Roger Knight

Roger Knight is available in paperback now as well as the Kindle version :)

Six decades; a ditty.

1-10

Playing round apple trees, walking to school,

Satchels and ink wells and scarves made of wool.

Reading and writing and times tables too,

Painting and cutting and pasting with glue.

11-20

Levis and Bowie and T.Rex and Midis,

 

Navy blue skirts rolled up to be minis.

 

Laughing with friends and avoiding P.E.

Discovering boys; ‘Did he look at me?’

21-30

Brighton and bedsits, gas meters and beer,

Travel, adventure; a heart free of fear.

A husband-a Greek one! A baby boy

And following shortly, a girl, what a joy!

31-40

Two more curly heads to lay in our beds,

Chaos and laughter; the house was a mess.

Cooking and teaching and writing and then,

Washing up, tidying and writing again!

41-50

Cash in the bank-well, that’s something new,

A house and a garden and my own car too.

Dashing around; the airport’s my home,

Santiago and Moscow and Belgrade and Rome.

51-60

Unbearable grief; but through the sad haze

I know that my parents are with me always.

And they live on forever; their wisdom takes wing

In our beautiful grandchildren, who make our hearts sing!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Christmas Eve; a Roger Knight short story.

It was Christmas Eve and Roger and his mother, Lady Lucinda, were putting the finishing touches to their yule log. They had decorated it with dark green laurel and holly and Roger had made some decorations at school; baubles painted with wintry scenes of reindeer in silvery forests, starry skies and snow falling on rooftops.

‘It’s going to snow for Christmas,’ said Roger, placing a painted silver star on the log. ‘I just know it!’

‘You never know, we might be lucky,’ said Lady Lucinda.

Roger looked out of the leaded windows in the castle’s hall. There wasn’t a single snow cloud in sight.

Sir Percival came in the front door, bringing a blast of frosty air with him. After him waddled their ducks, followed by Cedric the Swan.

‘This lot want to come in for the night,’ he said, leading the birds to the warmth of the log fire. ‘The moat is frozen over.’

‘They can sit with me,’ said Granny Griselda. She was only just visible beneath a colourful pile of wools and threads. ‘I’ve got to finish these tapestries by tomorrow morning. They’re presents for the neighbours.’

‘I’m going to look at the moat,’ said Roger.

‘Don’t go trying to skate on it,’ said Sir Percival. ‘It’s not thick enough yet.’

Roger stepped outside. It was a beautifully clear night. The sky was deep blue and glittered with stars.

He heard a twig break somewhere at the back of the garden.

‘Mrs Potts, is that you?’ he called. Their next door neighbour was often outside late at night, encouraging her cat, Puddykins to come in.

There was no reply. Roger was about to go back indoors when, from between the shadows of the birch trees, stepped a tall man. He was wrapped in a long, hooded cloak.

Roger took a step back.

‘Who are you?’ he said.

‘I’m a traveller,’ said the man. His voice was low and gentle. ‘I’ve lost my way. Can I come into your home to warm myself and have a cup of wine?’

Roger didn’t know what to say. Being a Knight of the Wondrous Order he knew there were rules of hospitality which he should follow and that he should be welcoming. But at school, his teacher, Mrs Pennywhistle, had repeatedly warned them of all the dangers of talking to strangers.

‘I…I had better ask my father,’ he said, backing towards the castle door.

The man came a little closer. His face was covered by his hood but Roger could see his eyes. They were dark green, like forest pools.

‘I’ll wait out here,’ he said.

Roger went inside, closing the heavy oak door behind him.

‘Mum, Dad,’ he said. ‘There’s a strange man outside. He wants to come in.’

Sir Percival looked at Lady Lucinda.

‘Are we expecting guests?’ he asked.

‘No, dear. Perhaps it’s a wassailer,’ she said.

‘They’re called carol singers now, Mum,’ said Roger. ‘And I don’t think he is. He’s not dressed like people around here. He looks more like…’ Roger was not sure what the stranger looked like really. ‘More like one of us,’ he finished uncertainly.

‘A fellow knight?’ said Sir Percival. ‘Well then, let him be welcome!’

‘I don’t think he’s a knight, Dad,’ said Roger. ‘Mrs Pennywhistle says we should be careful…’ But his father was already opening the door.

‘Well met, stranger,’ he said. ‘Please come in and warm yourself by our fire.’

The stranger towered above all of them. It wasn’t hard to be taller than Granny Griselda, as most people were, but this man seemed to fill the room with his great height.

‘Have you a horse with you?’ asked Sir Percival. ‘We can provide straw and water for it.’

‘Thank you but no, I am travelling on foot,’ said the man.

‘Have you come far?’ asked Lady Lucinda.

‘Yes, my lady. I have been walking for seven days and seven nights,’ he said.

Roger looked quickly up at the man. No-one around here ever called his mother my lady. They usually called her Mrs Knight.

‘What’s your name and where are you from?’ he asked boldly.

‘Roger! Don’t be so rude,’ said Sir Percival. ‘We haven’t even offered our guest food and drink. You shouldn’t ask his name yet! He will tell us when he is ready.’

‘Please, kind sir, do not chide the boy. I take no offence. My name,’ said the stranger, slowly lowering his hood, ‘is…’

‘Morvan!’ said Sir Percival, Lady Lucinda and Granny Griselda with one, amazed voice.

‘Yes, my friends!’ he said.

‘I never thought I would see you again!’ said Sir Percival, overcome with joyful surprise.

‘Who’s Morvan? I mean, who are you?’ asked Roger, very confused.

The man laughed. ‘I am an old friend of your family from more years ago than I care to remember.’

‘Morvan is a magician!’ said Sir Percival. ‘The greatest magician of all the Knights of the Wondrous Order!’

