Lucky to be here book

We were almost sure that we would not have children when we decided to start to live together in Skiathos. Lida had a medical history with her womb, and had been advised that it was probably not a good idea to try to have kids. In fact, when she was having an operation in Amsterdam in the 70’s, one of the doctors operating on her thought that they were also going to tie off her fallopian tubes, but fortunately, another doctor disagreed, and our children’s lives were literally saved by a (lack of a) thread. We tried not to have children by using various methods of contraception, but obviously, we didn’t try hard enough :o) At a certain point (actually when my parents were sleeping in our bed and we were “sleeping” in the loft), we seemed somehow to have got around the contraception and Lida became pregnant. Perhaps the fact that Lida had finally become divorced from Adri the year before, had something to do with it, who knows? We went, with some trepidation, to Volos to see a specialist who had a maternity clinic, and explained Lida’s history. He said that he thought there should not be a problem as long as we kept a close eye on progress, but insisted that the birth be by caesarian section to avoid any possible complications. We agreed to this and returned to Skiathos. Lida still had some trepidation about having a child but I was very enthusiastic and managed to allay her fears. It was at this point that we decided that we should get married. If we were going to commit to having a child together (a lifetime’s task if ever there was one), then we might as well go through the usual processes so that our child to be would not have any paperwork problems in later life. Oh, we were so naïve! We tried all avenues to get married but this proved impossible in Greece. Lida was a divorced Catholic and I had never been baptized so neither the Catholic, Anglican or Orthodox churches were interested in marrying us. And there was NO civil marriage in Greece in 1979. As far as the Greeks were concerned, if you weren’t married in a church, you weren’t married! In fact, the Greek Orthodox Church was so powerful then that any children born DID NOT have a name until they were baptized! You could not register a name for your child unless you had the baptismal certificate. Fortunately, all this changed when the Socialist Government of Andreas Papandreou came to power shortly afterwards, but it wasn’t early enough for us. We eventually got married in the UK, at the Registry Office of my home town, Hounslow, with Zoi (then 18 months old) running around the office. Unfortunately, it did all make for a paperwork mess. Although I was the one who registered her birth at the Volos Registry Office and was mentioned as the person who made theregistration, I was not mentioned as the father, and the birth certificate said that the child (Zoi) was born out of adultery! It has taken us quite a few years to get everything sorted, even up to when Zoi was 33 years old and still needed a British birth certificate from the British Embassy in Athens. I had to sign (once again) that I was her father so that she could get it. (When Mara was born, everything had changed and it was easy to register her normally.) During the pregnancy, I had to get rid of the aging Land Rover, which (with its British plates) you could only keep in Greece for a maximum of a year. When you entered Greece the date was stamped in your passport. I drove down to Athens a few days before the year ran out and attempted to sell it, but without any success. I drove back overnight to Volos with a raging headache from a dose of ‘flu and arrived at the Volos Customs House on the morning of the day when the car was due to leave the country. I asked one of the officials if he would give me a few months extension as I couldn’t possibly leave at that point. He, like all Greek bureaucrats when reacting to anything that might involve some work, said gruffly, “No. You and the car have to leave Greece today, or we will confiscate it.” I was at my wits end but remembered something our friend Christo had once said, “When all else fails, cry!” So I broke down in front of the bureaucrat, and with tears in my eyes, said, “I’m sick, my wife’s pregnant, the car needs repairing, the goats will die, there’s no way I can leave today.” He put up his hand and said, ‘Wait! Give me your passport.”, and disappeared with it behind a door. 25 minutes later he returned all smiles and said, “You have two more months.” and, “Please to look after your wife.” I could have kissed him! I was lucky enough to get most of my return journey to Britain paid for by some villa owners who had just sold up and wanted some furniture taking to France. I left when Lida was starting her seventh month of pregnancy, but as I waved goodbye from the ferry deck, I had never seen her looking so healthy and beautiful. On the trip back through France, I visited Adri and his new lady Linda, who had bought a goat farm high on a hill in the middle of France, looking down on Tarn River. It was a beautiful spot but very remote.
Before I left, Reese had met an American in Athens, whose name was Ed, who used to act in Greek adverts and who was looking to stay on an island for a few weeks. Reese suggested that he stay in Zorbathes and give Lida a hand while I was away. The biggest task, which Lida could not manage, was starting the old, single cylinder diesel engine with which we used to pump water. This involved a special technique with a starting handle and, if you didn’t disengage the handle quickly enough, it could be a little hazardous. I showed Ed how to do this and it seemed he had learned the technique. However, the first time he tried it after I had left; the handle got away from him and eventually spun off the engine at speed and banged into his shin opening up a nasty wound and bruising his shin bone badly. So, instead of Ed helping to look after Lida, Lida ended up looking after him! Fortunately, Kevin a short but energetic South African who was living up at Betsy’s and agreed to come and help out. He was extremely practical and while he stayed, he made a really nice changing table and set of drawers for the baby to come. Luckily, on the road, I was completely unaware of all this. Communication was still basically by letter as none of us had a telephone. In fact, we still had no electricity. When I returned, having failed to sell the Land Rover in the UK (I think my brother eventually sold it very cheaply, but gave me more than he had sold it for), Ed had left and Kevin then moved back to Betsy’s. We tried to sort ourselves out and prepare for the “onslaught” of children. As transport, we still had a Honda moped which we had bought for Lida to use but which she never liked, and after falling off on her first time on it, she refused to have anything more to do with it. A moped in the winter is not very practical and, in any case, it would not take the two of us and a baby. I had been eyeing a small, articulated tractor in Volos but we could not afford to buy it. Denis (the man that had bought Paula’s land from her after we had split it up) offered to become a part owner and so together we bought the tractor, a cultivator attachment, a plough and an old trailer to pull behind it. Lida still looked incredibly fit and well and pregnancy seemed to suit her. Even a couple of weeks before we were booked to go to Volos for the birth, she happily walked up the hills opposite our side of the valley to go and visit the matriarch of the goat herder family that lived there. We went to Volos on the 6th of January, which is the day of celebration of the Holy Cross being thrown in the sea and retrieved by youngsters diving for it. We were very naïve about Greek hospital conditions not having had to use them before now. We didn’t realise that (even though this was a private hospital that we would be paying quite a lot for) there would be virtually no infrastructure, nursing, etc. and that relatives were supposed to be there 24 hours a day to look after patients and buy necessary medicines, etc. On the 7th, Lida was taken into the operating theatre for the caesarian. I waited nervously and about one hour later the nurse came out with what looked like the world’s smallest baby virtually cradled in one hand and said that the baby would have to go into an incubator. However, a huge smile spread across my face and it was love at first sight! I had a quick flash that made me think about my mother, and now that Zoi is a lot older, we can see that she bears a similarity in looks with my mother that is quite striking. Zoi’s head was not really round but almost banana shaped. This was explained to us later by the doctor who said that Lida’s womb was really very small (the result of previous operations) and that Zoi had not had much room to develop towards to end of the pregnancy. Therefore she was so small and her head had been pressed into a banana shape. He assured us that everything would come right now that she was born but that Zoi would have to stay in an incubator for at least two weeks. This was a bit of a blow as we couldn’t afford to stay in Volos (in a hotel) for two weeks, so as soon as Lida was fit enough to travel, we came back home – with no baby! It was very strange! We would go to Town almost every day and phone the hospital to learn of Zoi’s progress and, although they said she was developing fine, they kept saying that it would be another ten days or two weeks before she could be released as she hadn’t put on enough weight. Eventually, around three weeks after the birth, we got fed up with this and went back to Volos to claim our baby. At the hospital Zoi looked fine, a bit small but full of life (so she is well named as Zoi means “life” in Greek). They said that we could take her home as long as we accepted total responsibility for her and would feed her every two hours with the special formula they gave us. Also, we had to make sure both Zoi and our house were kept extremely warm, and then were horrified to hear that we had no electricity! I promised to keep the fireplace and the wood range roaring at all times and they finally let us take her with us. Zoi was fast asleep as we got on to the ferry for Skiathos. We had some hot water in a flask and mixed up some formula milk for Zoi as it had been at least two hours since we had left the clinic. Of course, with the warmth of the ferry and the throb of the engines, Zoi was happily fast asleep, and all the local women on the ferry were looking on with expressions ranging from amusement through contempt as we tried to wake this blissfully sleeping baby. We eventually got her awake but she wasn’t really interested in drinking so we let her go back to sleep again. Returning to the house, I stoked up all the fires and it got so warm that Zoi had beads of sweat on her forehead. People that came around to see the new little one would come inside and rip off most of their clothes because it was so hot. Of course, we had no idea what we were doing and we had no one around (mother, grandmother, etc.) to guide us, and were susceptible to all kind of worries. We realized that it wasn’t necessary to feed Zoi every two hours as she drank very well whenever she was awake, and that probably it had just been the clinic’s routine that had determined that. Also, she started putting on weight immediately and we understood that she hadn’t really been getting anywhere near as much attention as we were giving her. Luckily a Dutch lady acquaintance turned up (who had 6 children of her own) and reassured us that we shouldn’t pay too much attention to the doctor’s instructions but just play it by ear and follow our instincts. Babies are hard things to kill, she told us and, despite our best efforts, she proved to be correct. Zoi inherited Lida’s toughness and my own basic good health and thrived. In fact, she hardly ever gets sick and cruised through all the kiddies normal diseases like chicken pox with hardly a day off school. It seems that, if babies have to struggle hard to survive in the beginning, it makes them a lot tougher for the rest of the journey through life. We did discover, one day when I read the label, that the formula the hospital had given us and insisted that we use, was almost 45% sugar! We switched Zoi over to our own goat’s milk and she grew even faster. Having a child changes your life. It all gets a bit more serious and you have to start thinking about “the future”. There’s a bit less fun and a bit more worry about getting bread on the table every day and you cannot just live from day to day as we had done up to then. Mind you, the compensations were more than enough and the sound of Zoi chuckling with some toy or on Lida’s lap made up for any sense of losing our freedom.
We went to the UK in 1981 to finally get married (to each other!). We took a 6-week trip and announced the bans as soon as we arrived (ostensibly living at my brother’s house) and then went travelling for 4 weeks. We ended up at friends in the South of France, had a great trip, and returned to my brothers for the wedding.

