'Κορακιανίτες και Ένωση'

I've just seen an intriguing post on the website of Ano Korakiana quoting the current Mayor of Corfu, John Kourkoulas, throwing light on a puzzle presented near the time Linda and I first arrived in Corfu in December 2007. Knowing how much the matter interested me, Thanassis Spingos, artist and author of the village website, and Kostas Apergis, Ano Korakiana's historian posted the following letter:

Dear Simon. It is said that before the Union of the Ionian Islands with Greece (1864), inhabitants of Ano Korakiana signed a 'paper' asking the British Government to keep the islands under Britain ... We have been looking for this paper for years at the Greek archives without result. We wonder if you can help us by searching this paper in British archives (Parliament, Colonies archives, Foreign Office etc). We are sure that one of the names that signed the paper is Panos, Panayiotis or Panagiotis Metallinos (Μετταλινος). He was the 'leader'. A similar paper has been signed by inhabitants of Kinopiastes (another village in Corfu) and one village in Zakynthos island...

Discussing village history on the balcony

I searched in the British National Archives.  Fascinating; with many insights on the period of British Protectorate of the Ionian Islands, Ἡνωμένον Κράτος τῶν Ἰονίων Νήσων (1815-1864), but I found no trace of that 'paper'.

Searching the Ionian Protectorate archives at Kew

I knew that, until only the last few years, the philharmonia bands of Kinopiastes and Ano Korakiana did not go into the city to play and march at the annual enosis celebrations every 26th May. I have heard, in the village, that it was not that Ano Korakianas and others in Corfu and throughout the Ionian Islands (the Heptanisi*) wanted to stay under British Protection. While many did support enosis with Mother Greece, there were a significant number of radicals - rizopastis - who did not want the islands to be 'transferred' to Greece and the notoriously corrupt seat of national government in Athens. They wanted an Independent Ionian Republic, Επτάνησος Πολιτεία - like the brief Septinsular State that lasted seven years from 1800. They resented the almost casual, pragmatic way the British washed their hands of their Protectorate and more or less handed the islands over to Greece as a bargaining pawn, knowing that Athens was an easier focus of British interest than the volatile Ionians when it came to pursuing British interests in the Eastern Mediterranean.

See...the words of the Ionian rizopasti Ilias Zervos, contemplating the consequences for the seven islands - the Septinsular Republic as might have been - embracing enosis with a Greece governed from Athens....Zervos’ of Cephalonia believed Britain's power over lonian affairs did not decrease with the end of the Ionian Protectorate in 1864, instead the islands became ‘a Pandora's Box’ for British influence on Hellenic politics [Eleni Calligas (1994), Rizospastai' (Radical-Unionists): politics and nationalism in the British Protectorate of the Ionian Islands, 1815-1964, A9m British Library Shelfmark DX187456 Ph.D., London, London School of Economics, 44-9204. p.300]. Zervos found himself opposing his radicalism to that of Zante's Constantinos Lombardos with his popular and nationalistic triumphing enosis with 'Mother Greece'. Instead of ‘freedom’, Athens had given Corfu and her sisters:

...the pollutant of political corruption, which has brought this miserable nation to its present deterioration and produced as many unscrupulous exploiters as a decaying corpse produces worms.
Eleni Calligas on p.301 of her thesis, quoting from Elia Zervos’ autobiography Βιογραθία Ηλία Ζερβού Ιαχωβάτου Συντεθείσα παρ αυτού (1880) edited by Ch. S. Theodoratos, Athens 1974

Ano Korakiana's village lawyer,  John Kourkoulas, Mayor of Corfu, since the 2014 elections, has been assembling an album of historical notes, including press cuttings, which he's shared with friends in the village. It includes an account of the much debated subject of the reaction of the village to the ending of the British Protectorate of the Ionian Islands and union - enosis - with Greece in 1864...