‘Then I was right,’ said Roger. ‘He is one of us!’

‘He certainly is,’ said Lady Lucinda, turning to Morvan. ‘We’re so happy to have you here with us!’

‘Food and drink!’ cried Sir Percival. ‘We shall have a great feast tonight. Roger, please get Morvan a large goblet of warm, spiced wine!’ and he rushed off to the flag-stoned kitchen to start the preparations.

 

‘So, my dear friend, what brings you to us this Christmas Eve?’ asked Sir Percival. They were sitting at the long table, which was covered with a deep red cloth and spread with roasted meats, onions and parsnips, baked wheat and barley breads, slabs of cheese and butter, gingerbread, cheesecakes and a towering pile of honeyed plums and pears.

Morvan took a deep breath and looked at them all.

‘I think I have lost my magical powers,’ he said.

Granny Griselda almost choked on a mouthful of sweet onion.

‘But that’s not possible,’ she said. ‘You could turn night into day, metal into gold.’

‘Not any longer, Lady Griselda,’ said Morvan. ‘I doubt my powers and now…I can do very little. I feel weak.’

‘Morvan, I am deeply sorry to hear this,’ said Sir Percival. ‘Is there something that we can do to help you?’

‘There is a reason,’ said Morvan, ‘why I have travelled so far to come to your castle. I need help from someone very special.’ He looked at Roger.

‘Me?’ said Roger. ‘How can I help? I mean, I would like to but I don’t know anything about magic.’ He felt rather out of his depth.

Sir Percival and Lady Lucinda looked at each other and then at Granny Griselda.

‘I think I know what our magician means,’ said Granny Griselda gently, patting Morvan on his arm. ‘He wants to find the power of faith which you have Roger.’

‘Me?’ said Roger again. He knew he was repeating himself but he couldn’t think of anything else to say. ‘I don’t know anything about…anything!’ he finished, lamely.

Morvan looked at him and smiled.

Roger couldn’t get to sleep after all the excitement of the evening. He lay on his bed, staring at the stars through the narrow window in the wall of his small bedchamber. As he gazed, one of the stars seemed to get bigger and brighter. He sat up, pulling his woollen blankets around him. Was it his imagination or could he hear the jingle of bells?

He got out of bed and went to the window. There, far in the distance, he could see something moving. He pressed his face to the damp, cold glass. It was, yes it was a sleigh! Pulled by reindeer! Flying through the sky towards their castle.

Roger knew he had to be asleep for the magic of Christmas to work and he jumped back into bed. He closed his eyes.

‘Please, Father Christmas,’ he whispered. ‘Could you bring one more special present to our home tonight? Could you bring something to help Morvan do his magic again? A wand or something?’ And with that, tiredness overcame him and he drifted off to sleep.

It was completely quiet in the castle when Roger awoke. He went down the stone stairs to the Great Hall. There, around the yule log was a pile of presents, all wrapped in shining, crackly paper. Roger looked at the hand-written cards on them; there were lots for Roger, several for his parents and a large, harp-shaped one for Granny Griselda. But there was nothing for Morvan! Roger sat by the log. He couldn’t help feeling a little disappointed.

‘Aren’t you going to open your presents?’ Morvan was standing by the window. How had he come into the room without Roger noticing?

‘I asked Father Christmas to bring something for you,’ said Roger, sadly. ‘But I think I asked him too late.’

‘Watch,’ said Morvan and he raised his arms towards the yule log. Roger could hear a rustling and then the sound of gentle hooves. In amazement, he watched as a tiny, painted deer on the biggest bauble came to life, stepped carefully down the side of the log, nodded its head happily to Roger and then leapt daintily out of the window.

Suddenly the log was alive with tiny characters; old men carrying bundles of sticks, little cottages with slim streams of smoke drifting from their chimneys, happy children making snowmen; the whole log glittered and shimmered with life.

‘That’s…that’s magic!’ said Roger.

‘Yes,’ said Morvan. ‘It is. My powers have returned and it is thanks to you and your simple faith that they have.’

Sir Percival, Lady Lucinda and Granny Griselda came into the room and stood by Roger.

‘Have you looked outside?’ said Lady Lucinda.

Roger ran to the window. Huge soft flakes of snow were falling silently from the white sky and settling on the trees and grass.

‘It’s snowing!’ said Roger. He turned to Morvan. ‘Is that your magic too?’

‘No, my dear boy,’ said Morvan. ‘That is something even greater; the magic of nature.’

‘Time to open the presents!’ said Sir Percival. ‘Then porridge, eggs, bacon and toasted rye bread all round. After all, we Knights of the Wondrous Order need to keep our strength up for battles. Snowball battles!’

 

Paperback of Roger Knight

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Making a Tree of Birds Applique

First I drew a bird then traced the pattern onto baking parchment. I abandoned the idea of doing the separate wing feathers in the end as realised I was making it too complicated.

Then I cut out all the birds in different coloured felt. Felt doesn't fray so it's good for applique. Theoretically the applique stitch should bind in the edges of any material but as this was my first attempt I went for the easy option.

 And then sewed each bird together using the applique stitch on my machine. You could do that bit by hand if you could be trusted to be neat. (I can't.) I made the eyes big as they appeal to the grandchildren more than the more natural beady eyes.

Then I sewed each bird onto the heavy cotton backing fabric.

 

Then I added bits of brown felt for branches and lots of green leaves. I did a straight stitch through the middle of each leaf then zig-zagged round the edges. Plain zig- zag uses less thread than the applique stitch-ie you need to re-thread your bobbin less often! But it also gives a different look to contrast with birds. The leaves took a while and there is a lot of turning the whole piece around as you sew. I think I'll probably sew this onto another piece of fabric, do a plain border and make it into a wall-hanging.