At the wedding ceremony, Zoi, then 18 months old, was running around having fun with a friend’s daughter, but it never occurred to us that we should have registered her as being our daughter at the same time. This caused us endless problems later, when we tried to get British nationality for her. We were just so naïve about paperwork, really. The next day, we were due to fly back to Athens around mid-day, when Zoi suddenly appeared from my brother’s bedroom with an unlabelled pill box and saying proudly, “Sweeties”! We tried to contact my brother’s then girlfriend, she was from the Philippines, and had arrived back from there 2 days before, but had no luck. We had no idea what the pills were and how many Zoi had eaten so we rushed her down to the local hospital where they gave her an emetic. She threw up 3 half-digested pills and the doctor said that probably they were travel sickness pills and as she had thrown up most of them, it would be OK for us to continue on to Heathrow to catch our flight to Athens. By this time, we were getting well behind schedule and my father drove us at break neck speed to the airport. They had just made a last call for us, but we managed to check in and get on the flight. Unfortunately, our bags didn’t make it to the plane and we left the address of our friends in Athens where we staying for a few days so that they could let us know when the bags arrived. I was actually quite relieved, in a strange way, as we had been dragging suitcases, a stroller, and all the paraphernalia of a small family all over Europe, and I was happy to be rid of them for a day or two. Upon our return to Skiathos, people told us that there was an American couple with a young daughter (Katy) who were looking to meet up with us. My heart sank, we had had had an eventful trip, and all I needed at that point was some gabby Americans! Well, we met Bill and Lori one day on the waterfront and fell instantly in love (with the exception of Zoi and Katy, who would occasionally fight like tigers!). It’s been the same ever since, even though we may go some years without seeing each other. Whilst we were visiting them in California last year, Lori died of cancer on the day we left. So sad. We shared very many beautiful times together over the years, and she lives on in our hearts.

