by Nikitas » Sat Sep 19, 2009 4:09 pm
OK here goes:
The centers for Cypriots were in north London, and essentially in a stretch from Camden Town along Camden Road past Holloway and the famous Nag's Head Pub, along Seven Sisters Road, Finsbury Park and on to Green Lanes, Harringay.
Green Lanes, the part from Manor House to Turnpike Lane station were the MAIN center of Cypriots, both Greek and Turkish. Now that I am all grown up I realise that we lived in a ghetto, but we did not call it that back then.
GCs and TCs were mixed together, often living next door to each other and there was much intermingling at the business level too. Naturally there were GC cafes and TC cafes, but TCs were regulars at our cafes as we in theirs, gambling being the major uniting factor for such close cohabitation.
Gambling was the name of the game in places like the Casanova "social club", and other like establishments along Green Lanes and Finsbury Park. Obviously the use of the title "social club" was a way to bypass the gambling laws. That is where Cypriots would go on Friday night, taking their wive's wage packets along with their own to gamble till Monday morning. Gambling was the curse of our community, probably still is.
When studying late into the night I would go to Casanova (run by Foris with the help of Pistaras) where you could have some of the best Cypriot food for one pound sterling. Sitting over a plate of poulles and pork kappama I would keep an ear open at the betting going on at the Poka table. One night I remember LK the insurance guy placing a 6000 pound bet, and he was called on it.
The vast majority of Cypriot emigrants to the UK were peasant stock. There were fewer city people. I recall that Rizokarpasso was well represented, as were villages I had never heard of while in Cyprus- like Vavatsinia, Fterihou, Vitsada and others. To be blunt, they were the kind of people we would never mix with back in the old country, but as Kazantzidis says in his songs, emigration is a geat leveller. City ladies who came to London with their university age children would work in dress factories alongside peasant girls, gone were the afternoon teas and concan soirees of Famagusta and Nicosia. Disohonorable society- atimi koinonia!
The usual progression of a young Cypriot's life in north London was to get a trade or job that his non existent qualifications would allow- ie dress machinist, presser, mechanic, chef, etc and start earning money. While single, the boys would go for Friday and Saturday night forays to Ilford Palais and other such dubious places where they would "dance" ie pick up local talent. After a few years of this there would be the inevitable proxenio and the wedding, with several dozen koumbaros. And then came the mortgage, the kids, who grew up speaking English with a smattering of Cypriot if they were lucky.
There were some people who would not or could not fit in the mold. They were the fringe of the community, often in trouble with the law, usually into soft drugs and petty crime, some progressing to major crime and they became people with a "rep" to be feared.
Going to law school in the morning and coming back to Harringay in the evening was a unique experience, a kind of exercise in social schizophrenia. On the other hand I had a first hand illustration of various crimes in the offing and it was academically fascinating to watch. One day AV, S, and F, decided that they would rob the sub post office at Saint Anne's road. They laid their plans at a corner table of the Sattelite cafe in Green Lanes, not far from the dog stadium. They piled into a car and left. What they had not taken into account was that the sub post master was an Indian, and like most Indians he had a large family.
Upon entering the post office S hit the man and then tried to do one of his acrobatic jumps over the counter. He put his weight on a pile of glossy magazines (sub post offices often were also newsagets and tobacconists). The glossy magazines slid and S fell to the floor with a thud. AV and F fell over each other and by now several Indians, hearing the postmasters call for help, poured into the small shop.
Our three would be robbers managed to beat a retreat to their car, chased by a small mob if Indian men, women and children.They sped down the road, towards Saint Anne's road police station...... Their planning had not taken into account the proximity of the police station, some 100 yards from the sub post office. They were caught naturally, and spent some months in jail not for their attempt, but for driving a stolen car into a police car.
Life in Harringady was full of such incidents which made life interesting.
Then came the dreaded July 15 1974. Green Lanes was suddenly filled with GCs standing on pavement holding transistor radios to their ears, holding newspapers, desperate for news. The police kept a discreet watch on things. Then came the invasion. The air was tense, but not one single TC was harmed. The TC shops lost their GC clientele for a few days, and then gradually everything was back to normal. Our local TC greengrocer was as busy if not busier.
Those are some of the memories from the ghetto. I wonder what others remember from those days.
) ...but surely things couldn't have been that bad.... 