Making an Applique Peacock

Step 1: Discovered the applique stitch on my sewing machine. Joy! All you do is twiddle a knob and put your foot down and you get rows of tight stitches binding the edges of the fabric.

Step 2: Drew a peacock on ordinary paper then traced it onto baking parchment and cut out the sections.

Step 3: Pinned the pattern to felt and cut out. I numbered the tail pieces to make putting it together again easier. You think you're going to be able to see how it all fits but v easy to make mistakes!

Step 4

I cut out and pinned 'eyes' for the tail feathers. They were a bit fiddly so I hand-stitched the bright blue circles to the dark blue triangles. It's quite hard to sew round in small circles on the machine.

Step 5: I sewed the main body on first. Not sure how you stop the backing material from puckering. I tried to keep it all flat but it still creases a bit.

Step 6: Then I sewed the 'eyes' onto the tail. That was pretty fiddly. He looked a bit bare when I had finished due to the cream backing fabric (should have used a pale blue), so I added some clouds.

Not sure what to do with him now. I might make him into a cushion for one of the girlies although not sure how well the felt will wash. Guess we could always have him dry cleaned from time to time.

First Christmas in Greece

Theologos, 1981

 

 

It may just be the deceptive haze of pleasant memory, but I don’t recall it raining at all in the first few months of my stay. Warm autumn days shortened and became chillier and I know I bought a new, thick jumper for the evenings but as November turned to December, the sky stayed the same sharp blue and the sun still shone brightly. So it was a surprise to realize that Christmas was upon us and even more so because there was no sign in the shops until around December 10th of anything in the way of decorations. None of that frantic shopping for presents, no urgent messages from the Post Office about last card-posting dates approaching, no huge tins of special biscuits for sale and no sign, as far as I could tell, of pudding or cake making. Pavlos put the tree up in his school around December the fifteenth and even then it was a straggly affair hung with a few baubles, some strands of cotton wool to give a snow effect and stuck in a corner of the corridor. Vasso was more enthusiastic about decorations but she had eschewed a traditional fir tree in favour of some painted branches strung with red ribbons. She told me it was much more modern and, importantly for her, artistic. I think Despina might have had a small pine and candle table decoration on her desk, but really she was far too preoccupied with her husband’s misdeeds and her growing belly to think about the festive season. 

Although we complain about the run-up to Christmas becoming too commercial in Britain, it does serve a purpose, doesn’t it? It cheers you up during the damp dark winter afternoons and the foggy evenings to plan what you’re going to eat and drink in two months’ time, make list of intended gifts and buy fuchsia tinsel garlands. Here it just didn’t seem so necessary; there was no climatic misery to be cheered out of.

Christmas Day 1981 dawned as bright and blue as a May morning in England. Pavlos, Vasso and Despina had all individually invited me to spend the day with them and their respective families, but there was no way that Thanasis was going to let me spend Christmas with anyone other than him.

Actually, there was a sign that this was a special day; Thanasis walked somewhere. Then, as now, he was almost inseparable from his beloved car. But on Christmas Day he surprised me by walking with me to the central telephone bureau so that I could make a call to my parents in Croydon. I was feeling homesick, despite the blue skies and the prospect of two weeks rest from the teaching that I was making such heavy weather of. It wasn’t easy to call home in those days. You had to go to this central bureau place, stand in line to get a number and then wait until your numbered booth was free. Your call would be timed and then you would have to go back and stand in a queue again to pay for the minutes you had spoken. Getting a connection was less than simple too. The phones were all analogue, with large dials; this was years before we even knew the word digital in connection with technology and you were lucky if you got beyond dialling the first zero before being cut off and having to start again. On Christmas Day the lines were busier than ever and I couldn’t get through so, eventually, we gave up and Thanasis said I could try again later from his parents’ house. We walked down through the deserted town and out to the small suburb where they lived. Thinking about it now, the most likely explanation for all this walking on Thanasis’ part was that he had lent his car to his brother so that Laki could impress a new girlfriend. But still, it was nice to wander together through the empty streets and out of town towards the mountains.

 

We had roast pigeon for lunch that day. That was a first for me and I don’t remember actually eating it. I had, through necessity, become adept at looking as if I was eating and drinking a lot while managing to avoid things I didn’t want, like full glasses of warm evaporated milk for example. I heaped salad, potatoes and spinach pie onto my plate and ate that whilst appearing to eat pigeon. I can’t remember what I did with it, but I guess I hid it beneath the cabbage salad whilst distracting everyone with my broken Greek. That still makes people laugh.

Nikos and Penelope, Laki and Marianthi and Thanasis of course were all so kind but I still couldn’t help feeling homesick. It was the first Christmas I had ever spent apart from my mum and dad and knowing that they would be missing me too made it even worse. I took Thanasis up on his offer to phone home from there and when I got through to my parents I had to turn away from everyone as I could feel tears welling up. When I had finished my call I straightened up, gathered myself as quickly as possible and turned back, ready to put a brave face on things to see the whole family crying, empathizing with my sadness. 

Anyway, I think that was the last time that I saw Thanasis walk anywhere as on Boxing Day we packed up a few clothes and whizzed off in his car to go to and stay with his friend in Theologos, about an hour’s drive along the so-called National Road (actually just a road that was a little bit wider than the others in those days).

Theologos then was just a fishing village. You turned off the main road and approached, as you do now, through hills of pine and olive trees and, at the top of a hill, you catch a glimpse of a glimmering bay. By the way, it might interest you to know that my very first memory is of such a sight. I must have been about two and a half when we holidayed in Tenby in South Wales and I can still recall crowning a hill while sitting on the top deck of a bus and seeing a shining sea. They say your first memory reflects you or do they say it shapes you? Well, whatever it is that they say, I feel I can hold my head up high.