Mara’s birth was also “interesting”. After Zoi’s birth, the doctor had advised us (again!) not to try to have any more children as Lida’s womb was now a mass of scar tissue and maybe couldn’t handle the stretching that was required. Despite our best efforts not to get pregnant (except avoiding sex altogether!), Lida again discovered she was pregnant in the winter of 1981/82. We knew that it was very easy to arrange an abortion in Greece, in fact the doctor in Volos had told us so, so we thought that this was the only solution for Lida. We had struck up a deep friendship with Bill & Lori, who were looking after American’s property for the winter. They had a daughter, Katy, who was just a little older than Zoi and the two of them (mostly) played quite happily together, while Bill and Lori and we would relax, drink wine and tell each other our life stories. Bill was a Minister in a very liberal church in California but never mentioned God or religion unless we brought the subject up (which we didn’t often). Some years later, Bill went to El Salvador to act as a human shield for civil rights workers there. The theory was that the death squads (trained and supported by Reagan’s regime) would not risk killing an American whilst trying to assassinate anyone who opposed the dictatorship then in control. I cannot imagine the courage and strength of will that this took and it was very hard for Lori as well, not knowing if Bill would return from these trips. Bill is an excellent writer and wrote a book, “When the dogs ate candles”, about his experiences in El Salvador. We discussed Lida’s situation with them, and other friends like Reese, all of whom were against the idea of abortion, but totally behind Lida if we decided to go that route. We went to Volos with heavy hearts, thinking that we would arrange and have carried out an abortion during the course of the trip. Zoi stayed with Bill and Lori. However, the doctor, seemed to have changed his mind, told us that he thought it would be no problem (watch out for those Greek, “no problems”!) for Lida to have another Caesarean, especially as it would be in the middle of summer, but it would have to be at the beginning of the last month. This put us in a quandary as we hadn’t really contemplated having a second child. We went to a nearby Kafenion for a Greek coffee and thought about what we wanted to do. We both realized that we didn’t want to abort this child and that, given the doctor’s new opinion, we should try for the birth. After all, we already had a thriving child, Lida was a very fit lady, and we would just have to be a bit careful. When we returned to Skiathos and told people of our decision (they were all expecting us to come back having had an abortion), everyone was overjoyed! As it happened, Lida had no problems during the first months (she was never sick in the mornings with both the pregnancies), and not until 6 to 7 weeks before the projected birth date did things start to go (slightly) pear shaped. Lida woke up one morning to find that the bed was wet. “oh dear’” she thought, “I’ve wet myself.” However, Rose, who was staying with us at the time and had had two children herself told her that probably her waters had broken and that we should get to Volos on the next ferry. We phoned the doctor only to find that he was on holiday in Skiathos (!) but that he would return to the clinic the following morning.

