Up the Adriatic

The mainland mountains from Corfu 'each wearing its cracked crown of snow'

Southerly blow through the Straits of Otranto - a glimpse of the Karaburun Peninsular

A sturdy blow from the south as the ferry rolls gently north, all but immune to weather.

Adriatic afternoon - 24 hour voyage from Igoumenitsa to Mestre

The night before we arrived in Igoumenitsa on the small ferry from Corfu, we slept at a guest house. Earlier we’d walked from the Zygos Hotel opposite the main ferry terminal along a kilometre of excavated road as the project to develop the port advanced – dug since we were here on 2 January.
“Will this bring prosperity?”

A respite for pedestrians along Igoumenitsa's harbour-front carriageway - Οδός Εθνικής Αντίστασης -

“No” said Lin
We wandered at the new places that would front the landscaping. Plate windows, big lettered neon signs, prominent graphics, large stage-lit cafés with shiny chrome, glass tables and vinyl banquettes in garish colours – all the opposite of the muted intimacy I prefer. Numerous travel agencies dot the town’s uncompleted frontage; lit even more brightly; occasional people sitting at counters, in one or two places a customer.
“It’s Edward Hopper country. Without the danger.”
“Who uses these places?” wondered Lin
“Why all these travel agents? Especially now when you can buy tickets on line or by phone”
Sign upon sign – Minoan, Anek, Blue Star, Endeavor Lines, Agoudimos, Superfast, Grimaldi…

One of numerous travel agents in Igoumenitsa

“They can’t all own each other. Wherever we travel they're always two-thirds empty or carrying trucks that would hardly need travel agents…or are they all laundering money like the tanning shops round Naples? Yet if you want a ferry between the Ionian Islands there are none. You always end up having to go via the mainland, unless it's a  day trip to Paxos from Corfu or to Levkas from Kephalonia. Island hopping without a yacht is impossible."
“Perhaps’ suggested Lin “people use the offices to set up larger scale freight contracts; plan distribution round the Adriatic, the Aegean, the Black Sea and beyond”
When we finally came upon some back streets we searched vainly for a tavern; one we’d enjoyed a few year back; lit by bulbs with lampshades; family-run with chicken and pork on a spit sizzling over embers; cosy interior with wooden seats and tables; no photos of dishes in several languages.
“It’s gone, hasn’t it?”
“For sure”

INSTITUTION OF CONCRETISATION OF ORGANISM OF PORT OF IGOUMENITSA S.A

Heading back along the clawed up highway, which for once afforded generous space for people on foot – not something Igoumenitsa’s new port designers seem to have considered (see the maquette for the development on display in the ferry terminal) – we glimpsed a place I’d have chosen were it not now too late in the evening – Emily’s? Timos?, the one with the painting of a schooner, half-felled tree and chaffinch, both weeping - a reference to the great population exchange - ἡ ἀνταλλαγή - between Greece and Turkey in 1922.

I’d had a snack there on my own early one morning in winter 2012 enjoying a friendly doggerel chat with the owner. He'd asked where I was from.
“Corfu”
“No but where are you from?”
“Ah yes. From England”
I was laughing inwardly at the reply – unspoken - that had sprung to mind at his question
“I’m not foreign. I’m English” <Δεν είμαι ξένη. Είμαι αγγλικά> That’s us in nutshell.

The air-seats on the Anek ferry Audacia were occupied by only a few foreigners on the floor in sleeping bags, equipped for going without a cabin – probably Balkan but not Greek. Ha!
“This is civilised”
I’d noted that all the tipping seats had arm-rests that could be raised allowing us to lie along them to sleep. On most ferries this is impossible.
“They don’t like people not buying cabins to be too comfortable" Camped here and not in the saloon amid tactically placed luggage, politely refusing waiter service – after one small cup of coffee at €3.

Igoumenitsa 7.00am

I snoozed for an hour after Audacia left Igoumenitsa and its friendly collarless dogs roaming at ease through barriers we need papers to pass, wagging their tails - on the road, inside the terminal, along the concrete quay watching the big boats come and go with their churning, rumbling echoing clangs. I read for a while. I got up and climbed the iron stairs to the Solarium deck – vast as a soccer pitch, marked for helicopter landing. In the early light we were entering the Corfu Channel, the closer shores speeding by either side.

