.....

I have to admit that I am Bored, Bored, Bored...in the immortal words of Viv!  I have been doing some very unnatural things (arm wise), taking off the sofa covers and washing them and rather wondering,  HOW the Feck, I will get the damn things back on...I have also been reading and want to share the book with you.

I have been reading a fabulous novel. Written by Sadie Jones, it is a descriptive but dangerous take on life in Cyprus during the late 1950's. The EOKA terrorists and the problems that the ESBA Soldiers faced. Trying to protect their own, whilst holding onto an important Colonial Territory.  The book tells the story of their different struggles. The detail is amazing and I imagined my parents in the same situation as Hal and Clara .

My father was a young Airman at the time, stationed at Ay Nik. He has always been a gifted photographer and has a lot of photo's of that time. I spoke to him yesterday. Through reading the book, I finally realised how bad it was for him, trying to fly his pregnant wife out, but realising that it was touch and go. She might have been  flown out but have to be evacuated the next day. The book describes a wife joining her husband, in Cyprus with twin girls. She manages her first few weeks in a hiring in Limassol and finally moves up to Quarters in Episkopi. But Clara is an Officers Wife.  A totally different experience to the one my parents had.


My mother flew to Cyprus, at 34 weeks pregnant, with me, she looked stunning, tanned and beautiful in a white dress, a bouffant hairdo and lovely lipstick. They lived in a hiring in Famagusta.  Mum has always got on with everyone and a couple of weeks later she was  known as Mrs Pat, with Greeks and Turks, alike . I will attempt to tell you some stories  but no doubt I will be attacked by 'Chinese Whispers' and not remember these as clearly as my parents.

I was born at BMH Dhekelia on the 1st December 1963. I was delivered by forceps by an Officer in his dinner jacket. I was "Sumo Baby" - 8lb 13oz! Phone calls were too expensive for them and my dad wrote to my grandparents, announcing my birth.  I still have one of the letters.  My parents were so broke that they had not had a square meal in days. Dad arrived at the  hospital to find my mother in the ward designated for Officers Ladies, eating a lovely meal. It seems that she was so well spoken, they automatically put her there. Three hours later she was put in her rightful place on the'big ward' with the Airman's wives.

I was six weeks old and suffering with a little baby cold. Snuffling well, I was taken, proudly, to my mothers Hairdressers wedding, A lovely young Turkish girl. In those days the local Greek and Turkish villages were well guarded and fortified. My parents duly arrived at said village.

"Who goes there" - in Turkish.
 "Mrs Pat" came the reply.
"Ah Mrs Pat- you are welcome, come in. come in...."

My parents had a great party at the wedding. I was whisked off by the 'Mamas' in black, stripped naked and held upside down over a bowl of steaming water. It seems to me that I really ought to have given up my weedy cold, or they may have beaten it out of me! My parents partied on and returned to their hiring the next day. What they found made there stomachs sink. Don't forget, though, that my mum was 19 and my dad was 22 at the time.

ALL of Famagusta had been evacuated. Imagine, getting back home, having attended a very Illegal wedding, to find that the whole of the British Forces had buggered off.  I can tell you much more. The time they ran out of my formula, stranded on a boat in the middle of the Med and Lemonia fed me condensed milk, the time they 'inadvertantly' had dinner with The Chairman of The Bank of England.

Seems to me that Ma and Pa have a book in them......

Take care out there.

Muse x