We left Zoi with Reese and Gillie (who were staying in the Barn), and caught the afternoon ferry to Volos. Our doctor’s partner, examined Lida and told us that she should have an immediate Caesarian Section, but Lida insisted upon waiting for our doctor to return as she was not feeling any contractions and, apart from the waters having broken, was feeling very well. The partner gave Lida an injection of something which would delay the birth and also help the baby’s lungs to prepare for oxygen. It seems these are the last parts of a baby’s body that get ready for birth as they are unnecessary until the baby hits fresh air (as it were). We spent a restless night at the clinic and early in the morning our doctor turned up and Lida was immediately wheeled into the operating room. Sometime later she was brought out, still under sedation, and the doctor called me in to his office and told me that there were some possible complications. It seems Mara’s lungs (she was now Mara to us as we had only ever had girl’s names ready, we couldn’t think of any boy’s names), had not totally formed and she was having trouble breathing. They had sent for a pediatrician who would advise us what to do. The pediatrician arrived, and having examined Mara, told us we should get her to Athens to a hospital there that specialized in handling these sorts of cases. I just had time to see Lida, who was still very woozy from the operation, and tell her that the baby was a girl (“Mara”, she murmured), and that I had to go down to Athens with her, but would try to be back by that evening. Mara was put into a portable incubator and a taxi(!) was called for. It appeared that there was no ambulance available but that this particular taxi driver had taken many patients down to Athens and was very reliable. I was flabbergasted, but not having any choice, acquiesced to going in the taxi. The doctors told me to watch her breathing (her little chest was heaving up and down trying to get enough air into her lungs), and if anything changed, to get the taxi driver to have a look! Some 80 kilometers out of Volos, Mara’s chest suddenly stopped heaving and I screamed at the taxi driver to stop as I thought she had died. He stopped and had a look and then told me that Mara’s lungs had suddenly started to work properly and that is why her chest was now acting normally. On closer examination, I could see that this was true, and that she was sleeping peacefully. I collapsed on the back seat and let the adrenalin work its way out of my body. We arrived at the hospital in Athens in the late afternoon and the taxi driver was brilliant as he pushed past all the people shouting and waving bits of paper in the reception, carrying the incubator over his head, and had Mara registered and in the correct ward in no time. We then started our journey back to Volos. However, it was now night time and he started to drop off at the wheel. I kept talking to him which just annoyed him as my Greek was atrocious, and he also realized that I was trying to keep him awake. Being in denial of the fact that he was dropping off, he kept muttering curses at me for accusing him of doing so. We finally made it back to the clinic, with my nerves now in total tatters, and I went up to see Lida. She was awake and in fairly good spirits despite the pain from the operation, and when I described everything that had happened since she was taken into the operating theatre, said, “Oh, poor Geoffie.” Still, we agreed that we already had one healthy child, and that whatever happened with Mara, we were already blessed. After Lida recovered, we returned to Skiathos (again without a baby!) and were congratulated by one and all. Zoi was somewhat disgruntled as we had left her behind (very hurriedly) and had a least expected a baby sister as some kind of compensation. So the telephone calls to Athens started (as often as we could get to Town) to find out what progress Mara was making. It seemed she was doing well and that we could probably come to get her after a few weeks. When it was time, we took Zoi with us as we didn’t want her to feel left out again. We stayed in a small flat in Pangrati which Pru, a friend, had given us the use of. We were given Mara, who was still tiny, by a nurse, but Lida thought that they must have made a mistake as she had ginger hair. However, the nurse assured us that this child was indeed, our baby. My grandmother on my mother’s side had auburn coloured hair so this is probably where Mara’s hair colouring came from. The first time we changed her nappy, we found that she had a bright purple bum which freaked Lida out a bit. We discovered that the hospital had put permanganate of potash on her to stop Thrush and that there was nothing to worry about. In general, it was easier to look after Mara because we now had some experience with child raising and were much more confidant. We feed Mara goat’s milk as soon as possible and she grew and grew. Both Zoi and Mara were raised on goat’s milk and they both did very well on it – just the occasional “baa, baa” every now and then ;o)
Zoi always managed to look “smart” whatever she was dressed in, whereas Mara, didn’t care at all and was usually a mess. In this respect, Zoi took after Lida and Mara took after me. Mara looked so like Lida that there could be no doubt whatsoever of her maternity whereas Zoi looked more and more like photos of my mother when she was young. Zoi ate all her food very neatly but Mara slopped everything all over the place. The cats would wait under her high chair at mealtimes knowing that they would get lots of good stuff that dropped off her plate or fork. Mara loved this and would often deliberately throw food on the floor for them. One day, for no reason that we could see, she upturned her plate over her head and started chuckling as the food slowly dripped down her face. Both our daughters have been happy children and a delight to be with. We never tried to “discipline” them into doing what was right, but always explained why they could or could not do exactly what they wished. They grew up spending some hours every day on the beach in the summer, as we worked in our market garden in the early morning, and again in the evening. They met kids from all over Europe (and some from further afield) and quickly understood that not everyone spoke the same language. Being used to English, Greek and some Dutch, it was easy for them to communicate to other kids who spoke only Italian or French or whatever, as they were used to listening and using the words that these other kids were using. When we got to the beach, they just ran off to look for friends that they had made or to make new friends when the previous ones had left at the end of their holidays. They were constantly coming back to us with new friends and we got to meet the parents of these kids and share a beer and a chat with them. Some of these (particularly the ones that returned to Skiathos year after year), became good friends of ours as well. Wolfgang, a German judge who I learned most of my windsurfing skills from, and his family, eventually came to stay in one of our villas every summer for years, and we still see them either in Germany or Skiathos every couple of years. There was one problem with the girls being on the beach and meeting all those parents. This was that the parents would offer to buy them ice creams (I mean, this is the way to any kids heart, right?) and we would find that they were not eating their evening meal because they were stuffed with chocolate cones and the like. We had to do something (but didn’t want to ban ice creams completely) so we discussed it with Zoi and Mara and we all agreed that they would only accept one ice cream on Wednesdays, Saturdays and Sundays. This meant that they would often turn down the offer of an ice cream telling the person making the offer that it was “not an ice cream day”. This flummoxed some people and delighted others, but taught the girls the importance of self discipline.

Over the years in Skiathos we have made a huge number of friends, and said goodbye to many of them when they left and went back to where they came from. We now wish we had kept a guest book so we could look back and remember all the names and faces, but we had considered that all too bourgeois when we were hippies, and never started one. I am not going to attempt to list all the people who enhanced our lives and gave of their love and friendship. Those of you reading these memoirs will know who you are and you will also know that we keep all of you in our hearts. Of the initial people who were on my list, Keith and Paula became the closest, and, although they split up, they finally came back to Skiathos a few years ago and we renewed our love for each other.

Keith is now, sadly, dead. Unknowingly, he caught hepatitis C in India before he arrived in Skiathos and that, along with his love of Dutch beer, finally beat him. He had a great life in Amsterdam and made friends all over the world. Paula had several relationships and has a daughter by one of them who she cherishes. Krista her sister still comes to visit us in Zorbathes.

Reese became one of the most important people in my life. He was my first partner in the market garden, my guru by turning me on to good literature and good music, and by never letting me get away with bullshit. He taught me to be honest with myself, the first step in learning to be a real person. Always a man to fully appreciate women, he had several relationships before he finally settled down in New Zealand with Miriam, the love of his life. Before they retired, they worked as counselors in Auckland. Miriam counseled battered women, and Reese counseled men who battered women! Neither of these tasks is easy but I am sure that Reese and Miriam did a great job of it. Reese (with Miriam) returned for a visit to Skiathos some 23 years after he had left. It was great to see him again and meet Miriam.

Irini (who explained to me the real political situation – dictatorship! - when I had been here for a few months), is still a great friend. She married John, an Anglo-Irish architect, moved to UK, and with a friend of John’s, Richard, originally from Rhodesia, set up an architectural practice in Eton High Street. They had two children, Alexis and Phaedra, who became fast friends with our daughters (and with us), and they now have 4 grandchildren who play with our grandson. Irini is Zoi’s godmother and Zoi is one of Irini’s grandchildren’s godmother so our families have now become inextricably intertwined. They have a villa here, that Irini built in the first year that I came to Skiathos, so we see them often throughout the year. John gave me the use of his 6 metre sailing boat some years before, which helped me to teach myself to sail. Sadly, John died recently and is sorely missed.