'Κορακιανίτες και Ένωση' Korakiana and Union 22.01.16              

Ο χωριανός μας δικηγόρος Γιάννης Κούρκουλος, π. Δήμαρχος Κερκυραίων, εδώ και αρκετούς μήνες «συνθέτει» σε περιορισμένο αριθμό και διανέμει σε γνωστούς και φίλους ένα ολιγοσέλιδο «αυτοσχέδιο» έντυπο που περιέχει δικές του σημειώσεις και απόψεις, καθώς και αποκόματα εφημερίδων με ευρέως ενδιαφέροντος θέματα της επικαιρότητας, αλλά και της ιστορίας. Έχοντας τη χαρά να είμαστε ανάμεσα στους αποδέκτες αυτού του υλικού, αντλήσαμε από την πρόσφατη έκδοση μία αναφορά στο πολυσυζητημένο και συνάμα ενδιαφέρον θέμα που αφορά στην «Κορακιάνα και την Ένωση με την Ελλάδα».
«Κορακιανίτες και η Ένωση» είναι ο τίτλος του σχετικού έρθρου στο οποίο ο Γιάννη Κούρκουλος αναφέρει τα εξής:
"Βρήκα επιτέλους ένα δημοσίευμα που είχα διαβάσει πριν από 34 χρόνια, το οποίο είχε χαθεί μέσα στο αχανές προσωπικό μου αρχείο. Πρόκειται για ένα κείμενο του μακαρίτη δημοσιογράφου και ιστορικού Κώστα Δαφνή δημοσιευμένο στα φύλλα της 8ης και 15ης Μαρτίου 1971 της εφημερίδας του «Κερκυραϊκά Νέα», με τίτλο «Ο Γλάδστων, οι Κοινοπιάτες και η Κορακιάνα». Και παρά το ότι έχω αποφασίσει να σταματήσω τη σύνταξη χειρογράφων (μετ’ αποκομμάτων εφημερίδων) φυλλαδίων, δεν μπορώ να το στερήσω από όσους από τους φίλους και γνωστούς μου έκαμαν την τιμή να διαβάσουν το τελευταίο μου φυλλάδιο. Πολύ περισσότερο, που το κείμενο αυτό αποτελεί συνέχεια των όσων εκθέτω για το ίδιο θέμα.
Γράφει λοιπόν ο Κώστας Δαφνής:
«Ακόμη και σήμερα η λαϊκή παράδοση θέλει ότι οι Κορακιανίτες και οι Κοινοπιαστινοί δεν ψήφισαν υπέρ της Ενώσεως της Επτανήσου με την Ελλάδα... Κατά πόσον η παράδοση αυτή στηρίζεται σε πραγματικά γεγονότα δεν θα το ερευνήσουμε σήμερα. Άλλη αιτία, σχετική βέβαια μας οδηγεί στο ίδιο θέμα. Τοποθετείται 5 χρόνια πριν από την Ένωση και έχει σχέση με την αποστολή του Γλάδστωνος στα Επτάνησα. Βρισκόμαστε στα τέλη του 1958 (SB note: 1858?), ο άγγλος απεσταλμένος περιοδεύει στα νησιά και στην κερκυραϊκή ύπαιθρο για να σχηματίσει άμεση αντίληψη για τις πραγματικές διαθέσεις του λαού και να σφυγμομετρήσει το λαϊκό φρόνημα. Μεταξύ άλλων επισκέπτεται τους Κοινοπιάστες και την Κορακιάνα. Για την πρώτη επίσκεψη γράφει σχετικά η εφημερίδα «ΝΕΑ ΕΠΟΧΗ» της 13ης Ιανουαρίου 1859 με την περιγραφή της επισκέψεως στους Κοινοπιάστες, όπου και εμφανίζεται ότι οι Κοινοπιαστινοί σε ερώτηση του Γλάδστωνος «τι θέλουσι: μεταρρύθμισιν ή ένωσιν», απάντησαν «μεταρρύθμιση», γεγονός που προφανώς τον ευχαρίστησε.
Συνεχίζοντας ο Κ. Δαφνής αναφέρει ότι «τα σημειώματα αυτά (της εφημερίδας) δεν έμειναν χωρίς απάντηση, αφού  στο επόμενο φύλλο της, η «ΝΕΑ ΕΠΟΧΗ» δημοσιεύει τα εξής:
 «Ελάβομεν επιστολήν υπό του Προεστώτος του χωρίου Σταυρού κ. Αντωνίου Ραρή, δι ής καταψεύδει λόσα δια του Παραρτήματος είπομεν. Ελάβομεν ετέραν επιστολήν υπό του κ. Χ.Γ. Εμμανουήλ Πουλημένου και άλλων προς κατάψευσιν όσων εν τω παραρτήματι είπομεν περό Κυνοπιαστών. Άπαντα ταύτα θέλομεν καταχωρίση προσεχώς»
Και πραγματικά στο φύλλο 49/2-2-1859 δημοσιεύονταν η απάντησις. Τη μεταγράφομεν ολόκληρη:
«Κυνοπιάστες, τη 21η Ιανουαρίου 1859: Υπό των υποφαινομένων κατοίκων του χω­ρίου Κυνοπιάστες, παρακαλείσθε να καταχώρισητε εις το φύλλον σας τα ακόλουθα: Δια του παραρτήματος ύπ’ άριθ. 46 της εφημερίδος, τινές εις ημάς άγνωστοι, επρόσβαλαν και ημάς και τον κ. Γλάδστωνα, ότι ερχόμενος εις το χωρίον μας του επαρρησιάσθησαν πολλοί των κατοίκων και ότι ο κ. Γλάδστων μας ηρώτησεν τί θέλομεν, μεταρρύθμισιν ή ένωσιν; και ότι ημείς τω απηντήσαμεν μεταρρύθμισιν και εις την απόκρισιν ταύτην ευχαριστήθη τα μέγιστα και ότι ο υπασπιστής του έγραψεν εις Κυνοπιάστες (και όχι Κυνοπιάστρες) θέλουν μεταρρύθμισιν και ότι έδωκεν εις δια­φόρους από ολίγα χρήματα και ανεχώρησε, και άλλα όπου αν δώσωμε την απάντησιν αμαυρόνωμεν τον εαυτόν μας. Ούτε μία αλήθεια εγγράφθη περί του αντικειμένου και ημείς στοχαζόμεθα τα αυτά άτομα ως ανόητα, κηρύττοντα ουχί ως φυσικά τέκνα των Ελλήνων, αλλά ως αφύσικα και συκοφάντας. Η δε αλήθεια έχει ούτω: «Την ημέραν των Χριστουγέννων, τας τέσσαρας ώρας μ.μ. εξερχόμενοι πολλοί εκ του ιερού μετά τον εσπερινόν, έφθασε με την άμαξαν και ο κ. Γλάδστων εις την πλατείαν της πρωτευούσης της ιδίας Εκκλησί­ας, και ευθύς εισήλθεν εντός της Εκκλησίας, με την συνοδίαν του και θεωρήσας με περιέργειαν εφιλοδώρησε τον εφημέριον και τον υπηρέτην. Ημείς, χάριν περιεργείας, ερωτήσαμεν τον αμαξηλάτη, τις είναι; και είπεν, ο κ. Γλάδστων... Ευθύς όλοι όσοι παρευρέθησαν παρόντες (διότι οι κάτοικοι του χωρίου αριθμούν έως οκτακόσιοι και ουχί τριάκοντα), τω επεδώσαμεν τον πρεπούμενον χαιρετισμόν και τον συνωδεύσαμεν μέχρι των οσπητίων της κληρονομίας κ. Βιλέτα, όπου θεωρήσας την θέσιν, πολύ ευχαριστήθη. Ακολούθως, πάλιν ήλθαμεν εις την Εκκλησί­αν, όπου είχαν διάφορα γλυκά, (κατά την συνήθειαν της ημέρας), εκ των οποίων έλαβεν ο κ. Γλάδστων και έδωκε πολλών παιδιών εκεί ευρεθέντων, επλήρωσε και κατόπιν αμοιβαίων χαιρετισμών ανεχώρησε... ΄Οχι μόνον όπου ούτε ωμιλήσαμεν δι’ όλου διά ένωσιν ή μεταρρύθμισιν! άλλα ούτε το είχομεν κατά νουν! Εκ του άλλου ημείς είμεθα απόγονοι των Ελλήνων και το επιθυμούμεν πολύ περισσότερον από κάποιους όπου πλαστά λέγουν, θέλουν την ένωσιν... Πλην κατά το παρόν, ο άνθρωπος πρέπει να συμμορφώνεται με τον ορθόν λόγον καί όχι με λόγους ατάκτους και ο­πού δεν έχουν ισχύν» Τέλος ημείς εφέρθημεν εις τον κ. Γλάδστωνα με εξευμενισμόν, τον ευχαριστούμεν δια τον εδώ ερχομόν του και θέλει τω αποδώσωμεν προσωπικώς εν τω δωματίω, όπου κατοικεί, τας ευχαριστήσεις μας καθ’ ο εντιμοτάτω υποκειμένω».
Ταύτα και υποσημειούμεθα I. π. Γεωργίου Χριστόδουλος I. Έμμανουήλ Πουλημένος
Τη δημοσίευση της επιστολής η εφημερίς συνώδευσε με την εξής υποσημείωση: «Συγχαιρόμεθα τους κυρίους τούτους και το χωρίον Κυνοπιάστες και επειδή ημείς δεν έχομεν σκοπόν ουδένα να προσβάλλωμεν, δημοσιεύομεν ευχαρίστως την δήλωσιν των κυρίων τούτων»....
Συνεχίζοντας ο Κ. Δαφνής αναφέρει ότι, ακολούθως, στο φύλλο 51 της 13ης Φεβρ. 1859 (της ΝΕΑΣ ΕΠΟΧΗΣ) βλέπουμε να δημοσιεύεται επιστολή του «εκ Κορακιάνας συνδρομητού» Σταυράκη Μεταλληνού του Σπυρίδωνος, στην όποια ο επιστολογράφος εξιστορεί με λεπτομέρειες τα της συναντήσεώς του με τον Γλάδστωνα, όταν επεσκέφθη το χωριό του και τα όσα ελέχθησαν μεταξύ των. Ο Σταυράκης Μεταλληνός διερμή­νευσε με παρρησία στον ΄Αγγλο απεσταλμένο τα παράπονα των κατοίκων εναντίον της Προστασίας, για να επαναλάβη στο τέλος ότι αίτημα των κατοίκων ήταν η ΄Ενωσις με την Ελλάδα. «Ημείς, είπεν ο Μεταλληνός, είμεθα ΄Ελληνες και Χριστιανοί Όρθόδοξοι, τουτέστιν έχομεν κοινά με τους δούλους και ελευθέρους αδελφούς μας κατά την καταγωγήν και την γλώσσαν και την θρησκείαν, και ως εκ τούτου έπιθυμούμεν να ενωθώμεν με το ΄Εθνος μας. Το εθνικόν τούτο αίσθημά μας καμμία δύναμις δεν δύναται να το εκριζώση εκ της καρδίας μας». Και, έκλεισε την επιστολήν του ο Σταυράκης Μεταλληνός: «Ταύτα είναι, κ. Συντάκτα, τα διατρέξαντα εν Κορακιάνα, τα όποια και σας παρακαλώ να δημοσιεύ­σετε όσον τάχιστα όπως καταψευσθή πας ος τα εναντίον διατεινόμενος και σπερμολογών».
Από όλα αυτά, (αναρωτιέται ο Κ. Δαφνής) τί συνάγεται; Τό απλό συμπέρασμα ότι η ύλη της ιστορίας δεν προσφέρεται πάντοτε καθαρή και αποτοξινωμένη από τα πάθη και τις προσωπικές συχνά αντιθέσεις της στιγμής. Και ότι χρειάζεται μεγάλη προσπά­θεια στον ιστορικό για να ξεκαθαρίση το ιστορικώς αληθινό από τα επιστρώματα, που το έχουν αλλοιώσει".
ΓΙΑΝΝΗΣ ΚΟΥΡΚΟΥΛΟΣ