Ano Korakiana - centre below steepening Trompetta

I took a reverse photo of the familiar scene from our balcony when I watch the ferries gliding in and out of the straits - Ano Korakiana a small wavy strip of rubble against the darker sides of Trompetta, soon hidden by the narrows as the ship drives past the sullied slopes between Nissaki and Kassiopi where the Junta allowed the Lopakhins to hack roads and ledges for Corfu’s rich north western suburbia. Gripped by schadenfreude I contemplate horizon pools now subject to tax and even worse...

...a tale of delightful woe told by a friend who works on them – a horizon pool jolted by an earth tremor – a slight subsidence making it no longer spirit-level horizontal, so it leaks at one end.
“Short stay visitors will hardly notice as they enjoy the pool, but if it’s yours the tiny decline from perfect is an ever-present irritant"
A blemish in the dreamed perfection of a photograph. An island in the sea should need no swimming pools. They steal water and often end up polluting the sea as they are emptied into it when cleaned.
“You put it right, make it horizontal again, but ever after you’re wondering if the same thing will happen again”
“Couldn’t we” suggested Lin “start a business marketing gimballed swimming pools?”

I was amid a 360° panorama. The tails of southern Albania, and northern Epirus and north east Corfu - shores close enough to make out buildings and outcrops of rock reaching into the sea. The chill tempted me indoors but for a wish to watch our curving route through the channel. Another ferry surged by southward.

The distant sides of the mountain behind Corfu Town held a dawn glimmer in a drear landscape that seemed to hang over the land weeping opaque columns of driving rain; the heights of Corfu dwarfed by the peaks to the east – bleak precipices veined with snow, peaks lost in the drenching overcast. Ugly and uninviting 'desolate and repudiating stone'; hemming the city of Saranda to starboard. Ismail’s Kadare’s depthless Albania of winter rain.

Saranda in Albania

Now, well astern, I saw the ferry that had passed turning almost sideways to us to enter the narrows before disappearing between headlands. I had not realised how the Corfu channel closes behind a ship passing through, so that entering it uninformed, a sailor sees a deep inlet rather than the entrance to the Sea of Kerkyra.
In the saloon people were watching one of the many large screen TVs with extra attention as we were shown fractured roads and collapsed buildings - a second and larger earthquake below Kephalonia, but no dead or seriously hurt. A headline that won't sell papers came to mind.
"It'll be good in the end" said Lin "Lots of construction work. Jobs. People helping one another."

Passing through the Giudecca Channel on my way to Corfu with John Richfield in 2007 - a view that's discouraged

I’d said I’d wake Lin the next morning as we entered Venice. Our ship, instead of gliding, under tow, through the channel between Giudecca and the city, so we could gaze down on the hallowed architecture of Venice...

Seaward entrance to the Grand Canal

J M W Turner 

..delivered us instead to the Port of Marghera via a fogged avenue of sea markers between mudbanks and barren gravelly ground recovered from the lagoon...

...until we reversed into a container depot laced with service roads and long quays as efficient in transhipment of goods through Europe and beyond as Venice is in handling its freight of tourists like us.

Protesters swim in the Giudecca Canal to block cruise ships inside the port  Photo: Getty Images

"It's not at first romantic" I said "but it's a stunning place. Goodness knows what activities, what busy-ness, what ambition and depravity, tragedy and excitement is spread around this great stew of sealed boxes shipping to and from the rest of the world...and it's good that big ships are excluded from the Giudecca channel, if that's the case rather than Anek seeking a cheaper berth."
I hope the restriction is the result of protests against the damage big vessels have been doing to Venice. Our ferry - Audacia - is just of 25,000 tonnes. Some cruise liners visiting Venice exceed 100,000 tonnes.

Port of Marghera

As the small cargo of trucks disembarked, there was a free minibus waiting to take us - just five passengers on foot - from our ferry to the many platformed railway station at Mestre, about a kilometre and a half away, from where, for under €2 from a ticket machine, we took the ten minute journey on one of the many trains into Venice St.Lucia.
"Hm" said Lin "I do think the ferry company should have given us free tickets into Venice"
*** *** ***
Using copies of hand written lists in Greek and English made by Angeliki I've typed out a first draft of a list of the works of Aristedes Metallinos in chronological order and e-mailed them as a nine page file to Irini S, Effie S and John P.