Thanasis’ friend is also called Thanasis. This could get confusing, couldn’t it? Since a few years later he was to baptize our first-born son, shall we just call him The Godfather?

We bumped over the stony path outside his house on the edge of a field, Thanasis sounded his horn to announce our arrival and out came a bald man who was almost completely circular, hailing us by waving a long pronged fork. Kiria Asimoula, also short and circular (but not bald) was at the door of the low, whitewashed cottage, wiping her hands on her apron, the glow of an open fire behind her. The Godfather’s father was known to everyone, including his son, as Uncle Mitsos and his mother was Kiria Asimoula. Kiria Asimoula managed to stay looking almost the same as she did then for the next thirty years. So that either means that she kept very young looking or that she looked older than her years then. You choose because I can’t decide.

I’d like to insert a little note here on the use of the title Kiria. It means Mrs but it’s used as a term of respect, along with the woman’s first name. If you’re addressing an older woman it would sound a little naked and rude to use just their first name. 

Uncle Mitsos had slaughtered a pig for Christmas and the long pronged fork was what he was using to turn over grilled pork steaks on the grill on his indoor fireplace. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so much meat. Kiria Asimoula was squeezing lemons over a vast platter of chops and Uncle Mitsos, having greeted us warmly, had turned his attention to the ten or twelve steaks now cooking over the charcoal in the grate. What was unusual about this feast is that the meat was all there was. No salads, no pie, no yogurt and garlic dips. Just fresh grilled pork; salted, peppered, softened while warm with lemon juice and eaten off white china plates on a low table by the fire. 

Thanasis, the Godfather, various other friends and I all hit the nearby town of Atalanti that evening. My ideas of Christmas had already been turned upside down what with the pigeons, the pork and the lack of decorations but when we arrived at the ‘bouzoukadiko’ I really felt I was in a foreign land. Bouzoukadikos, named after the main instrument played there, are nightclubs where you go to drink and have your ears finished off by extremely loud Greek ballads and dance songs performed (at least in small provincial towns) very badly by a live band. This one was housed in what seemed to be an old soundproofed warehouse, done up with dark red carpets, flock wallpaper and peeling-off polystyrene ceiling tiles. There was no entry fee but the only thing you could order to drink was spirits by the bottle and these were extortionately priced. But that was apparently part of the whole thing; these were places where you went to show off how much money you could spend in one evening. You could order wildly expensive plates of rose petals to be chucked over the singers, you could order champagne for the singers or for your friends as they danced. The champagne is not expensive because of its quality, mind you. No-one actually drinks it as it’s the kind of stuff you win at a fair by chucking a wooden hoop over the bottle. The singers take a ceremonious sip from a glass proffered from the bottle, which has been popped open with much panache by a black-trousered, white-shirted waiter, nod a thanks to the paying customer, return the almost full glass to the tray and then carry on yelling their ballad. You could also order, for a vast sum of money, towers of plaster of Paris plates to be dramatically smashed as a gesture of appreciation for the emotive singing. The guest performers were a man and woman who seemed to me to have stepped from another planet; one where tight spangled shirts, long green satin dresses, make up plastered from baubled earring to baubled earring and very big hair for both were considered good taste. Everything about that evening wailed; the singers into their massive hand held mikes, the orchestra of drums, guitars, clarinets and bouzoukis behind them and me inside, thinking ‘Where am I? What am I doing here? I want to go down the pub in Croydon for a pint of beer, a packet of cheese and onion crisps and possibly a quiz.’

I don’t think I covered up my feelings very well. I seem to remember just sitting there and sulking and although I very rarely find myself in such nightclubs nowadays, if I do, I still sulk until it’s time to go home. But don’t take my word for it, go along if you’re ever in Greece. Other people love them. Just don’t ask me to join you. 

We stayed at Uncle Mitsos and Kiria Asimoula’s village cottage for several days, the nights spent sleeping in a bed covered, not with a blanket or a quilt, but with a vast, lead-weight, hand-threaded, bright orange, woollen rug. I’m surprised we made it through the night really, especially after the whisky/ bouzouki/ sulking night when we both just conked out. We could have been smothered by the rug and I, for one, wouldn’t have had the strength, or come to think of it, after hearing that singing, the will to push myself free of its weight. But we survived. I also survived my first experience of hole in the ground, outside loos. It wasn’t what you wanted to find when you stumbled out of bed feeling grim at five in the morning for a wee. You had to cross the yard and go to the outhouse and then hunt around for the paper in the dark, only to find it was balanced on a tiny nail banged into the wall. Yes, I did feel a long way from home that first Christmas.

Food, glorious food!

Me and my dad in my little Hackney flat, prior to departure for Greece. 1981.

 

 

Luckily, before I came to Greece I had embarked on a strict diet. I had a job as a dresser in the gloriously named Puddle Dock at the newly re-opened Mermaid Theatre, working on a musical production of a Ben Johnson play, Eastward Ho! Being in contact with a cast of disciplined and fit actors had rubbed off on me. I left the gin out and changed to straight, slimline tonic. I turned my head the other way every time I walked back to my Hackney flat past the take-away curry house and, while I was waiting in the wings to hand Mark Rylance a cloak or to adjust the puff on the sleeves of Anita Dobson’s dress, I would exercise. You can do anything in the theatre; no one thinks it’s strange to be doing fifty touch toes and twenty waist swivels in the dressing room. In fact they think you’re strange if you’re not. So I had shed loads of university, too many halves of lager and not enough exercise weight and started off here really slim. 