* The Heptanisis or the Ionian Islands are an archipelago of different-sized islands. The largest are Zakynthos or Zante, Corfu, Ithaca, Kephalonia, Lefkada, Corfu, Paxos and, far further south, Kythera; the smaller ones, Antipaxos, Anti-Kythera, the Strofades archipelago, and the Diapontian isles of Erikoussa, Mathraki, Othoni, and Meganisi. 

We may never be sure about this matter. It is obviously a sensitive issue - with the imputation, quite unfair, that these villages were somehow less patriotic than the rest of Corfu. It circumvents the powerful story captured in her thesis, by the scholar Eleni Calligas, of the rival visions of those two Ionian politicians - the rizopasti Ilias Zervos lakovatos (1814-1894) with his hope for an independent Ionian Republic, and the populist Constantinos Lombardos (1820-1888) who pursued union with Greece. I would like to see the primary source evidence surrounding the imputation that the reasons the Philharmonia's of these two villages - Ano Korakiana and Kinopiastes - did not, for more than a century since 1864, attend the celebrations of enosis with Mother Greece - was no more than a matter of speculation and scuttlebutt «...τα εναντίον διατεινόμενος και σπερμολογών».

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A letter from The Gunmakers Arms, Gun Quarter, Birmingham City centre

Hi Simon. I am interested in potentially booking you as a speaker. Could you give me some more information on the Birmingham-related talks you have please.
We are planning to host a series of science-based talks in addition to a series of talks based around an historical theme at our pub, the Gunmakers Arms. We have a loose theme of topics including anything related to Birmingham, alcohol (and related industries) and sport. If you or any of your colleagues could deliver talks which would be suitable please let me know.
The speakers we have lined up so far are listed below.
Regards
Darren, Office Manager

Historical Talk Series. Kay Hunter – ‘The Last Public Hanging in Birmingham’, Tuesday 26th JanuaryRuth Cherrington, Club Historians – ‘The Social History of Working Men’s Clubs’, Thursday 18th FebruaryDr Malcolm Dick, University of Birmingham – ‘The Industrial Enlightenment and the Luner Men in the 18th Century’, Wednesday 30th March Professor David Williams, Loughborough University – ‘The Early Days of the Birmingham Gun Quarter, Tuesday 17th May 0121 439 7253 Two Towers Brewery, Unit 1 Mott Street Industrial Estate, Hockley B19 3HE

Dear Darren
Interesting to hear from you, and so glad to see The Gunmakers back in business.
You enquire about my ‘colleagues'. As a local speaker I’m a one-man band. I talk only about the 'Founding of Handsworth Park' towards the end of the 19th century, based on the research for my story of our local park -  I have film, texts, maps, postcards and photographs to illustrate a talk that can be between 20 minutes and an hour, with space for discussion and questions. I charge £30, but if there’s a favourite local charity at The Gunmakers I encourage my hosts to have a collection to pass on themselves. You can buy me a choice of Baskerville Bitter and Hockley Gold (:))
As a founder member of the Friends of Handsworth Park in 1994 I was among a small group lobbying to save Handsworth Park, helping organise a campaign which finally brought about a ceremonial re-opening in Summer 2006, I contributed to Birmingham City Council’s winning £9,000,000 lottery grant that funded the park's restoration during the early years of this century.
I’ve lived with my family in Handsworth, 300 yards from the Park’s main gate, for forty years. I was a lecturer at Birmingham University’s School of Public Policy between 1973 and 2010. I am Hon.Sec of a local charity ‘Handsworth Helping Hands’ (find us on Facebook).
To support the winning lottery bid to restore Handsworth Park I wrote a history of the founding of the Park. First paragraph:
"As the civic gospel of municipal improvement spread from Birmingham into the estates of Handsworth, its local government leaders saw a public park as a benefit for the district. Following the setting up of an education board and a free library, the adoption and proper kerbing of roads, street lighting, tramways and the construction of sewers,influential voices in the district began to speak of the need for a “lung” in the city. They did not pursue the idea simply out of expediency or to raise the value of their properties. Such self-interest was present - used unashamedly to strengthen their case among the practically minded citizens of Handsworth - but opposition to the Park from that quarter was at times so intense that calculative motives alone would not have carried the project through.” p.1, Baddeley, S (1997) The Founding of Handsworth Park 1882-1898, Birmingham University
I tell the story of how our local park was founded, despite opposition from rurally minded people, who could not imagine how the Staffordshire countryside would in a few decades become a suburb of the great working city, its populace grateful for the foresight that saved a few fields to create a public park - now just 2.1 miles from the Gunmakers Arms, or 15 minutes on my bicycle. The idea of a park in Handsworth was also opposed by people who didn’t want ‘the roughs of Birmingham’, as they saw them, ‘despoiling' the attractive suburb to which they’d escaped from the city in whose industrial quarters they were making their money. Here’s me talking about my enthusiasm for the park a few years ago