Hoopoe Ο τσαλαπετεινός - 1977

Makarios Μακάριος - 1974

Heading back to England

That'll be our ferry to Igoumenitsa

Wednesday: Spent the morning tidying the house. Our Greek advances. I explained to Vasiliki we were only away for fourteen days. I said when we'd be back, how we were travelling, where we were going on the way. But I wavered when trying to say when I would return.
"Πρέπει να γεράσω..." I started to say.
"No" said Natasha who has English, "Say 'γεράσω γυρίσω' not 'γεράσω'. Γεράσω means 'old man'" "αλλά είμαι γεράσω...και γυρίσω!" I said.
Lefteri and Katerina carried our cases to the car after we'd made our goodbyes to neighbours. We headed down to the Old Port to take a small ferry 15 miles to the mainland where we'd get a larger Anek Lines boat overnight to Italy.
We came into Igoumenitsa after dark, making the same tedious walk from where the Corfu boats dock to the big ferry terminal. "You walked?" "Why not go by car?" "Take a taxi" "There must be a courtesy bus. surely". "No we don't want to pay €5 to catch a taxi to go one kilometre," so it's a scruffy stroll with our luggage under yellow lights along the edge of a busy dual carriageway that beside the airport-scale concrete apron separating the buildings of Igoumenitsa from the sea. As we walked we saw scurrying groups of transients - illegal immigrants - being observed by the local police as they hung around the edge of the wide road. A mobile unit twinkled its blue lights; edged closer to the crowd, eventually turning on a siren to disperse the crowd into shadowed alleyways, shooing them out of sight for a while. In the sour interior of the main ferry terminal interminable soccer played on screens. Lin wandered to get duty free ciggies. Came back "There are two lads going through the bins outside. Shall I take them some food?" "Sure. Leave your bag with me." She fished out some cheese pies from our travel picnic. Coming back. "Yes they were looking for food. They seemed very surprised when I offered them the pies though." "Well yes. I'm afraid dear Greece is running out of her legendary hospitality. The world's too crowded."

Thursday: Here on the ferry ploughing steadily north in fine weather towards Ancona, the Japanese disaster is ever present in the news, in thoughts. Is it as obscene to think of this as helping focus attention on a sustainable future of renewable energy, as it is for a notorious TV commentator in the US to suggest God's sending messages to Japan? (Piece posted on Global Voices by Chiki Ogiue about filtering false rumours - some malicious - about events in Japan]

On the ferry to Ancona we slept on the floor in the airline seats lounge and thought about what things we have do back in Birmingham.
***
The ferry was an hour late getting into Ancona. We had 15 minutes from disembarkation to catch our train north. It's the 150th anniversary of Italian Reunification which may have explained why there were no buses, no taxis. I pleaded expressively with passing motorists. A small two door saloon carrying three  people stopped for us.

We squeezed in with many thanks to the young driver - Francesco - and made our train to Bologna, where we changed for another to Mestre; then another to Treviso, where we caught Bus 6 to the airport. You should buy tickets before boarding in Italy. Rushed, we bought tickets on the bus, reaching over the driver's booth with our remaining small change. I tried to frank our ticket in the yellow box with a slot in the bus but it was too limp. I pointed back at us and muttered to an Italian couple who'd given us helpful directions "stupid foreigners." But they had the same problem. "Stupid locals!" muttered the young man.  To catch our plane we had to jump a long queue of people waiting for later flights, making  it to check-in as final calls to East Midlands were called over the chattering concourse. A skeleton staff hurried us through security to our gate. I was hot and exhausted, delighted with the big orange from our garden which I peeled and took apart inside a plastic bag sucking flesh and juice into my parched throat. Through the flight I'd been reading Balzac's Cousin Bette.  Wonderful stuff; glued to it through our flight including the turbulence over Belgium. Jill met us at the airport. We were home by 11.00pm.
*****
One of my errands while back in England is to travel up to Darlington to meet someone who's told me that when he was a lot younger he recorded a number of Old Country episodes along with the commercials going out at the town. Mark D Taylor has them on a VHS tape and I'm going to borrow and digitise it. He emailed me:  Hello Simon. I have been looking at some of the clips of Jack Hargreaves on your site, great to see them. Jack Hargreaves was a hero of mine, as he was too many others. I can remember watching "Out of Town" aged 7 with my friend Glenn, eager to see what stories would unfold each week. It was partly due to these programmes I began fishing and later shooting. (Incidentally I am now 56). The reason I write is regarding some recordings I made of "Old Country". I still have them on tape and also have them transferred to DVD. The quality is not fantastic, but they are watchable. Would you like a copy? Regards Mark

I replied asking if I could borrow his video.

