Lunch in Ano Perithia

Spring at Ano Perithia

Monday was damp; the house so quiet. Some have taken advantage of the wet, after ten sunny days, to set bonfires, their smoke mixing with the mist making the chill evening air smell like autumn. There was enough sun to dry this morning’s washing. I miss the baby clothes that have hung on our line these last nine days – small smocks and socks. In the morning I don’t, any more, have to go downstairs by the outside steps so that my creaking descent of wooden stairs above the guest bedroom wakes Oliver.

We saw them away round Sunday noon, after they'd reached the end of a long slow queue through airport security.
Was it Friday we had a picnic in the British Cemetery?

Gherkins, marmite and cheese sandwiches in the British Cemetery

The bell in the ivy above the gate rings as we enter. George Psialas, a little more stooped came out to greet us.  Could we picnic?
“Of course, of course” he’d said, talking of the storm that, last month, had broken off branches, damaged shrubs and gouged ditches beside some of the cemetery’s grassy paths, washing away bulbs. He picked Lin a bouquet of red and blue to which he added a slightly incongruous twig of palm attached to a clump of butter coloured seeds. At Lin’s suggestion I placed them in a clay pot on Norman Sheriff’s grave; ‘Stormin’ Norman, who’d bought Summer Song in Spain in the early ‘80s and for a retirement - from the railways - adventured with his wife Pauline along Mediterranean coasts to Turkey and back to Corfu.

We searched, fruitlessly, for the tortoises I’d seen on my last visit, with mum when she came to Corfu in 2010. It was October. The grass had been short after summer. Now this sanctuary is profuse with greenery; abundant, as is all Corfu and Greece, with spring flowers and blossom.

Looking for tortoises

On Saturday – “our last day” – we guided Guy as he drove us over the mountains at Trompetta, down to the sea at Roda and back into the foothills of Pantocrator via Loutses to Old Perithia to have lunch at Foros (Ψησταριά Φορος, Αηω Περίθια), where we were served by Thomas Siriotis who remembered previous visits and asked after Richard Pine. I told him about Richard being back from hospital in Dublin.
“His liver, yes”
“He must not drink any more wine” I said “How can you do that?”
“I haven’t drunk for ten years” he said “Ouzo! It can make you feel sick but you can’t be sick. You want to die.”

Lunch with Oliver, Guy and Amy at Foros

I had thought that to eat food without wine, especially in Greece, would be an imposition. Perhaps not so. As we studied Thomas' menu he sketched us on a blank visiting card, including Oliver, entranced by a furry Alsatian puppy that came out to meet us, seeking scraps from our table.
“Her name?”
“Leda”
“So her father is Zeus?"
“Of course”
He didn’t say anything about the swan or not so's I could follow. We sat in and out of shade under a vine canopy.

I had liver, hardly shown the grill, as I preferred. Lin’s was better done. We shared liver, souvlaki, roast cheese, chicken pie, giro, plates of slim well browned chips, salads with feta and crispy bread with small jugs of red and white wine, water and - on the house - to finish, moist brown walnut cake.

Leda and Oliver

“Thanks for bringing us here” said Guy who paid the bill “We’d never have found this on our own”.
I noticed that the place we’re used to calling Old Perithia seems now to be referred to by people working there as Ano (upper) Perithia. Is it to get away from the connotations of ‘old, palia’? That it is not really a collection of semi-deserted ruins but something becoming a village again? As we left Thomas handed us a cloth wrapping ten fresh eggs from chickens he keeps at his home in Loutses

*** ***

A text from our son. Next day Richard phoned
“We’re in Tiananmen Square”
“Is it vast?”
“the pollution’s so bad you can hardly see the edges"
**** ****

An email from Mike Tye re jobs lined up for Handsworth Helping Hands. 

Hello Simon. These are the gardens that have been requested for action (pics attached). I would like to organise the worker/s to do these. What is our maximum spend on each project I am wondering? Daffs planted on Embankment (not by scouts) but by 4 of us last Sunday. Photos to follow. All the best,  Michael

We were relieved, especially as our Ward Officer is asking about how HHH have been spending the grant we won last year. Lin replied: 

Hi Mike. Really delighted that things are happening while we’re away! As far as ‘maximum spend’ is concerned, we think that £150 would be OK for a start. That would allow, for example, for 12 'man hours' work at £10 per hour plus £30 for any materials needed, or 10 man hours work plus £50 for materials, or 15 man hours work and no materials, etc. In exceptional individual circumstances, the committee might agree to more. You also have to take into consideration:

1. Does the client qualify for help according to criteria we have set?
2. Do they qualify for full funding?
3. Can they afford to pay part of or all of the costs? If so, how much?
4. Who will be doing the work?
5. If members of our group are doing the work, should they be paid, and if so, how much?
6. If we employ someone else to do the work, how much per hour should they be paid?
7. Do people doing the work need a Disclosure & Barring (previously CRB) check before they can start work?
8. Are power tools necessary, and if so, are workers qualified to work with them?
9 How do we monitor the number of hours worked?