If I can answer any more questions do get in touch.
I tend to be in and out of the UK for just under half the year but I’m easy enough on to contact and would be delighted to speak on my favourite subject.
Kindest regards
Simon

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It was the best of years, it was the worst of years - 

Richard Pine, The Irish Times, 26th Jan 2016

It was (to paraphrase Dickens) the best of years, it was the worst of years. On January 25th last year Greeks elected their first ever left-wing (as distinct from socialist) government. This, Syriza, led by Alexis Tsipras, was both A Good Thing and Not Quite Such A Good Thing. Dickens continues the opening of A Tale of Two Cities by pairing wisdom/foolishness, belief/incredulity, light/darkness and hope/despair. In the past year Greeks have had all of these in excess. The jubilation at the (apparent) rejection of the bailout in the July referendum, followed by the realisation that nothing, but nothing, had changed, underlined how fragile and fickle the democratic process can be...
...And the past year has emphasised that there are two Greeces. Not the us-and- them, have-and-have not division, but the underlying causes that are, apparently, indelible. On one side the cancerous corruption favouring the oligarchs and plutocrats, and on the other what Myles na gCopaleen would have called “the Plain People of Greece” who just want to get on with their lives.
The corrupt state is the result of decades of Plain People innocently, blindly and stupidly trusting politicians, and one year of well-meaning but naive policies cannot undo that corruption. Former finance minister Yanis Varoufakis said (in Kilkenny, interviewed by RTÉ’s Miriam O’Callaghan): “The oligarchs were completely untouched by the troika”. And he said Syriza’s surrender to the troika “makes them absolutely incapable of effecting change”...
...The past year has been wake-up time for everyone. The international financial community is waking up to the fact that for so long it denied that the Greek debt could be restructured; it’s now admitting that the austerity programme was a textbook remedy for an as yet undiagnosed problem which they didn’t understand.
The EU negotiators are beginning to admit that most of the figures bandied about are in fact illusory and that most of the negotiations have been a cosmetic job to obscure the fact that neither side has any faith in the figures.
Tsipras is waking up to realise that, in order to stay in power, he has to rely on big business, which is represented in his cabinet by ministers who, like some of the county councillors named in the recent RTÉ Investigates programme, had “overlooked” their declaration of interests and understated their assets.
Greeks would have watched the RTÉ programme and said “So what? What’s new? What’s there to shout about?” Clientelism and bribery are so endemic that these blips would never have got air time in Greece, not least because most media are controlled by the plutocrats....As journalist Nick Malkoutzis says, Greeks are “torn between love for their country and hate for what it has become”. Throughout my book Greece Through Irish Eyes (SB note: my review of RP's book) I emphasised the need to both love and mourn Greece: to recognise that within everything lovable there is also something to mourn, and vice versa. I mourn the events and circumstances that created the past year of triumphs and defeats.
But I love what I see in the village where I live: the way parents cherish their children and want to give them the best chance in life. I love the sight of truckloads of olives going to the oilery at the end of the village street; the way I can barter fruit for eggs with my neighbour. And I love it that a retired telephone engineer will fix my phone when it’s struck by lightning, and refuse any payment, saying, “Give me a copy of your book instead. It’ll be valuable when you’re dead.” 

Oliver in the park

Moment of undiluted content, sharing fallen leaves with my grandson in Handsworth Park; these from our plane trees, broad and brown; heaped up they're good for falling on, being buried amid and shuffling all over the place. By the pond, willow leaves like little blades are strewn, yellow and curved, to be picked up in a bunch and thrown above our heads, spinning as they fall, winning, from our child, shrieks of pleasure and surprise. Down by the water's stoney edge, under the intense guardianship of eye and hand, Oliver sits by the bank as, across the grey city water, we're approached by hopeful fowl - Canada geese, coot, duck, moorhen, two married swans like galleons with their cygnets - no longer ugly ducklings. Oscar dog stands on an outcrop and earns open-beak hisses from cob and pen, but Oliver and I are treated as benign, at least non-combatants; allowed to stare.

*** ***
First thing in the morning I'd cycled to Aston station, taken the train to Blake Street and cycled about three miles in car-land to Aldridge Parish Church…

Car-land on the way to Aldridge from Blake Street

Aldridge Parish Church

…to give a talk about the Founding of Handsworth Park to over fifty members of the Probus Club of Aldridge. Nearly 15 years after I wrote a history of how Handsworth Park was invented in the 1880s its story has  taken more secure form in my mind. Good. When I asked how many of this audience, men of my age and older, had visited Handsworth Park, over two third raised their hands. Yet to me Aldridge feels so different from my Handsworth I'm apprehensive at the prospect of explaining how much I love the place and how much I've learned about it these last twenty five years.
"Our park was not, like many fine city parks, a gift from a philanthropic landowner. It had to be paid for by local ratepayers in what was then the rich and salubrious village of Handsworth in rural Staffordshire, at comfortable remove from the the smoke, noise and mess of the great working city of Birmingham. But Birmingham was spreading. Relentlessly."
I quote what I and others have written:

Birmingham’s expanding population sought new living space, leaving only the poorest in the insanitary courts of the city centre and even these were soon edged away by the Corporation Street “improvement scheme” initiated in 1875 and finished in 1882 at a cost of over £1½ million. A familiar idea of “inner city” was not so much when the poor increased but when they no longer lived so close to the unpoor. In addition there were houses closer to the city centre, such as the Jewellery Quarter, whose artisan owners were converting them into workplaces and setting up home further away while still working in the city. Handsworth, many of whose residents had a special connection to Hockley and St.Pauls, was only one of the outlying parishes of Birmingham to undergo a process of transformation to “suburb”: 'While it was going on, the process gratified landowners, developers, builders and the occupants of the new suburbs, or at least continued to lure them with the prospects of profits, status, and happiness, but pleased practically no-one else. Contemporary social and architectural critics were fascinated and appalled by the mindless, creeping nature of the sprawl ... The ceaseless activity of the builders, the alarming rapidity with which they turned pleasant fields into muddy, rutted building sites, the confusion of hundreds of building operations going on simultaneously, without any discernible design, the impression that little schemes were starting up everywhere at once and were never being finished, were in themselves frightening portents of disorder and chaos…' Thompson, F.M.L. (ed.) (1982) The Rise of Suburbia (Leicester:University Press) pp.67-68.