Good job too as the other British English teachers and I soon discovered the delights of the ouzeri. Not tavernas as such, these are places where you go to drink small glasses of ouzo, tsipouro (the local firewater, almost pure alcohol; beware!) or lager and every time you order a drink, a small saucer of food is also set before you. First they would bring sizzling, tawny, grilled prawns in their whiskery shells followed by small chunks of succulent battered cod with a dollop of garlic and bread sauce. Then slices of spicy sausage with thick green pepper, onion and tomato sauce or tiny round meatballs, flavoured with mint and parsley and served with thin wedges of lemon. And at the end of such an evening, when we had, sad people that we were, ended up singing Eleanor Rigby or Ten Green Bottles, we would get a bill for some miniscule amount which would make us even happier than the beer and the food (and certainly a lot happier than the songs). 

Almost as soon as I had met him, Thanasis wanted to take me home to meet his parents. We’d arranged that we would go to their house in the evening. Meanwhile, on the same day, Pavlos had invited me to one of his many brother and sisters’ houses for lunch as they were celebrating a Name Day. Many people are named after saints and when that particular Saint’s Day comes around everyone in Greece with that name celebrates, usually with a huge family meal.

Pavlos came and picked me up, looking dapper in his best suit. Anthoula was not with him as she was still ‘fortying’, that is, she was still at home resting after birth for forty days, nursing their baby daughter. It was the first time I had met the rest of his extremely large family and they were all more than welcoming. I was given a small cup of sweet dark coffee and a cold glass of water on arrival and everyone tried out the little English that had been transferred to them by a linguistic osmosis from the teacher and school owner in the family, of whom they were all very proud. Pavlos introduced me to this brother and that brother and then another brother and a sister but then it all started to get slightly confusing as there were also brothers in law, cousins, children of brothers and wives of brothers and a couple of neighbours plus of course parents. So there were a lot of us gathered around a vast polished-wood table in a fairly small house. I do remember being quite startled at my first sight of a Greek Orthodox priest, who was either one of the brothers or a husband of a sister. It wasn’t so much his height or his long beard or even the voluminous black skirt but it was the vest and braces above the skirt which surprised me and made me spill coffee into my saucer. I have never since seen a priest in a state of partial undress so in retrospect I am glad I had that opportunity. 

Since I was a guest and a foreign one at that, philotimia and philoxenia would not allow anyone to let me do anything other than sit down and be waited on. So I just sat and admired while starched white tablecloths were brought from drawers, snapped open and flung over tables, gleaming glasses, porcelain plates and silver cutlery were set out, wads of white paper napkins and shiny salt and pepper pots were added and carafes of iced water and pink village wine were placed in the middle. 

Then the food started arriving. Dishes of thick white yoghurt, flavoured with garlic and crunchy with cucumber, squares of spinach, leek and feta cheese pie, tomato and cucumber salad glistening with dark green oil and sprinkled with oregano, slabs of pastitsio; spicy minced beef layered with pasta and topped with wobbling béchamel sauce, soft roast potatoes, and bowls of vinegary shredded cabbage. That would have been enough, but this was a traditional Lamian celebratory feast and you can’t have one of them, I now know, without roast lamb. And not just a leg or a shoulder, but a whole lamb. That was why the priest wasn’t wearing his black top; he had been out in the yard since early morning roasting a whole lamb on a spit. So huge platters loaded with chunks of juicy brown meat had to be made room for on the already crowded table. Lemons from the tree outside were picked, halved and crushed over the lamb, prayers were said, glasses were raised, thanks were given and then we had to eat all of that. I mean really get down to serious eating. You couldn’t just have a bit of salad and a slice of lamb and get away with it. Especially not if you didn’t have enough language to politely refuse food, it was your first time with the family and, to top it all, you were an honoured foreign guest. By the end of the afternoon when the women were clearing the table for plates of sliced apples and oranges lightly powdered with cinnamon to finish off the meal, you can imagine that I was completely stuffed. So, I went back to my flat, lay on the bed groaning for a bit then showered and changed into my best white shirtwaister dress with the big blue polka dots and the flirty skirt (another excellent Brighton second-hand clothes shop find), ready for Thanasis to pick me up and take me to meet his parents. 

Thanasis had told me that his parents were both very beautiful. I am ashamed to say that I was expecting to meet very good-looking people, but of course, what I found were two beautiful people in the sense that he had meant, as warm, accepting, open-minded human beings. They were probably a little flummoxed by their eldest son suddenly bringing this strange foreign girl to their small house but they had gone all out to make me feel welcome in traditional Greek style. With food.

They lived in a small house on the outskirts of Lamia. Thanasis parked the car under a fig tree and as we walked towards the house, I could smell roasting meat. Nikos, in a white vest and brown trousers, was grilling pork chops on a barbecue and Penelope, in a long button through blue and white flowery dress, was carrying plates of cheese pies and salads to a table in the garden. My Greek language abilities were still at a stage where I could hardly say anything to them other than Good evening and Thank you. I couldn’t explain to them that I had just spent almost the entire day eating and even if I’d had more language at my disposal, it would still have been unthinkable to reject their hospitality. So, regretting my choice of tight-waisted dress, I ate. I remember vividly trying to leave a little bit of my pork chop and both Nikos and Penelope looking at me with such concern and dismay that I ate that last bit too. 

So, I never went hungry when I was invited out and, admittedly, that was most of the time. But occasionally I had to buy my own food and that was less straightforward. Supermarkets then were really glorified grocer’s stores and it wasn’t always easy to see what one could actually buy to eat. The cardboard boxes of heavily salted cod didn’t appeal, and even if they had, I wouldn’t have had a clue what to do with them. There were cans of food and they were a pretty safe bet as they had little photos on the labels, but aubergines with chunks of an unidentified meat didn’t appeal much then. Only two types of chocolate were available nationwide. The almond milk chocolate was delicious and a bar of that could see me through a day. Most foods were still sold in specific shops; milk, cheese and yoghurt in the dairies, meat in the butchers but chicken, (confusingly, I thought then) in the chicken and egg shops. Cecilia was in the same pioneering position re discovering food and every so often she would come round and excitedly tell me that she had found a place that sold baked beans. We’d go hotfooting off, only to be faced with empty shelves because Alan or Nick had got there before us. Then I remembered eggs and bacon and that was it; I learnt how to ask for eggs in the chicken shops and point to bacon in the supermarkets and that was all I cooked for myself the entire first year. 