Dear Simon. Just an update for you on the programmes I have on my VHS tape. They are from the "Old Country" series broadcast by Channel 4. There are 25 in number, and are approx 15 mins long. I have listed the subjects covered below. You may already have some of them. My tape is probably had more, but I hurriedly recorded film called "The Other Side of The Hedge" over some of the original recordings I made, although an interesting film, I wish I had found a blank tape at the time! 1 Blagdon Horse, 2 Sea Bass Fishing, 3 Pigeon Shooting (Doug Matthews), 4 Reed Barn, 5 Water Mill, 6 Walking with "Ghost" - Meadler Tree, 7 Poaching Rod. (I love this story!), 8 Grayling Fishing, 9 Building a Gypsy Cart, 10 New Forest Ponies, 11 The Plough, 12 Lurchers, 13 Rabbiting Dog (Spider), 14 Working Pointers, Brittany Spaniel, 15 Brittany Spaniel - Training & Shooting, 16 Horse Harness - How it fits, 17 Dogs - Training, 18 Sheep Fair, 19 Birds - Kingfisher (David Boag), 20 Shepherds Sale, 21 Country Objects, 22 Fishing Tackle Development, 23 Fishing Gravel Pit & Dace, 24 The Tarrents (Dorset), 25 Circus. Regards Mark 

Now to see if Mark's VHS tape can produce better quality than I have at the moment. The five minute episode, also recorded at the time by a viewer,  in which Jack talks about goats is an example of the current quality I hold. Sound's good but the picture leaves quite a bit to be desired:

Ian Wegg has reminded me that the 16mm film at South West Film and Television Archive could produce far higher quality film if only we could dig out a complete episode of what JH broadcast live.

From Ian Wegg:

Hi Simon. The issue of Stan Bréhaut’s comment about the film (in the archive) being “unusable” was something I was going to bring up. That has always worried me little but my interpretation is slightly different. I understand the film itself is Agfa “reversal” film, i.e. there were no negatives. All the editing was done on the same physical material that came out of the camera. I therefore concluded that what Stan meant was they were restricted to using the films as originally “cut up” and no further editing was possible on them. I can see there are considerably more than the films used in the 28 commercial releases in the SWFTA collection. I assume, given the evidence of the “exploding bait box” example, that these are usable. It is worth mentioning that (I understand) well preserved good 16mm film stock is capable of producing picture resolutions to HD standards. A Blu-Ray release of Jack’s material would be a very exciting prospect! Regards, Ian.

I've set up an informal JH Committee:

