The subaltern wrote:I have been reading with interest all your posts as I am interested on the subject.
I have in fact talked to some people of your age and older about your recollections.
On the whole they find them reliable but have doubts as to the validity of some events you described that makes your experience of the era rather unusual.
I hope you do not mind me if I put their doubts to you for clarification and for the sake of historical accuracy.
You described an event where drunken soldiers came to your house and beat up your father and you. That, was according to them a common occurrence, but was not done
by drunken soldiers but by sober once knowing full well what they were doing and again according to my old friends, having a superior in charge of them.
Regarding the same event: after been beaten black and blue you and your father were called in by some soldier where you was given sweets and your father compensated with some money for the privilege of been beaten up. That according to my sources was unbelievable. People were beaten up but never compensated.
Regarding the tearing up of EOKA leaflets by left wingers at Agios Lucas openly as you have described. This again, they dispute for a simple reason: Tearing EOKA leaflets at the time was a very daring thing to do. You were likely to be branded a traitor to the cause and nobody would have like to have this against their name.
They wondered why you did not report them been an active member of the organisation.
Your other comment of growing up at Famagusta and showing interest in girls and getting hot at Famagusta beach looking at bikini glad girls. Again they dispute. (a) Cyprus girls at the time did not wear beginnings or if they did very -very few. (b) According to them perhaps you were looking at British soldier’s wives but even them they did not wear bikinis much and where they swam at Famagust beach, was cordoned off by barbed wire for security reasons. GCs were not allowed near it.
They think that your imagination got the better of you!
They last one they find rather funny and we all had a laugh. That was the one to do with the Turkish ebicuricos (auxiliary police) during the curfew imposed by the British after the Kioneli massacre; where you saw his balls hanging down his short trousers! They disputed that on the grounds that the epikourikoi were short in general and their trousers were reaching to their knees. Either the Turkish epicuricos was a very-very big boy, or bouzis perhaps; but most likely you put it down as a joke; good one at that.
But dispute of what followed; that the epicurikos escorted you to your cousin’s house after asking his English superior. According to them this was never done. Similarly finding the name of the soldier who gave the authorisation to visit your cousin as Fred they wondered how did you managed to get this information. However, according to my friends all English soldiers were known as John or Jonnies.
What you are posting here is I assume from a book you have written. Am I correct? I have my reasons to believe that it is; nothing wrong with this.
After a talk with the old boys, they came to the conclusion that overall your reminiscences are similar to theirs but you paint a rather rosy picture of the English behaviour.
I hope you don’t mind the comments. This is not meant as a criticism but for historical accuracy.
Thanks
From the outset I stated that the events I described were true and based on MY recollections. You describe the drunken soldiers in a way that they were a figment of my imagination. They were not, British soldiers indulged in heavy drinking, there was nothing much to do in Stroumbi in 1955, a few beers was all the young soldiers had to relax with.
Most of the British soldiers, especially the Scots and the Welsh were jolly decent young men, the English and especially the Irish were the ones to watch out for.
From 1953 to 1955, during my time in the Limassol orphanage, I witnessed the incredible kindness of English people who gave us kids so much comfort and care, I ought to add that during my time in the Pediki Stegi, not one single Cypriot gestured any care or love towards the orphans. Many wealthy Cypriot families, not the least interested in the plight of little children without a mother or a father, the English mums who regularly passed by pushing their prams considered the happiness that a bag of treats would bring to us children. Yes Sir, I recollect what I experienced, and challenge anyone who lived through those years to challenge my writings.
The British were an occupation force but they were not Nazis, my recollections on my friend Fred were true, I swear on my mothers grave, that was his name, not Johnny or anything else, but Fred.