The talk went well. Nervousness aside I enjoyed myself. Over coffee, one old man - my age - said "I wonder if some of those people you quoted, when the case was being made for a park in Handsworth, would have believed their words were being quoted all these years later?" It was a lovely thought. I'd read from some of the conscientiously reported transcripts of local leaders arguing for the park, debating with sceptics and people downright opposed to having their rates spent on a park in what was still countryside…and especially the concerns of the Vicar of St.Mary's Church, Handsworth:

Dr. Randall rose amid the uproar to make what the Handsworth News reporter, with irony, called the speech of the evening: “I will answer for myself. Allow me to say that from my heart I am the last man in the parish to stand between any object which is for the welfare of the people of the parish. It is because I don't think it is for the well-being that we should have the park that I lift up my voice against it. We have an agricultural parish, and we have some of the finest air in the kingdom, and I believe that the park will be more for the benefit of the roughs of Birmingham.” (a perfect howl of dissent, uproar for at least a minute and cries of “shame” followed by alternations of groaning and cheering)  Dr. Randall spoke of people leaving the parish because of the heavy rates. (“hear, hear” and applause) He thought the Local Board had erred through jubilee zeal or some other zeal.(laughter) The vendors had taken advantage of that zeal to raise the price. (clamour) “I will state on my honour and word that the same land including the house has been offered to me even a few months ago, first at £7000 and then at £6000. If on no other ground I will oppose the purchase because it is above the price at which it has been offered to a private individual.” (great cheering and interruption, Babel itself was not in it with the confusion of sounds that then ensued)..p.16 of my history, drawing on unnamed reporters for the Handsworth News and the Handsworth Gazette, 19 Jan 1887

The long campaign for the recovery of contemporary Handsworth Park required the construction of a political narrative (helped in our case by access to far wider reference*) as robust as that which persuaded our ancestors. Reading the words of contemporary reporters of the 1880s I'm even more aware of how astutely argued was the case for the financial value of the park, its utility for a fast-growing urban incursion - effectively an expanding 'Birmingham suburb', a 'lung' for the city assuring the 'vigour and health' of the new population in their tiny-gardened workers' terraces with hardly room to 'swing a bat'. I said to the Probis members "I love this park, my family love it. I see it dew filled on spring mornings, its tranquillity to be enjoyed alone as much as its bustling crowds on summer afternoons. And as for the fun of visiting it in the snow!"

Amy and Guy and the dogs in Handsworth Park

Christmas day 

Summer evening

Simmer Down Festival 2012

I would have argued for its aesthetics and in consequence would have had none of the impact of those shrewd local politicians who'd made their case for popular support with demographic statistics and the language of efficient accountancy; such calculation raising for the new park the largest single loan then known to the district…I quote from one of the crowded public meetings held in the Council House off Soho Road seeking popular permission for a park in Handsworth... 

"...If the park is established I feel sure that in a very few years houses will be built in the locality which will render no extra rate necessary to support the park” (laugher and cries of “no, no”). Mr. Lines sits down and Mr. Wainwright rises to reply:
He was commendably brief, but exceedingly earnest, and his short fiery speech was admirably adapted to secure his purpose. Every word told, and the promise that the Board would, if the resolution were carried, do all their promised work without raising the rate, and throw in the park as well, seemed to produce the desired effect. Having concluded his speech, Mr. Wainwright put the resolution, and hands having been held up on either side, he declared that..
IT WAS CARRIED,
..much to the disgust of many on the platform. Mr.Jacobs loudly protested that the proposition was lost and demanded a poll. Mr.Cooper offered to place in the hands of the clerk or the chairman a cheque sufficiently large to cover the expenses of a poll. Mr. Ellis fumed and Dr. Randall looked disconsolate. But the clerk explained that the Board had no power to arrange for a poll of the ratepayers and the malcontents had to satisfy themselves with empty protest and not too polite observations as to the chairman and his manner of conducting the proceedings. Meantime, Mr. Wainwright, with radiant face and beaming eyes, left the platform, being heartily congratulated by his friends and supporters, and as we elbowed our way out of the still crowded room, we felicitated ourselves on the fact that the vexed question of a public park for Handsworth had been set at rest, with every appearance of the settlement arrived at, being a final and permanent one. Handsworth News, Jan. 22 1887 (pp.16-17 my account)

Even so in the final paragraph of my account (and in all my talks about the creation of Handsworth Park) I conclude 

They did not pursue such an idea simply out of expediency or to raise the value of their properties. Such self-interest was present - used unashamedly to strengthen their case among the practically minded citizens of Handsworth and more covertly to mitigate social conditions that might spur political unrest - but opposition to the Park from some of those who would be paying for it was at times so intense that calculative motives alone would not have carried the project through.

'...its tranquility to  be enjoyed alone…' A 19th century postcard

*for instance The Economic Value of Protected Open Space or a much circulated Japanese study on the link between longevity and walkable green space.
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After a visit to town - coffee with Phil Crumpton to discuss Black Patch Park at Yorks Bakery on Newhall Street - I take my usual journey home, Oscar running in front, beside and behind, on the canal towpath - Gas Street, from the top of Farmer's Locks where narrow boats are moored, some with their generators running, dim lights showing through curtained windows, the whiff of coal and wood smoke from their stove pipes; onto the Birmingham Mainline, then sharp right onto Soho Loop, my eyes unable to make out the way I wheel the Brompton under the flat rail bridge, Oscar a lighter smudge in the gloom….

Dudley Road bridge over the Soho Loop canal

Soho Loop towpath by Clissold Street

…then with him back in his pannier, I exit the tow path through a gap in the railings to join Clissold Street with its speed bumps, All Saints Street, free-wheeling down Goode Avenue wary of turning cars, into narrower Crescent Avenue, across South Road and up the slope of Claremont Road that turns into Richmond Road - a cul-de-sac - at the end of which I cross at the traffic lights on busy Soho Hill onto Hamstead Road, cross the Villa Road, turn right on Radnor Road, then left down Wycliffe Road which continues into Beaudesert Road and home.
**** **** ****
We have our passage booked for Greece - a flight to Venice, then by sea along the chill Adriatic to the ugly port of Igoumenitsa, then, in late afternoon, a ferry crossing to Corfu. In our dear village, in Ano Korakiana - 'The first seeds of Winter' - the liturgy for St.Barbara in the church of Our Lady in Mougades, at the west end of the village. The festive cycle of winter begins:

Τα πρώτα σπερνά του Χειμώνα

«Βαρβαρίτσι, Νικολίτσι κι Άη-Σάββας μες τη μέση…» και κατά πως ορίζει το γνωμικό αυτό, ξεκινάει και ο φετινός χειμωνιάτικος εορταστικός κύκλος, με τη Λειτουργία της Αγίας Βαρβάρας στην εκκλησία της Παναγίας στην κορυφή της Μουργάδας.Σε αντίθεση με άλλες περιοχές της χώρας,το πρωινό είναι ηλιόλουστο και η μικρή εκκλησία δεν θα αργήσει να γεμίσει από κόσμο και μάλιστα κάθε ηλικίας: από τις δεσποσύνες Αγγελική και Μαριέτα, έως την κυρά Χρυσάνθη, από την ανηφόρα της Πλαγιάς.Κάθε είσοδος στο ναό συνοδεύεται από προσκύνημα στη μεγάλη εικόνα της Παναγίας, που δεσπόζει σε κεντρικό σημείο και στη μικρότερη της Αγίας Βαρβάρας, ενώ κατά την έξοδο, ένα σακουλάκι με σπερνά αναμένει τους πιστούς, φτιαγμένα «δια χειρός» Δημήτρη και Ελένης Απέργη, που έχουν εφέτος τη σχετική επιμέλεια.

*** ***
…and on the 24th November the website of the village describes a meeting there with William Gladstone.

Ο Γλάδστων 1859

I find the piece beyond my ability to translate, and I want badly to read this - a village record, probably unknown to history, of a local discussion with one of our greatest statesman, dispatched down the wintry Adriatic by his rival Disraeli, in part to get him from England, in part to see if the great man could resolve an intractable problem among the seven islands of  Britain's troublesome Ionian Protectorate. Gladstone, in his diaries, wrote later of being utterly absorbed 'in the affairs of these little islands...'The complexity of the case is inversely (so to speak) as the extent of the sphere.' (31 Dec 1858). And complex it is; even embarrassing; certainly politically sensitive to this day, not least because Gladstone a strong friend of Hellenic independence found, on touring Corfu, that union with mother Greece was not to the liking of many of the islanders he met. This, I hasten to insist, was not through love towards, or even friendship with the English - tho' that did exist for a variety of motives - but through apprehension among the more politically sophisticated, not about Enosis-Ένωσις - as such, but at too close a union with the political corruption associated with government from Athens, and indeed reciprocal anxiety in Athens at the prospect of being united with the radical intelligentsia of Corfu, Zakinthos, Levkas and Cephalonia. The British - ever 'perfidious Albion' - 'handed us over to Athens" I've heard said by neighbours in Ano Korakiana ' because through those corrupt corridors they could have more influence over the affairs of Greece than by struggling to preserve their unwelcome foothold on the Ionian Islands":

Ο Γλάδστων στην Κορακιάνα του 1859

27 Ιανουαρίου (1859): Υπήγεν η Α.Ε. Γλάδστων μετά των υπασπιστών του εφ’ ίππων εις το χωρίον Κορακιάνα, διότι προ ημερών οι χωρικοί τον επροσκάλεσαν και αυτός δια να τους ευχαριστήση υπήγε. Και άμα έφθασεν, κατέβησαν όλοι οι χωρικοί, προεστός και λοιποί, δια να τους υποδεχθούν. Τους συνόδευσαν εις το χωρίον και άρχισαν να τους περιγράφουν όλα. Όταν ήτο έτοιμο το γεύμα (εν γεύμα μεγαλοπρεπές και πλουσιοπάροχον), επροσκάλεσαν την Α.Ε. με τους οπαδούς του, οίτινες ήλθον και εκάθησαν εις το μέσον του τραπεζίου. Διαρκούντος του γεύματος οι πρόκριτοι του χωριού τους έκαμαν διαφόρους ομιλίας, λέγοντες ότι « είμασθεν καλλίτερα υπό την Τουρκίαν παρά υπό την Αγγλίαν, διότι τότε εχαιρόμασθεν πολλά δικαιώματα, τώρα δε όχι». «Διατί (τους απάντησεν ο Γλάδστων) δεν είσθαι ευχαριστημένοι με την τωρινήν Κυβέρνησιν;». Και ότι: «Προ καιρού επεριφέρετο μία γραφή (ανακοίνωση-δήλωση) περί αποικίας, όντες υπογεγραμμένοι κάμποσοι από εσάς». «Μάλιστα (είπον αυτοί), το εκάμαμεν αυτό δια να εκβάλωμεν άλλο έξω, το περί Ενώσεως.Δηλαδή εσπείραμεν και θέλει έλθη καιρός να θερίσωμεν», «Και πώς (τους είπεν ο Γλάδστων) δεν σας αρέσουν οι μεταρρυθμίσεις τας οποίας επρότεινα εις τηνΒουλήν; Τέτε θέλει είσθε καλύτερα και θέλει χαίρεσθε πολλά δικαιώματα», «Όχι» του απάντησαν αυτοί «ότι κάμνουν οι Αντιπρόσωποί μας, καλά καμωμένα» Σ.Σ. στο έντονο αίτημα της πλειονότητας των Επτανησσίων για «Ένωση με την Ελλάδα» τη δεκαετία του 1850, η αγγλική προστασία απάντησε με ένα σχέδιο μεταρρυθμίσεων, προσπαθώντας να κερδίσει χρόνο.Στα τέλη δε, του 1858 ο Γλάδστων έφτασε στα νησιά προκειμένου να διαπιστώσει το κλίμα που επικρατεί εκεί. Το Γενάρη λοιπόν του 1859 οι Κορακιανίτες προεστοί τον κάλεσαν στο χωριό, όπως φανερώνει η παραπάνω αναφορά των «Καθημερούσιων Ειδήσεων» του Σαμαρτζή. Εκεί αυτός, μάλλον έκπληκτος, αντίκρυσε όπως φαίνεται αρνητικό κλίμα και υποχρεώθηκε να υπενθυμίσει ότι αρκετοί από τους παρόντες στη συνάντηση είχαν προ μηνών υπογράψει ανακοίνωση «περί αποικίας». Πιθανότατα η αναφορά αυτή αφορά το περιβόητο χαρτί που υπέγραψε μερίδα Κορακιαντιτών και άλλων, ενάντια στην ένωση και υπερ της παραμονής υπό την αγγλική προστασία. Υπάρχουν δε μαρτυρίες ότι στην ίδια (;) επίσκεψη ο Γλάδστων ομίλησε στους χωριανούς στις Μουργάδες, έξω από την οικία Μαρτζούκου (Άη Νικολόπουλος), αλλά αυτοί δεν έπαυαν να επαναλαμβάνουν το αίτημα «Ένωση αν’ όρος» (δηλαδή, «Ένωση άνευ όρων»)….

I wrote asking Aleko for help and within hours he replied.