Jacques, who became my third partner in the garden and with whom I worked together until the year after my parents died, has also played (and still plays) a hugely important role in my life. He has a wonderfully positive outlook on life and a great sense of fun. When asked to describe him, I can only say, “He’s magic!” He still lives on the island and has a son, Tommy, with Rose, who is an old friend from the Amsterdam days, who was originally married to my old hitch hiking companion, Chris. Jacques, Rose, myself, and Marcia, an American friend, played bridge once a week whenever Marcia is here (she only comes with her husband, Bruce, in the winter months). We always have fun whether the cards are good, bad or indifferent.

Both Lida’s and my parents were hugely supportive of our efforts in Skiathos. Although, originally, all of them were bemused by the very idea of living in Greece (“so far away”), in a little wooden hut with no water (let alone a toilet!), they helped us as much as they could by giving moral support and the odd injection of money when possible. Lida’s father (“Nol”) was a very conservative Dutchman who had trouble showing his emotions, but underneath loved his 4 daughters and all his grandchildren and great grandchild. Her mother, “Moeder Valeria” or “Moeders”, was the “Earth Mother”, always giving and loving everyone. She had more than 8 “sons in law” by her 4 daughters, and every one of them was welcome in her house, whether they still had a relationship with one of her daughters, or it had terminated. They would come every year and stay for up to 6 weeks, initially near Troulos Beach but (after we had built our guest apartment) with us. Moeders always arrived from Holland with a stash of little goodies that she knew we liked; Dutch mayonnaise, strong Dutch liquorice, mints, cheeses, and smoked sausage. She was never allowed by Nol to look after any finances, but she used to stash away money from the shopping money she received so that she could treat us and other family members. In retrospect, we are sure Nol knew that she was stashing money and probably always gave her a bit more than was needed for the shopping but, like this, proprietary was maintained! Moeders eventually succumbed to Altzheimers but retained her sweet aspect until her death in 2002. Nol lived until he was 96 and was still physically fairly strong until the end.

However, his hearing and eyesight were going and at the end he lived, more or less, in his own little world. Lida went to visit him in Spring and Autumn and timed these visits to be with her youngest sister, Julia, who came to Amsterdam from south west France. Julia still had the use of an apartment in Amsterdam which made things easy for everyone. Trudy, the eldest sister, still lives in Holland, so in those times, 3 of the 4 sisters are together. Liesbeth, (between Lida and Julia) lives in New Zealand so her visits are only every few years, but when she and her family come, they try to stay for a year and visit with their many friends in Europe. They usually come to us for a month or two and we greatly look forward to those times. John (Liesbeth’s man, and one of my former partners in the market garden), and I catch up with all that has happened in the meantime, and we finally managed to visit them in NZ in the winter of 2016.
Of family on my side, we are now very few; I just have a brother and one cousin who I keep in touch with. My parents came to visit us almost every year we lived in Skiathos until their untimely deaths in 1993. The original “seed” money, which enabled my life in Skiathos, was inherited by my mother (Eve), her sister, (Winnie) and her brother (Eric), from a fairly wealthy great aunt who I had only ever met once. She had verbally instructed them to give a percentage to their children but my mother was reluctant to give me my share. Under the influence of my Aunty Winnie, who thought that I was a complete drug addict and “waster”, she tried to determine what I would do with it. Invest it wisely, perhaps? She should have known better, never one to accept instructions from anyone, I told her that if this money came with strings attached, I didn’t want it. Of course, I did want it, but not at the expense of my freedom and the freedom to choose what to do with it. Eventually, her heart won out over her head and she gave me the money. I am sure that she realized later what a wise decision this was as, otherwise, my life would probably have dissipated into drugs and general degeneracy. My mother was chronically ill with rheumatoid arthritis which had set in the first year I was in Skiathos after she received the shocking news of her brother’s death in a plane crash just outside Paris. It became progressively worse over the years and the only thing things that kept her alive were strong drugs and her formidable will. She could never enjoy the “physical” side of Skiathos; swimming, walking, working in the garden, but loved to come to be with us and, later, the children. My father (Jim) was a very physical man. He loved to walk (all my childhood holidays were spent walking in Britain), loved gardening, swimming and roughhousing with the girls. The first thing we would do, when they arrived and had settled in, was go for a long walk when he and I would catch up with the previous year’s happenings. We had a relationship that was more like friends than father and son, as we had worked together in the same factory for some time when we moved to the country when I was 15. We then lived in a very small, parochial, village on the south coast of England, where we knew no one, so we became our own friends, and I cherish that to this day. However, there were some things (emotional or very personal) that I could not discuss with him. Those I discussed with my mother.

Jim and I would enjoy the outside together and I learned a lot about gardening from him. My parents had worked hard all their lives in a shoe repair shop which Jim had inherited from my Grandfather. As they approached retirement, life became financially easier for them but Jim was always restless and Eve (perforce) was very sedentary. Jim used to go off for 6 to 8 weeks every summer and lead guided walks over hills and dales and, I am sure, had a few little sexual escapades at the same time. However, he was always faithful to my mother in other ways, and when she could no longer manage on her own, he stopped the summer adventures. He became the housekeeper and an accomplished cook. He made great apple pies from the windfalls picked up in the orchards that surrounded their village and became a dab hand with “the Sunday roast”, the best of British cooking! I stopped calling my parents “Mum” and “Dad” sometime after we had the girls and referred to them as Jim and Eve from that point on. With the girls, I refused to be called “Dad” or any other similar epithet, and would only answer to “Geof”. When asked by people why they referred to me by name and not by some title, I explained that just because I had become a father, my name hadn’t changed. In conversations with others I was quite happy for them to call me Dad, Father, The Old Man, The Old Fart, etc., but when they talked to me, my name was Geof! My parents helped us with a little bit of money whenever they could afford it, especially if it was to help us enhance our lifestyle by, for example, buying a tractor, or by helping us build another “wing” on the house.