Luckily it was easy to find ways of exercising to counteract the effect of all that food. Every day I would get up early and walk up and out of town passing small white roadside shrines lit from within with round candles floating in glasses of oil, go over the hills and through pine forests. I never saw many other people on these fresh morning walks. In those days people thought walking as an activity was strange and if anyone I knew did happen to pass by me in their car they would ask me if I was all right and would I like a lift. ‘No, thanks,’ I’d say, ‘just having a walk.’ You could see they thought I’d got my Greek in a muddle again and really meant, ‘No thanks, I've got no friends and am wandering off like a mad woman.’

Learning the lingo

If you want to learn a foreign language, come to Greece. Not because it is easy, quite the opposite, as any taxi driver will quickly tell you. But because every time you stumble over a ‘Thank you’ or a ‘Two beers, please’, you will practically get a standing ovation from the amazed crowd. Greeks are full of admiration for anyone who masters their language because they themselves think it is very difficult. 

‘How many words do the English have for a stone?’ the taxi driver will ask, swivelling around in his seat so that he can look at you while he’s talking.

‘Umm…I don’t know,’ you will say, partly because you’ve never considered it but mostly because you want him to notice the oncoming lorry.

‘We have eight’, he will say triumphantly, veering sharply away from a tractor and almost into a ditch. ‘Stone, rock, rubble, pebble, gravel, shingle, boulder and flint,’ he’ll say, listing the words in Greek. The only word you will recognize is stone so it will sound pretty impressive.

‘We have a very rich vocabulary!’ he will continue ‘and very difficult grammar. Greek grammar is the most difficult in the world!’ he will end proudly, narrowly missing a pick-up truck full of farm labourers.

He’s right of course. The language is rich and the grammar is very complicated with all the endings of the verbs which have to suit the pronouns and then the adjectives have to change to match the nouns and the nouns have to change to match the prepositions. The way to learn is to blithely ignore all of that, learn a load of words and try to put them together according to what you hear. Greek friends who know how appalling my grammar is now might not agree with this method, but the alternative is to be like a friend of mine, who, having had an intensive and expensive course of instruction was, after a month, still only able to ask for a packet of cigarettes in a Greek accent; ‘Seelk Katt, please.’ 

I had some Greek lessons in the first few months along with the other native English teachers who had also come to Lamia to work in private schools; thin, bearded Alan, who Vasso said looked a bit like the biblical Lazarus, arising from the dead (she had a sharp tongue, didn’t she?), sweet Cecilia, named for a Catholic saint, Nick, permanently smiling and scribbling stories and Andy, who met and married a dark eyed, dark haired Greek girl and is still one of our dearest friends. We got together and persuaded Anna, for a small fee, to give us what we thought would be conversation classes in one of Vasso’s empty classrooms in the mornings. 

We had a book. I think it was the only book with Greek lessons for foreigners available on the market at that time. I wish I’d kept it. It was a gem. A thick paperback in shades of blue and black type with poorly drawn pen and ink drawings, it followed a system along the lines of the lesson plans as prescribed by Vasso and Despina. First we would read a passage aloud. Then we would answer comprehension questions, learn useful words and have a spelling test the following lesson.

Have you ever been back to a classroom for a lesson since you were a child? If you have, you might relate to us then. We became kids again, giggling in the back desks, all wanting to read at the same time, sulking if we weren’t chosen, sticking chewing gum under our chairs and finding imaginative excuses as to why we hadn’t done our homework. 

I can’t say that our lessons really reflected our needs. We wanted to know how to ask for a loaf of bread, where a train was going or to make polite conversation with friendly strangers. What we learnt was how to say ‘The young lady is wearing a fur coat’ and ‘The fisherman has a big net.’ After a few lessons we ganged up on well-meaning Anna and demanded to be taught a few more verbs and useful phrases. She said it was too soon for verbs and the classes collapsed soon after that. 

But with the encouragement of Thanasis and my trusty phrase book, I started to make myself understood. Of course there was the usual confusion over similar sounding words; asking for a shutter salad and closing the beetroots for example or swatting a cauliflower and ordering boiled mosquito. I won’t go into detail because you would have to know the Greek and you’d get bored, but if you are familiar with the language, you can probably work out the worrying occasion when I thought Thanasis had rung his sister demanding a hairdryer to be brought to him at eight promptly when in fact he was saying ‘Tell Laki (his brother) to come at eight o’clock this evening.’

The kids at school loved it when I came out with anything in Greek. There I would be, trying to get these nine year olds to produce convoluted third conditional sentences along the lines of ‘If it hadn’t rained, we wouldn’t have gone to the cinema’ then they would hand me a drawing, I would come out with my F Harry Stowe and they would clap and cheer and praise me. 

Of course it’s not just the language that you have to learn, it’s all the gestures too. My dad once went miles in the wrong direction on a bus because he mistook the driver’s ‘no’ shrug in response to his question ‘Does this bus go to Saint Luke’s church?’ for a yes. A curt no is an upwards nod, so you can see where he went wrong. He ended up at the power station. 