I have already devised a recording sheet for jobs, which I’ll bring to the next meeting after we get back, for discussion by the group.
We think that our free gardening activities should be limited to:

1. Clearance and rubbish removal
2. Trimming and pruning
3. Mowing
4. General tidying
5. Repairs to gates, fences, paths, etc.
6. Limited planting.

If clients are prepared to pay, then activities could be extended to include more extensive planting, path laying, turfing, etc.
As this is the first project of this kind, you’ll have to make judgements about what is right this time.
We look forward to hearing how this goes. Please take photos before, during and after, for grant evidence and for our Facebook page.
Good luck and best wishes, Linda, Hon.Treas. Handsworth Helping Hands

 *** ***
From Jan:

Simon. I think The Price of Inequality by Joseph E Stiglitz is worth a read. He is a Nobel prizewinning economist and former chief economist at the World Bank (hardly a crazed left wing radical!). Some quotes:

“those at the top have learned how to suck out money  from the rest in ways the rest are hardly aware “
“politics has been high jacked by a financial elite feathering their own nest”
“We are at the mercy of cartels who are lobbying politicians hard and using monopoly power to boost profits”
“Incomes have fallen and inequality has increased as a direct result of deregulation and privatisation “ ( i.e. no trickle-down effect but the reverse )
“Inequality undermines productivity and retards growth”

He can evidence these conclusions but I doubt if this will make any difference to government policy or that they are even bothered to read it. However it does  provide evidence for  those who wish to pursue a different moral vision based on hard facts. Is there a role for Localism in this?
Another quote (from Petra Reski The Honoured Society) about the Calabrian Mafia in Italy. They have a turn over of £37.8 billion per annum. That buys a lot of political clout and power. The mafia has become an integral part of Italian society:
“The foundation of all mafia power remains their rootedness in social consensus”
I am mindful of our conversation about “intelligent” criminals filling the  vacuum left by the rolling back of the public sector and the new social consensus they could create. Bad news for local democracy. Best Jan

Dear J. Thanks for these. I cannot tell you how much I appreciate your tutoring on the current crisis. I think that I too have been wont to go along with - if not entirely drawn into - the Stockholm syndrome, when it comes to central-local relations. Inlogov has always worked with different political parties, and been as successful over the years during Tory and Labour rule. It has meant that we have eschewed political rhetoric and not allowed ourselves to be slotted into any particular political position. It’s been part of how we work and so part of my own approach (having worked well and ‘happily’ with councils of all shades). I have kept my personal opinions to myself but for the occasional aside. In that sense I've gone along with the cherished principle of officer neutrality as enshrined and subsequently cherished in the 1856 Northcote-Trevelyan Report (what a brilliant 26 page essay on the importance of detaching politics from the working of the civil service that is. It still reads well today!). The trouble, as you have pointed out, is that it necessarily keeps you inside the box of a particular political-management relationship. What you’re telling me is that you - now removed from honourable and competent service in that ‘box’ - are allowing yourself to see things in a political way; suggesting that things are now happening in the world that can mean allegiance to the cherished principle and practice of political neutrality becomes a form of collusion and collaboration with a type of politics that is moving outside the traditional framework of 'normal' political-management practice. I'm especially struck by this paragraph of yours:

There is a danger that the ‘overlap’ maybe about to be overtaken by an ever growing ‘gap’ which needs to be managed in a different way to the ‘overlap’, hence my phrase ‘maintaining the bridge’. In this context, as political ambitions are floundering and managerial manoeuvrability diminishing, the ethical dimensions may be tested to breaking point and beyond. Governance may no longer be able to patrol the boundaries of what is acceptable or not, or the boundaries themselves may shift either deliberately or imperceptibly. 