I lost them in 1993 when Jim was 77 and Eve 79. They had come to visit with my Aunty Winnie (who I also loved dearly despite her disparagement of me those many years ago) and it was apparent that Jim was not his usual self when we went for our yearly walk and chat. He got out of breath very easily and I had to wait for him several times, which was not like him at all. The following evening, while we ate, he had some kind of “episode” and the next day he stayed in his bed. The day after I insisted he came to the Health Center with me. There they examined him but could not find anything really wrong. The said that we should go to Volos for an examination at the General Hospital there. We picked up a few things in Zorbathes and then caught the afternoon “Flying Dolphin” hydrofoil to Volos. He walked on OK but by the time we arrived one and a half hours later, he had collapsed and had to be carried on to the quay. I called an ambulance and we were taken to the emergency department at the hospital but they couldn’t find much wrong either. They kept running tests and asking me to ask him if he was feeling any pain. “No pain, no pain”, he kept telling me. He was taken up to a ward and I was advised to stay in a hotel for the night and come back in the morning. I wish I hadn’t done so! I told them which hotel I would be staying at and left Jim in the ward. (he was still saying’ “No pain, no pain.”) At around 06:00 I received a phone call from the hospital telling me to come quickly, but by the time I arrived, Jim had died. It turned out that he had had viral pneumonia and because of that (according to the doctors) all his organs had failed simultaneously. I was devastated and burst into tears. For the next few hours, I just kept crying, even while on the phone to Lida and (later) to my brother, to tell them the awful news. Lida told me that my mother was also not well and she would go to the Health Center with her. I was running around Volos trying to arrange a coffin and tickets back to Skiathos (you have to pay for a body, dead or alive!). My mother was diagnosed with the same viral pneumonia and, as I was going back to Skiathos, Lida took my mother to Volos. She had told Eve that Jim had died, but it didn’t seem to register with her. I arrived and got the coffin taken to the Church of Aghias Triada, where funerals for non orthodox people were held and contacted Stathis (of Stathis Taverna fame) who helped arrange the paperwork and a priest for the ceremony. In Skiathos, they bury people quickly (there are no refrigeration facilities) as the heat is too much to keep a body above ground for long. The next day Lida and my mother were in Volos and we held the funeral service for my father. Aunty Winnie, Zoi and Mara were there and a few of our friends came, but the church was packed with local Greeks who had heard about the death, and had come as a mark of respect for Lida and me. I was overwhelmed. I had kept the coffin closed (the Greeks always leave it open), but when the actual burial took place, the priest removed the coffin lid before it was lowered into the ground, and I saw my father for the last time. I hardly recognized him. He looked so wizened and old. Zoi and Mara were devastated. They had been looking forward to seeing Jim and Eve when, suddenly, everything seemed to be upside down with hospitals, absences, funerals and general chaos. It was their first brush with death, and at 11 and 13, they just couldn’t really understand what was going on.

Winnie was a tower of strength, taking over the running of the household and being as cheerful as possible under the circumstances. Meanwhile, in Volos, my mother had been left in a bed, more or less unattended, with doctors saying that there wasn’t much wrong with her. She and Lida decided to return to Skiathos. After a couple of days in bed in Zorbathes, showing no improvement, I took Eve to the Health Center, where she was put on a drip and, again, left alone. We were getting nowhere until I mentioned that she had a health insurance (part of their flight price) and the local doctors than told me she could be flown by a medical plane to Athens to a private hospital. This was arranged and she and I flew on this plane, with a private doctor, to a hospital near the coast in Athens. During the course of this flight, I thought Eve had fallen asleep, but in fact, she had gone into a coma. I stayed for two days in Athens watching her, but there was no change. A representative of the insurance company contacted me and told me that she could be sent, via a medical jet, back to the UK, to be hospitalized in Hastings, close to the village where they lived. I agreed to this as, even though the private hospital in Athens seemed to be very good, I thought it would be better for Eve to be back home. This was duly arranged and I saw the plane take off the next day. I returned to Skiathos and arranged a flight to England. Winnie took her return flight back and we arranged to meet at my parent’s house in a few days time. It was at this point that Denis, my neighbour and a rather wealthy man, turned up to pay his condolences. He also put half a million Drachmas (then about 2,000 GB Pounds) on the table and said, “Use this, you will need it. Pay me back when you can.” This was a marvelous gesture and also extremely useful as I didn’t know where I would find the money to travel and support Lida and the girls at the same time. I went back to Athens and flew to Heathrow and then went by train to Hastings. My brother Ken had been down there to see my mother (who was still in a coma) and met me at the station. We fell into each other’s arms and hugged. We have never been that close but this brought us together. We stayed that night at Wickham Brook, our parent’s house and the next day the hospital telephoned and told us that Eve had woken up. We went to see her in the intensive care ward, she smiled at us, and I nearly burst out into fresh tears as all the emotions from the past days welled up. She then cracked me up by saying, “You know, these Greek nurses speak remarkably good English!” Her last memory had been getting into the plane from Skiathos to Athens and she thought she was still in Greece. We explained the situation but it was difficult for her to grasp everything. Ken went back to London and Winnie came down to stay for a few days. We went every morning and evening to the hospital and sat with Eve. There wasn’t a lot to say so we just spent the time smiling lovingly at each other. Although she seemed to understand that Jim was dead and that her life had changed radically forever, she didn’t seem to really get it, and talked about going back home when she had recovered. She had not been able to look after herself for some years with Jim doing all the housework, cooking, etc., but she didn’t want to hear about anything else but returning home. Although physically quite frail, she had still had her strong will and that was what was keeping her going. After a week, I had to come back to Greece but promised to return in a month’s time. Hopefully, she would then be strong enough to leave hospital and we could move forward to the next stage of her life. However, Ken phoned me about three weeks later and told me that Eve had died in the hospital. This came as a complete surprise as, until then, she had seemed to getting stronger. I suppose that she finally understood that she could never go back to live in Wickham Brook and that Jim was truly gone, and her will just gave out. They died within 39 days of each other. I traveled back again for the funeral service and cremation and stayed a couple of days while we tried to sort out some of our parent’s belongings. Winnie, as ever a tower of strength in her own quiet way, helped us pack up things and sort out papers. There seemed to be no wills, so we agreed that my brother would sort out any inheritance (he being in the UK and me not). The day before I left, I traveled up to see John and Irini in Windsor as it was conveniently close to Heathrow. It was the day that they had arranged their annual office outing which was a day at the races at Ascot. I accompanied them, and as I was not drinking at the time (it just didn’t seem appropriate) I became the designated driver. An evening at the pub followed the races, and I eventually drove around 11 people back (we lost count) in Irini’s VW estate wagon. As most of the men were ex rugby players, it was quite a squeeze! I flew back and arrived in Skiathos to be greeted by Lida, Zoi and Mara, and was so happy to be back in the bosom of my family. We missed Jim and Eve, of course, but we had had so much quality time with them over the years in Skiathos, and they live on in our hearts. In Greece, people are buried for 3 years (there is still no cremation in Greece), and then, unless you pay to keep the plot, the body is dug up and the bones and skull are put in a box and kept at an ossuary at the church that the family is associated with. Ken had brought Eve’s ashes to Skiathos in the meantime so we had Jacques build a little shrine to them both and put Jim’s bones and Eve’s ashes in there. I see it and think about them every day, especially in the summer when I am watering the flower garden around the shrine. Here is a photo:

When Moeder Valeria died, Lida added a photo of her in the top of the shrine.
Me, I would be happy to end up there as well - or maybe under a newly planted olive tree.
Another elder couple who played a large part in our lives, became surrogate parents, but whose sojourn in Zorbathes ended tragically, were Geoff and Anne Chandler. They had come to Skiathos as guests of villa owners who were heavily involved in show jumping. “Big” Geoff, as he was known to us (I was “Young” Geof – as opposed to “Old Geoff and “Little Geof – thus we all kept our dignity!) had been working with horses and show jumping for much of his life. They had worked in Iran until the Shah was kicked out and then had come to Athens, where they worked at a stables and show jumping school. He designed and laid out courses for show jumping and had designed the course for the Balkan championships which was won by the owner of the villa they were staying in. They fell in love with Skiathos and were looking for a place of their own to live in but could not afford to buy a property. They had two dogs that they had adopted in Tehran, one a short fat, pudding like thing called Paddington Bear (or Paddington for short), and the other a larger mongrel called Podger, who could have a bad temper and would snap at people who he didn’t know or who trod on his tail by accident, for example. Because of the dogs, it was hard for them to find a place to rent as (especially in those days) the local Greeks were quite averse to dogs who they thought should be permanently chained up. We talked, and Geoff suggested that maybe they could rent a small plot of land from us, a little bit up the hill, where they could set up a caravan and build a wooden pergola over it, to protect it and give them a shady patio outside the caravan. This seemed a good idea to me and Big Geoff went off to price some caravans in Athens. Having found one suitable, he asked his Athenian show jumping friend to help him with the paperwork and also with the paperwork for transferring a Suzuki Jeep from his friend’s name to his, as they had decided to buy this car as well. His friend agreed but said it would take many days as Greek bureaucracy was (and is still) notorious for being slow and laborious. The first reaction of any bureaucrat is, “No, this is not possible!” or, “You are in the wrong department!” (no further instructions given …..). This is so that they do not have to do any work. Big Geoff and his friend started by buying and registering the caravan, which only took two hours. His friend could not believe it. They then went to the office that deals with the transfer of cars from name to name, and achieved that in even less time. They did it all in one morning with Geoff’s friend muttering all the time, “This is impossible! Impossible!” Geoff had the caravan delivered to Skiathos and then towed it (with great trepidation) up our very narrow dirt track to the designated plot. We got it in place, dug a small cess pit, and attached it to our water system, and they had a home! We still did not have electricity then and they used camping gas to cook on, for refrigeration, and to light the caravan. This was to prove their eventual undoing! Big Geoff built the wooden pergola over the caravan, made a small retaining wall in front to raise the patio level to that of the caravan, and proceeded to settle in. This was in the year that Mara had been born and Reese and Gillie had left for Australia. Geoff and Anne became our main advisers on raising children. They helped us in many ways and entertained us with their stories of exploits in Iran and Athens, and farming in the UK (they had raised pigs at one time as well as always being involved with horses). They smoked a lot and enjoyed a good drink, although never getting “out of it”, and we were glad that we had invited them to share part of Zorbathes with us. After a while, when the caravan was starting to feel a bit cramped (especially in the winter when it could rain for days on end), Big Geoff suggested that maybe they could pull the caravan out from under the roof and build a small wooden house there instead. We would pay for the materials and he would do all the labour and then they would stay for several years rent free. It seemed like a great idea as we would eventually end up with a wooden house when they decided to leave (it had always been their intention to go back to Britain when they started to feel too old to stay abroad). The caravan was pulled out from under the pergola on to the parking lot we had provided, and Geoff went to work. He made a doubled skinned cabin with a plywood interior, external lapped siding, and insulation in between. It comprised of a kitchen, a small dining area, a “snug” living room, a bedroom and a bathroom with a bath (an unheard of innovation in Zorbathes at that time). They sold the caravan to a local man after having moved in to what became christened, “The Bungalow”. We installed an old “Ascot”, Calor Gas fired water heater, and had “bath” nights once a week, when we would all go up to the Bungalow and take turns having a nice hot bath … pure luxury!! Geoff and Anne would entertain us with food and drink, stories for the girls, and evening long games of Scrabble for us “oldies”. Geoff cleared and “tamed” the plot in front of the Bungalow and starting planting a heat resistant grass that had initially been brought to Skiathos from Rhodesia by a South African lady. This grass makes a great lawn, soft and springy, but can be very invasive. He told me, as he was planting it, “You are going to curse me for this!” It is a lot of work, especially to keep it within the bounds of the lawn area, but we now also have it in front of our house, and I remember Big Geoff every time I mow the lawns. I do not curse him! Their daughter, “Diz”, would come every year, usually with her friend Mary, and the two of them would enjoy the night life in Skiathos as often as possible. They were both girls full of life and were a pleasure to be around.