I think my favourite gesture is the one that accompanies the expression of mild dismay; ‘Po po po po’. Hold your arms out and wave both your hands around in circles and you’ll more or less have it. I’ve found that one to be particularly popular with nurses in state-run hospitals. They flail around over you like that while they are examining, for example, post-birth haemorrhoids. You’re saying, ‘So do you think they’re clearing up a bit, nurse?’ and they’re po po po-ing and windmilling away. Not very reassuring and you realize you’re in for a lot of ointment, but fun to watch. 

Then there are all the greeting and wishes. What do we have in English? We have an all-purpose Congratulations and we have Good Luck. We borrow Bon Voyage and Bon Appetit from the French and that’s about it, isn’t it? We don’t say Good Digestion to people after lunch, or ‘Go with the good and return with the good’ as they set off on journeys. We don’t wish pregnant women ‘ A good freeing’ as they come up to birth or say ‘May he/ she live for you’ to parents of new born children or newly married couples. People wishing me ‘Well may you forty’ came as a bit of a surprise to me after I had had my first child but it made sense when I realized that, traditionally, Greek women stay at home after birth nursing the baby for forty days. ‘With health’ is an all-purpose wish for clothes, shoes, hair cuts, school bags, anything new in fact. ‘May it be well-rooted’ is used for anything major such as a house or a business and ‘May it travel well’ for cars. We wish people Good night and Sweet dreams but the Greeks add a ‘Good Daybreak’. One of my favourites is ‘May you be of iron’, used to wish one strength. And there are other occasion-specific wishes; ‘Good studies’ for a student starting college, ‘Good career’ for one finishing and ‘Good service’ for a young man embarking on his obligatory military service. 

We have another lack in English. What do we use when we want to attract a stranger’s attention? I think we only have ‘Excuse me’ or possibly ‘Yoo hoo!’ at our disposal. Or ‘Oy!’ I suppose. I realized this omission when I was behind a man in an airport queue who dropped his wallet. He went marching off into the crowds and I was left trotting after him, waving his wallet and, because I had just got off a plane from Athens and was still in Greek mode, yelling ‘Sir! Sir!’ It sounds fine in Greek. I sounded like an idiot in English. Perhaps that’s why so many people think they’ve had personal belongings stolen in London. No-one knows how to call them back. 

People embrace each other a lot more here too. My dad always reeled a bit when Thanasis plonked a big kiss on both his cheeks. Thanasis always said that when he met my glamorous and pretty mum, that was when he was certain he wanted to marry me, thinking that I would turn out like that too. When I saw how his father hugged his mother I too was sure that I was on to a good thing. When I first met Penelope she was about fifty, short and round but Nikos, God rest his soul, was obviously still seeing her as if she was eighteen, short and curvy. 

The physical contact between people doesn’t stop at embraces. It extends to not wanting anyone to do anything by themselves. Wherever you go, whatever you do in Greece, you are seen as very odd indeed if you do it alone. When I left England it was still ever so slightly unusual to, say, go out for lunch by yourself. But you could certainly go shopping unaccompanied. You couldn’t here, not then, even if you tried. Thanasis would tell me that he had to be away that day for work and he would be back in the evening. I would say, ‘No problem, I’ll wander around the town a bit, do some shopping, go back to the flat and read a book.’ That would not happen. He would arrange for his sister to come to the shops with me, his mum to provide lunch and I would be welcome at the family home for a little rest in the afternoon. If I did take them up on their kind offers (and it was very hard to refuse) I would be surprised to find that nineteen year old Marianthi would give up her bed for my siesta and she would snuggle up with her mum on a slim divan.

I think many ‘mixed’ marriages (‘All marriages are mixed…’ said my caustic friend, Fiona, ‘…men and women,’) fail because the caring seems like smothering to the independent, foreign women. It was unusual for me, this amount of attention to my every need but it wasn’t oppressive. It was one of the ways people showed kindness and interest. But the main way that welcome was shown was through food.

Out with Thanasis

Our children used to roar with laughter when we told them what Thanasis was wearing that evening, but believe me, although it might sound a bit odd now, he looked gorgeous. He had on a powder blue linen suit. We never got much further than that with the kids as they were already on the floor, helpless with mirth. Anyway, he was wearing this lovely jacket and trousers and a white t-shirt, he was tanned and strong, his fair curls were quite long and he had very persuasive green eyes. 

The kids didn’t object so much to what I was wearing; a khaki green mini skirt and cropped jacket from Tottenham Court Road Top Shop. To be honest, I might never have mentioned to them that under the jacket I had on a frilly, daffodil yellow shirt, but I can assure them now that it was the height of fashion at the time and looked very nice. Thanasis locked his green eyes on me, didn’t take them off and, all these years later, he still hasn’t. 

I was introduced to him as Tom. Greeks do everything they possibly can to make guests to their country feel at home and that includes happily anglicizing their own names. Anna, whose friend he was, told me he was called Tom. It didn’t seem to suit him so I quickly persuaded him to tell me his real name, but nevertheless, on our first date he was Tom to me and, of course, that was another thing that could send our children flying off the sofas with laughter. 

Thanasis wasn’t the kind of man who would hang around hoping his luck might be in. He whisked me away from the café and the square that night in his cool, souped-up sports car and off to the small coastal town of Kamena Vourla (which translates, in case you’re interested, as Burnt Rushes) for charcoal grilled fish and cold white wine. And we sat at a table on the beach, where small shoals of fish, silvery in the moonlight, flew out of the water and skimmed Homer’s wine-dark sea. 

He continued to whisk me off to tavernas, bars, beaches, mountains, forests and villages all year and the fact that I only passed my driving test when I was nearly fifty was only partly due to the fact that I was terrified of being on the road with a load of mad Greek drivers but also that he never tired of whisking me here and there, even though the places changed to supermarkets, banks, hospitals and airports. 