I have, in the past, addressed a serious break between political steer and managerial action (including ethics) as a situation where an officer may have to consider resigning - having that chat with the family about school fees and mortgage and so on. You are looking at this not as just an officer matter (what an officer may have to do when they can no longer work with a particular leader or political group) but as a situation in which a member and an officer (Leader-CEO) or a political and managerial group come to the view that to serve their community’s interests they may - together - have to maintain a political-management relationship that sees their council in some way or another withdrawing from the current central-local ‘contract’, lest they be in breach of their contract with their locality and its inhabitants.
In order to support such a breach (one almost impossible to sustain given the imbalance of power between centre and locality) there's a need to become familiarised with critiques like that of Stiglitz. Both managers and politicians need to ‘read’ (and have the ‘carrying capacity to do that ‘reading’) the novelty of the situation and form their actions - decisions and rhetoric - in the light of new global analyses of what's happening in  the world - ‘to pursue a different moral vision based on hard facts’. At the moment these 'hard facts' are not seen as facts. We are still assuming our ship is in a storm - a nasty one - rather than that it might be foundering. Best S

*** ***

“Now they’ve gone” said Lin “we can watch a film in the evening”

It was Lars Von Trier’s Breaking the Waves. Even Lin was tearful by the end. It was about ‘goodness’ in its uncelebrated form. Colliding irreconcilables run through the film – faith, love and judgement; the other, secular, atheist, diagnostic, but also love. I was wondering, as I hung the washing this morning, how providential it is, if it is, that I, who strive mostly unsuccessfully to bow to the great mysteries of science and art, yet brought up in faith, liturgy (a softer one than Bess' Wee Free), its language and music, can have regular conversations, as does Bess, with God. She of course is my opposite – being a believer, humble, sweet and good; hence slandered by the religious as damned to hell, and labelled by the secular as deranged. The most fascinating characters in the film are those that stray across the narratives – the nurse, best friend, also Bess' sister-in-law, who prays for a miracle; the piously righteous mother who sides with the church's banishment against her daughter but at last reveals compassion and grief; the priest who tries to break the Calvinist rules; the doctor who, momentarily, retracts his inquest evidence...
“Instead of writing ‘neurotic’, or ‘psychotic’ I might just – erm - use a word like ‘good’”
Mystery and magic are all about - here, now, forever - but necessarily excluded from the small spectrum of reality available to human senses, the prison of gravity and the composition of gases that since my heart began to beat feeds oxygen into my blood. The creative strength to chip one’s way out of that ovule of common sense includes a fervent respect for the job it does in shielding me from the feral, from Bedlam. It's a fearful thing to meet the living God was the old way of putting it. The new way? I will show you fear in a handful of dust. There’s talent and craft and spirit to seeing the world that’s undoubtedly there.

*** ***

We've been collecting wood from the beach at Dassia where, along with the usual driftwood, coppiced Oleander left a harvest of long round logs, easily chopped and sawn, to store in four large builders' bags to dry in the apothiki, now cleared of rubble, with new concreted floor and window. We’ve tidied and sorted there; removing a miscellany of odds and ends for which we can anticipate no use...

...“Thought the moment we throw anything away, we’ll find a job for which it’s just what we need”. The joinery wood's been sorted – short, medium, long – and stored neatly across cypress beams in the eaves, themselves temporarily removed, the ends that enter the wall sawn of rotting tips and treated with preservative. 

*** ***

Meantime emails go to and from our Inverness solicitor about mum’s estate and I, we, have to worry about the sale of mum’s house, the lochan – our thirty year secret place – her holdings, assets, chattels, all the banality of probate; converting what was hallowed into quantity. How sensible it was to put everything on a long boat and send it to sea to burn and sink in the deep, beyond expectations.

Picnic by the lochan

My mother in Ano Korakiana

So my mother has arrived. A cane chair plus two broom poles has worked excellently for carriage up and down the steps from Democracy Street. She relies on her wheelchair and pusher, the latter - left at Gatwick by baggage handlers - arrived here yesterday.

With my parents, John and Barbara Baddeley, in 1943

My mother in Ano Korakiana in October 2010

Since Sunday, the weather’s grown wetter, cloud enclosing the panoramas. Yesterday morning thunder rumbled over the island, sending small shocks through the house. Gifts from neighbours – walnuts, apples, horta, a jar of sugared grapes. My mum’s been embraced and had her hair stroked by some of the children. “They don’t do that to me in Scotland." The last time I recall this clustering of youngsters around her was as we sat in shade by the stepped pyramid of Saqqara.