Dear Simon and Linda. Here is the translation, done quite quickly, so please excuse mistakes!! My Greek lessons this year at Sally's are going very well. I now have two groups, beginners and an advanced group, all done on the same day, Tuesday 11 to 12  and 12.30-1.30.  Have many new people, a total of 18 now! Please get in touch when you come back to Corfu and we will arrange some meeting. In the meantime a VERY HAPPY CHRISTMAS TO YOU BOTH and a VERY HAPPY NEW YEAR! with love,  Aleko

GLADSTONE IN KORAKIANA IN 1859 

On the 27th January 1859 His Excellency Lord Gladstone, with his aides on horseback, went to the village of Korakiana because some days before, the villagers had invited him. In order to please them he accepted their invitation and went. When he arrived all the villagers and dignitaries from the village came to welcome him. They accompanied him and his entourage to the centre of the village and started to relate to them everything about their village. When the dinner was ready (a memorably rich and grand feast) they invited His Excellency, with his followers, to sit at the centre of the table. While the dinner was under progress the village dignitaries delivered some speeches with their focal point being:

“We were better off under the Turkish rule than under the English, because then we enjoyed many privileges which we don’t now”

“Why” answered Gladstone "are you not happy with the present government…A while ago there was a declaration concerning colonies and indeed many of you have signed to join them”

“Yes indeed” they replied. “We did this in order to bring up another point - the point concerning the Union of our island with Greece…In other words we have sowed the seeds and are now waiting for the harvest…”

“And why” said Gladstone "do you like these reforms which I suggested to the Parliament? You would all be much better off and would enjoy many privileges”

“No” they answered “Whatever our representatives do are WELL DONE and WELL RECEIVED”

P.S. This request by the majority of the Ionians to join Greece during the 1850s was answered by the English Protectorate with many reformation plans in order to gain time. Towards the end of 1850 Gladstone arrived at the islands in order to find out what the general feeling was all about. In January 1859 Dignitaries from Korakiana invited him to the village, as written in the report of the Daily News by Samartzis. When Gladstone arrived at the village he noticed a very negative attitude so he was compelled to remind them that many present in this meeting had signed many months before a statement concerning ‘Colonies’. It is very possible that this signed document is the well known document signed by a certain section of Korakiana villagers OPPOSING the union of the Ionian Islands with Greece and who were pro the English Protectorate. There are testimonies that Gladstone spoke to some villagers at Mourgades, outside the house of Martzoukos (Saint Nikolopoulos). They never ceased to repeat the request : “Union under NO conditions”.

"No... don't blush"

Liz and Matt were married in Shropshire at Rowton Castle on Tuesday, the exact anniversary as she'd promised her best friend Amy, of our daughter's marriage to Guy at Alvie Church last year.
The celebration nearly didn't happen with the original venue that Matt and Liz had chosen going into receivership a few months ago and so many places already committed to hosting weddings in May. Matt is relentlessly secular. "No hymns nor prayers for us." It was a civil ceremony overseen by the County Council Registrar of Marriages with discrete civil music and sober civil words; nonetheless solemn and none the less - they both said later - scary - making vows to stay together, man and wife, for the rest of their lives.

Amy with Liz's sister Catherine were bridesmaids, Amy wearing low heels to equalise her height. In the middle of the afternoon Liz threw her bouquet as had Amy the year before

Later at the wedding breakfast - and we had fasted and got up an appetite - Matt's brother quoted the words of Louis de Bernières in the mouth of John Hurt's Dr Yiannis of Ionian Cephalonia to his daughter Pelagia, Penélope Cruz in the film Captain Corelli's Mandolin, about what does or doesn't last after 'being in love':

When you fall in love, it is a temporary madness. It erupts like an earthquake, and then it subsides. And when it subsides, you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your roots are become so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part. Because this is what love is. Love is not breathlessness, it is not excitement, it is not the desire to mate every second of the day. It is not lying awake at night imagining that he is kissing every part of your body. No... don't blush. I am telling you some truths. For that is just being in love; which any of us can convince ourselves we are. Love itself is what is left over, when being in love has burned away.

Our wedding present will be our son Richard's photographs of a day set in the most English of landscapes.

*** ***
I've been putting off going to our allotment, knowing how much work I have to do on it to get a crop going, but the latest newsletter - 17 May - which brings impressive news of the Committee's progress on the Victoria Jubilee - a shop supplied by Hirons Garden Centre, a sensory garden to which we can barrow unwanted stones from our plots, the purchase of a rotavator, strimmer, handmower, garden trolley and sack truck which can be used in return for voluntary help in the shop - reminded me, quite rightly, that uncultivated plots will be re-let.

So this afternoon I cycled out to the allotments with a spade and fork and began digging over the rich collection of flowering weeds that have sprouted since we left for Greece in February. All around are plots that are looking impressively productive.  I see many are using raised beds made with planks of which there is a supply available on site along with a community compost heap, manure and bark ground cover. People have put up more sheds along with screens and polytunnels.
I am sure there will come a time when I have turned our 200 square metre plot into a working garden, but for the moment it remains a daunting mini-wilderness for which I can only reproach myself. My idea of growing food is still far separated from reality. I'm not a natural gardener. As I cycled onto the site, several people greeted me kindly; asked how I was. I replied that I was embarrassed, but at least I'm not among those on notice to cultivate their plot. Perhaps there's a residue of respect - though I do not seek or expect it - for the work I and others did over ten years by way of political campaigning to get these allotments saved from being built over. [A petition to sign asking the UK Government to withdraw its plans to repeal the duty of local authorities to provide allotments]

The soil feels unforgiving, stony and caked. There are heavy slabs waiting to be used as part of a foundation for a shed. I struggle with the fork, almost fighting the ground as I get started again preparing enough soil to plant a dozen potatoes and sow marrow seeds given us by our neighbour Vasiliki in Ano Korakiana

Γένεσις 3.19: Ἐν ἱδρῶτι τοῦ προσώπου σου φάγῃ τὸν ἄρτον σου ἕως τοῦ ἀποστρέψαι σε εἰς τὴν γῆν ἐξ ἧς ἐλήμφθης ὅτι γῆ εἶ καὶ εἰς γῆν ἀπελεύσῃ*

***
Richard, searching on eBay, bought and gave me a beautifully printed Greek New Testament published in 1813, the same year as Pride and Prejudice.

Corinthians 1:13 ~ Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels...

Ἐὰν ταῖς γλώσσαις τῶν ἀνθρώπων λαλῶ καὶ τῶν ἀγγέλων, ἀγάπην δὲ μὴ ἔχω, γέγονα χαλκὸς ἠχῶν ἢ κύμβαλον ἀλαλάζον...