Going out with Thanasis was nothing like going out with any of the lads I had dated in England. For a start, when you go out with a Greek, you can leave your purse at home. I have to say, in case you think that I am over romanticizing our relationship, that this is something that has definitely changed over the years. Now Thanasis leaves his wallet at home. But then, there was never a question of going Dutch, splitting bills or me paying for anything at all, not even a pack of cigarettes. Thanasis always had a wad of drachma notes in his pocket and was generous in the extreme. Recently I read a wise article saying that men who are very free with their cash in their youth would never have healthy bank balances in later life as they were unlikely to change and start saving. Oh well, I read it too late. 

Of course verbal communication was a bit limited because my Greek was virtually non-existent and his English was pretty basic. He knew enough to flirt and pay me lavish compliments. Where do Greek men learn all that? Certainly not in the schools I was working in. Those poor students I taught in that first year are probably trying to chat up foreign women by going ‘I am, you are, he she or it is’ and then running around like mad things waving flash cards in the air. Do you think that’s why the birth rate is dropping? 

I had a phrase book and that helped. I have this theory that life in Greece can be a Garden of Eden, but you are only allowed into this potential paradise if you can hack your way through the thorny bush of the alphabet. Luckily my book had transliterations with each syllable separated by a dash. So, for instance, when I needed the loo I would be able to say things like, ‘ Poo ee-nay ee too-a-let-a?’ You can see why Vasso thought I sounded ill. And ill with a Surrey accent too. Accent wise I have hardly improved. I only have to say ‘Yass-oo’ on the phone for everyone to immediately click that’s it me. 

But Thanasis didn’t mind this haltering speech and we managed to establish that he had a stationery shop and went skiing at the weekends. Both wildly untrue of course. The first was due to phrase book confusion and the second was down to him lying. I had asked him what the bars on top of his car were for, he had said skis and then just agreed with my suggestions about why they were there. He’s never been in his life. Greeks do that; they lie to keep the conversation going and you happy. My mum believed that Athens buses came apart in the middle and could be made bigger or smaller according to passenger requirements. Just because of the way she phrased her question to Thanasis’ sister. Had she asked, ‘What are those concertina type things in the middle of buses for?” she might have got an honest ‘I don’t know’ for an answer. But because she said ‘Do those concertina type things in the middle of buses mean that they can be taken apart?’ Marianthi answered ‘Yes’ and that was it.

So, communicating with Thanasis was not a problem. We were smitten, tolerant and keen to get on whatever the obstacles and, anyway, through the all-important, international body language, Thanasis made it clear that he wanted to be the man in my life. Understanding other people was another matter.

Greek hospitality

The Greeks have two words to describe the state of hospitality. One is philoxenia, which translates as being a friend to strangers. The other, philotimia, means a friend of honour. As anyone familiar with Homer knows, Odysseus’ son and wife, Telemachus and Penelope, found their home overrun by hungry demanding strangers due to their philoxenia but their philotimia would not let them turn these guests away unfed. 

My honourable employers would never have considered leaving me alone to fend for myself in the first few weeks and I was certainly not left unfed. At weekends Pavlos took me to his house in the countryside where his kind wife, Anthoula, plied with me creamy minced beef and aubergine moussaka and dishes of grape must pudding. When classes had finished for the day we would go for bowls of candied ice cream and glasses of cognac in a local pastry shop and philosophize about Life. 

Vasso would take me to a hillside taverna for breezy lunches beneath silver green trees. Passionate about art and living life to the full, she would hammer out her dreams and frustrations over pork chops, grilled with garlic and oregano and shiny with freshly squeezed lemon, sharp carrot and cabbage salad and chilled glasses of pale, resinated wine. 

Despina, pleased I think to have an excuse to leave the house and school after work, treated me to rolls of warm pitta bread wrapped around roast meat, yoghurt, raw onion and mustard, washed down with cold lager and eaten at rickety tables in Freedom Square. Half her mind would be on chatting to me, the other half would be on outside whose flat her cheating husband had parked his car that night. If we had spotted it as we wandered down the hill towards the square, she would bite aggressively into her pitta and warn me not to get married without a lot of serious consideration and preferably not at all. The amazing thing was that she could do that and still not get mustard all down her front. Some people are like that, aren’t they? 

And then there were the other teachers at the schools, the young Greek women who knew a lot more about what they were doing than I did, would keep to the lesson plans and the homework rules and have quiet, ordered classes. They would include me in their plans for the evening and invite me along with their friends to cafes, tavernas and discos. 

Lamia was a wonderfully accessible place to socialize in. On every side of Freedom Square were cafes. Plush inside with sofas, armchairs and coffee tables they were almost as smart outside with tubs of flowers and tables and chairs sprawling over the pavements and into the marble paved square. As night fell over the town, the square would light up with people taking their evening ‘volta’. Volta translates as a walk or a stroll, but the meaning of it stretches to include going out, meeting friends, chatting, having fun. And the Greeks are really good at this.

All these years later, I still have never learnt how to stroll as slowly as a Greek on a volta. A combination of having grown up in relatively cold and positively drizzly England, years of my dad praising me for being able to keep up with his stride and my long legs mean that I always, however hard I try to put my brakes on, end up charging along pavements and then having to stop while everyone dawdles along to join me. I do try and I did try very hard in that first year as I realized that I looked like a maniac compared to everyone else sauntering along, taking their time and enjoying gazing in shop windows and meeting friends on the way. 

So, Anna or Katerina or another of the Greek teachers would come by my little flat after work and we would set off for the evening’s volta, me hurtling off and them politely trying to rush along with me until they would get puffed out and call me to heel. We’d start off with a stroll around the square and then decide, after long conversations with everyone in the group of friends they would have collected, to go to one of the cafes. The cafes were places to see and be seen. And on one evening, I saw Thanasis and he saw me.