Neither we nor she really believed that she would make it out here travelling on her own, but here she is, with praise for the airport’s care in transit. The first day we went out, the windows opened in the neighbours’ house for waves and greetings. I’d told them proudly that my mother was coming here for a week; that she was ενενήντα τρία!

As it is I get vexed at any sign she’s insufficiently impressed. Mum's of the non-Greek side of my family.

“This bread. It’s not as good as French baguettes"

At a restaurant near the sea, she remarks “No hummus? No pitta bread? In London the Greek restaurants have all that. Then a well informed friend told me most of those are really Turkish.”

“Mu-um!”

“Well have they got anything really sweet?”

“You mean baklava?”

There was none on the menu - to my embarrassment.

We went to the National Art Gallery in Kato Korakiana, arriving in state as she does, up the ramp, into her chair, the place to ourselves, but for the staff helping with the lifts, ever solicitous.

“I’m unimpressed.”

“Mum! Didn’t you like anything? What about the Ianni Moralis paintings for example?”

“Who?”

Moralis was married to my Greek step-mother Maria before she married my dad, who mum divorced in 1949, giving me two families.

Linda and I enjoyed ourselves, liking the stark settings of a finely documented sequence of paintings, sculptures and installations, deserving far more time.

“The El Greco wasn’t good”

“But mu-um, even to have an El Greco in a small gallery – good or bad – is pretty impressive”

It’s the privilege of venerable antiquity to be fractiously vexed.

She and I sat at a café looking towards Pontikinnisi – grey cloud unfurling across the sky driven by a sturdy breeze from the south. “Tell me about this place”. Over a couple of hours with mezes, chips and later baklava and kataïfi, me sipping a double skirto and water, she with a Coca Cola, I chatted with her about Greece and Corfu.

“These are the best chips I’ve ever eaten” she announced adding “I’ve loved just sitting here” We’d had the place to ourselves, the big car park empty, everything stilled with the end of the holiday season.

“Do you want to go out to Pontikinissi?”

“No I’ll get seasick”

Fair enough. The boats for the three minute ride to Mouse island were packed up. No aircraft arrived or departed in the hours we sat. our talk turning to family, my childhood and the things we’d enjoyed, that she’d made possible and how she left my Dad and how she met Jack, and much later in almost another life had created a home in the Highlands for another generation.

Picnic at the loch when the children were young

Earlier we visited the British Cemetery off San Rocco Square. The little bell rang above the gate and George Psailas came out of the house where he was born and has lived for eighty years to help us up the small step in the little iron gateway. I pushed my mother round the gentle slopes of his flowery garden, she remarking on different plants and shrubs and gazing up to the tall trees that gave us shelter from the gentle drizzle. The mawkishness of artefact and sentiment on some graves was wholly subordinate to their sincerity. “Some do make a good case for cremation though” I muttered too keen to match her tetchiness.

Coming to the misbegotten concrete plinth that since the last two years encases some of the gravestones of those who died in the Corfu Channel Incident we quietly raged, because by then we’d found the place sublime. “Some sincere bean-counter at the impecunious Commonwealth War Graves Commission?" On one aisle between trees we watched tortoises ambling. "Gosh! One of them's having a pee" said Mum "I've never seen that before." We explored the ossuary - long empty - and other plots and heard occasionally the distant noises of the city and the airport.

“Lovely” said Mum signing her name in the visitors' book sat on a table by the gate, protected from the rain by a sheet of plastic. Later George told us there were many more tortoises in the garden since he’d introduced three from a village on the island. “This is a wonderful place” said my mother. “When you and I are over a hundred you’ll come again” he said holding her with infinite gentleness through the cemetery gate. “You know some people are frightened at the idea of living here with all these people in the ground. For me it’s paradise. I have my place here when I die.”