Dear Ian. I’m taking the liberty of using your latest findings to circulate both your letter and my reply to the rest of the “JH Committee” - with the exception of John Peters whose email I’ve still to recover. I want to loop him in as he’s the one whose research for his friend Richard Hill led me to Jennie and the SWFTA and the recovery of the 'exploding' bait box episode. Mark D Taylor will know that he now holds an especially treasured possession in the form of a VHS of Old Country programmes he recorded from the TV when younger. I’m arranging to travel to Durham to meet him (hi Mark!) when I get back to UK...Your research, Ian, has helped confirm what good research often – if frustratingly – does, which is to establish what can’t be done, doesn’t exist or isn’t true! But it took me far too long to grasp the significance of Stan Bréhaut’s remark that most of the film held at SWFTA is that recovered by JH from a defunct Southern TV some of which he used to remake the 28 episodes listed by Paul Peacock to which you refer (I’m copying this to Paul P) - but which without JH’s shed commentary is ‘unusable’. I know there are others who will argue we can still make good use of what we have got, but I think we agree that what we seek are ‘originals’. An important  question is whether among the SWFTA tapes there are the masters of C4’s Old Country series (Jennie-Roger at SWFTA?), A good question is whether the tapes on Betamax are indeed these, as you conjecture ,or the masters of the 28 on Paul Peacock’s list? It would be just great if they were the former, and of course useful if the latter, but not of the same interest given our shared wish to discover original full episodes of programmes that went out live (which as we know the 28 on PP’s list never did).  I repeat myself because I need to go over these facts to get a grasp of why this has become such a complicated challenge. To anyone who says “but there are JH programmes on commercial DVD already” it is necessary to explain the particular thing these lack, that they never went out live and JH’s special forte and love as a broadcasting craftsman was live TV. It was dangerous. It allowed mistakes and it tested his talent for telling a tale as it emerged. In this sense he treated each episode like a theatrical performance, which helps explain his remark to an interviewer who asked why he always seemed so relaxed on air “I didn’t sleep on Thursday night for 21 years.” He embraced the risk. (my italics) That said, I was told by Phil Wade, son of the late Steve Wade, who directed and produced the 28 list with JH, that when they were running the OB films in the schoolhouse studio and JH, having spoken from the ‘shed’ they’d set up in the studio in the Meon Valley schoolroom, continued his commentary over the films, he never once faltered and they never had to stop to record a second take. “Your stepdad did each episode off-air as though he was broadcasting live” said Phil to me a few years ago. By the way Ian don’t ever apologise to me for “lack of communication”. I am incredibly lucky to have you and a small band of the most assiduous enthusiasts seeking out, always with the possibility that our search will come to naught (which might amuse JH – not in an unpleasant way, but as evidence of his love for ‘live’ TV before so much that was broadcast was routinely taped), copies of JH’s enormously productive activity that has now disappeared – except for short extracts often of poor quality – existing only in the purer form we seek in the memories of those who when younger enjoyed what Jack had to say and show. If we fail that is reward enough for me, but I do think another generation might enjoy some of this material, not to mention people now in the 50s and over who’d like to see it again and perhaps show it to their grandchildren.  As a researcher most of my life, I’m enjoying our pursuit, more and more intrigued by what could be viewed as its frustrations. Perhaps we shall between us meet with some success and we can all meet up in the flesh to celebrate over a jug or two of cider, some sea bass cooked over a faggot of fennel and whatever else takes our fancy. As ever I will be delighted to hear from you, as and when, and my best wishes to all to whom this is copied in our JH committee. Best wishes. Simon

*****
Waiting for me in the pile of post in Handsworth was a DVD sent me by Dee Edmonds of Crocodile Media. They're paying royalties for using some of Jack's archive film to assemble a feature about country themes on TV. I never associate JH with anywhere inside what he called 'the olive belt' ("it's south of my natural latitudes") yet here was an old B & W clip of him, with burnt-in time code (BITC), looking at country life in Cyprus. I think this must have been during winter some time in the mid-1970s.

Jack Hargreaves in Cyprus

Leaving Corfu

Last night we strolled through the upper level of Ano Korakiana discovering a rabbit warren of alleys with glimpses into people’s homes as they talked and ate or sat outside on small spaces before their front doors. We came to the last street light and walked on in the moonlight. Fireflies were about. The crags of the Troumpetta and many cypress trees rose above us. Back home we sat to a salad supper at the dining table we’d found by the road and imagined how the house might be on our return. “We really have got a lot done in 28 days” I said. “If only we could stay on” said Lin. In the morning it was misty and wet. I put lemons from the tree in the garden in our case, and read the water and electric meters. Leaving 208 Democracy Street the young cats mewed from the top of the steps to the street. The neighbours said ‘Kala taxithi’ signalling they’d keep an eye on the house. Down in Ipsos, we had a chat over tea at CJs with our gang about continued work and staying in touch by phone and e-mail. By the afternoon rainwater was running fast down through the sloping streets of Corfu Town as Lin sought gifts. Dropped off the car and ran for the ferry to Igoumenitsa through a downpour. Once aboard I got hot chocolate and began drying out. At Igoumenitsa we caught the bigger ship for Ancona where we arrive noon tomorrow. On the ship I bought 90 minutes of WiFi for €9.
I hope no shift in habitat, unintended or intended (like some well intentioned anti-mosquito project), will drive fireflies from Corfu. Searching the web I read about a naturalist in Houston who wants their return and wonders what factors in his local environment would return the lampyridae (Greek for shining ones).