Geoff and Anne’s stay was cut tragically short by an accident with a Camping Gas bottle. None of us had electricity at that time and they lit their house and ran a small refrigerator with Camping Gas. One evening in the middle of summer, when a gas bottle had run out that they used for lighting, they tried to exchange the empty one for a full one. In the process of screwing in the lamp section it became cross threaded and didn‘t screw in properly. Realising this, they left the process for the next day. The following afternoon, outside on the terrace, Geoff and Anne tried to unscrew the lamp section from the Camping Gas bottle with Geoff holding the bottle and Anne the lamp section. Unfortunately, what happened was that the valve of the Camping Gas bottle unscrewed instead of just the lamp section, and suddenly all the gas from the bottle was released. Their little gas refrigerator which was outside on the terrace had a small pilot light and when the gas reached that, it caught fire. Both Geoff and Anne’s clothes had been permeated with the gas and they both started to burn! Geoff managed to put out his clothes by rolling on the lawn but Anne was in a state of shock and got very badly burned. There was no telephone (& no mobile phones in those days), and we had gone to the beach for the afternoon, so they had no way of communicating what had happened. Geoff put Anne in a bath of cold water but could see that she was really badly burned and was at his wit’s end. Fortunately, a horse riding friend happened by and found them. He got them to the local Health Center in Skiathos Town but the doctors there were not equipped to handle such serious burns and they called for a medical plane or helicopter to take Geoff and Anne to Athens to the KAT Hospital, which specialized in such cases. In the meantime, we were riding back from the beach with the girls with our tractor and trailer. As we got close to Zorbathes, one of the doctors (we called him, Ooch, aach”, because he complained more than his patients) came the other way and stopped us. He explained in Greek that an accident had happened and that “The two old folks were burned”. Our Greek wasn’t quite up to this as we had never come across the words for “burned” and “third degree” before. However, when we got back home and I went up to their house, I could see that there had been some kind of accident with fire, as the entire front porch and flower beds was singed. I jumped on my moped and went off to Town. I stopped at Stathi’s Taverna on the way as I knew Stathi fairly well and wanted someone who spoke Greek and good English to accompany me. Stathi, bless him, dropped his work (with a completely full taverna and people waiting for tables), and came with me to Town. We saw Anne who was in a very bad state of shock, but not feeling any pain as all her nerve endings had been burnt, and was more worried about being naked in front of us than anything else. Big Geoff was not so badly burnt but was in a lot of pain and was extremely worried about Anne. We helped to get them to the airport as a medical plane was on its way. As there was no ambulance then, they were loaded on to the back of a flat bed truck, and driven to the runway. I tried to reassure Geoff that everything would be OK, but he knew that Anne was in a very bad way and was very worried (much more for her than for himself). They flew off and I returned to Zorbathes to bring Lida and the girls up to date. They were all very upset, especially Zoi and Mara who couldn’t really understand what had happened, but knew from our demeanor that it was something very serious. I can’t remember who informed Diz but she came to Athens two or three days later with Mary. I went to Town every day to phone the hospital and was told after two or three days that Anne had died. I don’t remember if Diz had made it in time to see her. I went to Athens after 5 days (once we had made arrangements for someone to take over my duties on the farm and selling the vegetables), mat with Diz and Mary and went to see Geoff. His first words to me were. “Bloody gas bottles!”. He was covered in second and third degree burns and could only half sit up in bed and was in great pain which the drugs could not totally alleviate. The hospital had discovered a “new” treatment for burns, which was to do nothing (!) so he still had grass and earth mixed up with his scabs! He was comparatively cheerful (for a man who had just lost his wife and had his life changed forever) and, like many patients, spent his time trying to cheer up all the people who came to see him. Among these were many wealthy Athenians from the show jumping world plus many other friends that they had made during their time in Athens. I commiserated with Diz and we all had a good cry about Anne. I could only stay for one night as (in the middle of the season) things were just too busy back at home. About a week later Geoff flew to Britain with Olympic Airways and entered the specialist burns hospital at Stoke Mandeville Hospital in Aylesbury. They were horrified at the “treatment” that he had received in Athens, and he was immediately put into solitary confinement as he was too toxic to be allowed near other patients. He later described to us how burns treatments are the worst as the pain just keeps going. Firstly there are the burns themselves, followed by the pain when dressings are changed during which scabs sometimes come off, and finally when skin grafts are taken and the area where the skin was taken from plus the burnt areas have to heal again. I experienced all this some years later and can testify to the truth of this (more of this in the chapter called “Fun”).
Geoff recovered and came back the following spring to gather their things together and say a sad farewell to Skiathos. He couldn’t bear to live alone in the place that had afforded them so much happiness, but had eventually ended in tragedy.
We have made so many friends in Skiathos, and it would be tedious to try to describe them all here. As mentioned before, they know who they are, and they also know that despite not being mentioned by name in the book, we love and treasure them all. We recently went on a trip around the world – UK, USA, NZ, OZ, and Malaysia, to visit some of the friends we made here. Even though we hadn’t seen some of them for over 30 years, our friendship was as deep as ever, and we had great times reliving our adventures in Skiathos and catching up on all the latest doings.