I'm having a discussion with friends on Facebook - Jon Hunt, Amanda Williams, Margaret Macklin, Alex Kapodistrias about differences between Modern Greek - Katharevousa and Demotic - New Testament Greek and Classical Greek. I guess it is about what various vessels hold these words, how different forms of Greek might be braided by a poet, might contain and protect their meaning and my reflections on them, on love - ἀγαπῶ. Serendipity brought me to Petros Gaitanos, Πέτρος Γαϊτάνος, speaking from Paul's letter to the Corinthians, making it a sublime hymn. Τι χαρά!
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We had our second meeting this evening of the Central Handsworth Practical Care Project (CHPCP). Edmund reported that more or less all of the jobs that had to be done to ensure the legality of the project's vehicles had been done, and that income continued to come in to pay wages and on-going expenses, but the bank account was still tied up so he was having to work with cash, but keeping meticulous receipts and having clients pay cheques into the project's bank account where it was safe accountable but innaccessible. This ridiculous situation has come about because dear Glynis who died last year never worked through a committee with a transparent allocation of tasks 0 Treasurer, Secretary, Project manager and so on - and as mother Chairman didn't bother herself or anyone with little things like holding an AGM and otherwise observing the project's constitution. This means that we remain for the moment an interim board without formal standing because the members of the old committee despite invitations haven't turned up to agree to stay on or resign and approve a new working committee. We continue waiting on the bank to approve the new signatories for the bank account the previous signatories having proved difficult to find or reluctant through family committments to do the necessary hand over paperwork. There's an enormous amount of work to be done in the area, but Edmund and Kris are not getting paid properly and have had to use a small pool of petty cash to buy things like fencing, pay for petrol and mechanical repairs prior to the truck's MOT. Our meeting turned into an emergency meeting to ensure that by June 16 we would have a receipted hand-delivered a letter to every old committee member inviting them to attend or tell us their intention to discontinue their involvement with the project.  

Second meeting of the interim Board of CHPCP

There was a sense of urgency, nervousness even, but our spirits are good. We'll prevail over the present difficulties because of our belief in the project and our enthusiasm about making it work, resolving the frustrations that have arisen from the previous committee's struggles to replace the leadership of Glynis who has died and the patronage of Mahmood Hussain, now deselected, no longer one of our local councillors. Πρέπει να είμαστε αξιόπιστοι.
** **
I got this message today 'If you don't like Nuclear Plants being built in earthquake zones in Turkey, you may want to sign this' . I dislike nuclear plants anywhere, but in nuclear zones they are especially ill advised - a vile legacy for future generations who will look back with contempt at decisions we made for our present advantage even as the sun, an infinitely greater source of safe nuclear energy, shone down on our feckless heads. My name's a drop in the ocean but I signed, so did Lin. There seem by today to be over 29,000 signatures. As Martin Luther King famously said "there's a special place reserved in hell for those who, because they could do so little, did nothing."
** *** **
Lin following Katrina's recipe made orange pie on Wednesday. Liz and Matt - who aren't going on honeymoon in Scotland until the summer - came round and with Guy and Amy and Emma we all tucked in and finished the lot.

Πορτοκαλόπιτα στην Αγγλία

*** ***
The Technological Institute of the Ionian Islands (TEI Ionian) Τεχνολογικό Εκπαιδευτικό Ίδρυμα Ιονίων Νήσων, based in Cephalonia and Levkas, and providing among others things education in ecology, the environment and sustainable agriculture, has taken hard financial cuts. The chairman of the Steering Committee of TEI Ionian, Professor Napoleon Maravegias angered at the decision of the Minister of Education Anna Diamantopoulou to block further applications from students planning to study Business Administration, Technology Organic Agriculture and Food, and IT and Telecommunications, has resigned.

Την παραίτησή του υπέβαλε ο διορισθείς από την υπουργό Αννα Διαμαντοπούλου , πρόεδρος της Διοικούσας Επιτροπής του ΤΕΙ ΙΟΝΙΩΝ ΝΗΣΩΝ , καθηγητής Ναπολέων Μαραβέγιας για λόγους ευθυξίας που αφορά το κλείσιμο τριών τμημάτων του Ιδρύματος.Ο κ..... φέρεται ενοχλημένος από το γεγονός ότι ο ίδιος δεν γνώριζε για την απόφαση του υπ. Παιδείας .

And in Ano Korakiana the few children left in the upper elementary school on Democracy Street will, for the next school year, join children in a larger school between Agios Markos and Pyrgi and the school in our village will be reopened as the new Corfu Special School staffed by about 10 teachers working with up to 40 pupils

Όπως πληροφορηθήκαμε, με απόφαση του Περιφερειακού Δ/ντή Εκπαίδευσης κ. Γαβαλά, στο κτίριο του καταργηθέντος πλέον Δημοτικού Σχολείου Άνω Κορακιάνας πρόκειται από την επόμενη σχολική χρονιά να στεγαστεί το προσφάτως ιδρυθέν Ειδικό Γυμνάσιο Κέρκυρας με 30-40 μαθητές και περί τους 10 καθηγητές. Σχετική αναφορά έγινε και από τον αρμόδιο αντιδήμαρχο για θέματα εκπαίδευσης Κέρκυρας κ. Ποταμίτη.

This news made me think of the Skyros Horse Project on Corfu conceived by a friend of Sally's, Sylvia Dimitriades-Steen, based on an estate in Kanoni about 17 kilometres south of Ano Korakiana. She has been a leading figure in supporting special needs education in Greece. I find the idea of the Skyros Horse project, which I first heard of from Sally, and later from Richard Pine this March, especially pleasurable. On Sylvia D-S's website I read:

More tangibly, the Skyros small-horse - το αρχαίο Ελληνικό ιππάριον - small-horse valued today for the pleasure and inspiration it provides. Its mild character, stamina, intelligence, as well as other unique characteristics, such as friendliness towards people, adults or children, are legendary. This makes the horse ideal for interaction with children and the elderly as a form of therapy - and it is (a) mutual relationship. Besides breeding, the SILVA Project provides riding facilities for children with special needs and eldercare...plans are being completed for a new state-of-the-art Equestrian and Therapeutic Riding Centre. It will have Equine facilities as well as a Special Educational Needs and Disability Division for children, housing for Eldercare and exhibition space... 

*Genesis 3.19: In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.
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This Saturday - 21 May - will see the celebration of the 147th anniversary of the union of the Ionian Islands with Greece - ENΩΣΙΣ 21 ΜΑΪΟΥ 1864; the graffiti in the photo on Corfu Blues <Το Πάθος για τη Λευτεριά είναι Δυνατότερο από Όλα τα Κελιά> 'The passion for freedom is stronger than any prison'. This, as is so often the case with history, was not as straightforwardly welcomed an event as folk history tells:

...there is another dimension to this story. Leftheris has told me, and it's confirmed by Thanassis and Katya as well as by Hilary Paipeti, that neither Ano Korakiana's band nor the band of Kinopiastes, the village south of Corfu town, were wont to join in annual celebrations of the anniversary of enosis with mother Greece on 21 May 1864...