Get Real! wrote:MR-from-NG wrote:I could be wrong but on our side back in early sixties I would on school holidays go to my dad's shop and I'm sure I heard my dad on many occasions discussing with his friends stuff about people from Paphos and as I understood it they were looked upon as the Irish of Cyprus. Can someone clarify this? I could be wrong and no intention of upsetting those from Paphos.
Yes, derogatory names existed like…
Skoulli = Paphians
Skoullos = A male Paphian
Paphos, was underdeveloped for most of the 20th century so it was basically considered just a “peanut and banana” growing peasant-land by non-Paphians.
I think it was the British expats who “discovered” Paphos in the 80s and started buying land and building pretty housing communities, etc which led to the modernized Paphos you’ll find today.
When I joined the army in 1983 it was my first real encounter with Paphians which would stick together during boot camp and I did notice that they had their own array of Cypriot words they used that didn’t exist anywhere else like…
Embeijen = Entered
Exeigen = Exited
…and countless others I forget now… but in the end I actually ended up liking them because they turned out to be honest, hard working, and loyal friends. For years after we left the army they would still send me letters of appreciation of my friendship, so any prejudiced feelings I previously had about Paphians were gone.
I don't know what the Paphian of 2020 is like these days, but the ones in the 80s I did like a lot.
Btw, I forgot to mention that later when we left boot camp and got transferred to various posts (in my case a succession of Green Line outposts) we’d be looking for Paphians to join us because they were very good at finding and preparing food, drinking, singing, entertainment, etc.
So yeah I spoke with my captain on one occasion to arrange for a Paphian to be transferred to my outpost because they were hard working and good fun. I basically swapped a useless idiot from Limassol for a Paphian!
Thanks for that GR. Very enlightening. We had a lot of Bafidis visit my dads shop to buy my dads batteries. Back in those days many villages had no electricity and there were these valve radios that used big batteries. They were if I remember correctly 90v and 1.5volts and they were almost as big as a car battery. There was Ever Ready, Berec and my das batteries. My dad had a deal with the British bases and he collected their used batteries, the Brits replaced the batteries on their communications equipment as a matter of routine regardless of their condition. My dad branded them as A. R****m Batteries and no word of a lie, people from all over Cyprus would come on buses to Nicosia to buy my dads home made batteries. People claimed if Berec or Ever Ready last 3 months my dads would last 4-5 months. He made good money from rubbish basically.
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