George Psailas

** ** **

Lines I liked from a new story sent me by Graham Hurley:

The noose of recession is tightening by the day. Selling a book like this one won’t ever be easy. People feel comfortable around violence. Anything more challenging is a bit of an ask. Do I really understand what’s at stake here? Isn’t a brimming fridge and a loaded bank account more important than whatever point I’m currently trying to make? (p.106 - my italics)

** ** **

An email to Professor Chakravarti-Kaul:

Dearest Minoti. Would you believe it! My mother has arrived for a week to stay with us in Corfu. She has been chatting away this morning – in the guest bedroom of our small home on Democracy Street in Ano Korakiana - about Sir Henry and the pleasure of your meeting with her, and your letter suggesting she be a Patroness of the Foundation for Common Land in UK and Ireland. She says she would be honoured so long as she’s doesn’t have to lecture or write about something she still feels she has to learn so much about. I have spoken to her about the historical movement from land held in common, to land held by status and then contract – in the context of public green space in Birmingham with which I’m very directly familiar...My mother sends you her love and looks forward so much to meeting you again and hopes to hear from you before then, directly or via me or Sharon.

Do you know the poignant passage in the last paragraph of Forster’s great novel Passage to India; do you recall the lines, when he and Fielding are riding together, about Aziz’s horse tripping on a stone and the thought expressed by Forster ‘not yet, not yet’? 'Even the earth and the sky seem to say, "Not yet."'

When I saw the photo of you and my mother I thought that perhaps – forgive me if I trespass on the deepest of feelings – this meeting between you and her has fulfilled Forster’s other piece of advice ‘only connect’. Perhaps this is the ‘yet’. Embraces from Greece. Simon

** **

David Cameron's speech at the Tory Party Conference in Birmingham and the first notice in Ano Korakiana from the new single local council to cover the whole island from Erikoussa to Paxos

9/10/10: Whoops! Saturday afternoon Thanassis and Katya came to tea. Thanassis told me there are two authorities - one for Corfu and the Diapontian Islands and a separate one for Paxos.

Prophet Elias before Mother Greece

Resting in Corfu

George, Caretaker and Frank, Remembrancer - 20 September 2009

I'd heard of George Psailas from Frank Carrick in 2007. He'd posted an account on the web about the Corfu Channel Incident that had led to the deaths of 44 British sailors when their ships – HMS Volage and HMS Saumarez - struck Albanian laid mines on 22 October 1946. Those whose bodies were recovered were buried by George, who inherited custodianship of the British Cemetery in Corfu from his father, having been born there in 1929, living the last 80 years just inside its gates.

In 1946 he must have been about the same age as many of those he laid to rest. Frank, like me, is a remembrancer, though he states the purpose more clearly “As I see it, Simon, you’re not dead until you’re forgotten.”

He and his wife Fiona live in a town west of Glasgow. As well as a few exchanges on the web, our paths had crossed in that city, unknown to me, arriving at Glasgow Queen Street at the end of July, he’d seen dog Oscar, his lead attached to my luggage, as I strolled the concourse waiting for a train to Inverness.

This time I collected Frank in Dassia at 9.30 Sunday morning. We drove to town, entering San Rocco Square from Polichroni Konstanda, which follows from the road by the General Hospital; then straight out of the square on Dimoulitsa bearing left after a 100 metres on Kolokotroni which, just after the main entrance to the cemetery, brought us to a postern gate in Corfiot green that rang a small bell opening to a whiff of jasmine and the effusions of a cottage garden – tended but unmarshalled – that gave way to walks lined with trees and shrubs, dotted with the promise of flowers, offering various routes to separate spaces with seats and places to stand and gaze.(Frank's photos of our visit)

George, who’d come at the bell to welcome us, left us to stroll, but seemed to appear at the end of different aisles, tending, answering questions, pointing to particular graves – in many cases of men who’d not grown old, not all killed in action, but like Rupert Brooke and Byron, died by accident or disease while intending to. Frank has been here several times before; collecting knowledge especially about our long naval links with Corfu; studied the accounts of what happened in 1946; left poppies and a wreath. I was as entranced with the place as he, unused to the ambiance of so solicitous a stewardship, apprehensive for its continuity. The impulse to lay concrete has spread even here. The Commonwealth War Graves Commission, no doubt with responsible intent - to preserve, avoid litigation, or meet military specification - has encased the footings of newer memorials in rectangular slabs of smooth cement six inches above the surrounding ground, distancing those remembered, including those British, Greek and Germans (from a better era) who did grow old recording their love for one another and the place (‘Resting in Corfu a place so loved’ ‘Goodnight my love I will be up later’ ‘True Corfiote she loved England and was dearly loved by her many English friends’), from the piney soil, moss and flowers, the stumbling passage of tortoises and the companionable diversity of neighbouring graves inside the leafy walls and beneath the trees that absorb the noise of the city’s bustling traffic. Is it that the world seems too chaotic that they must cast part of it in the amalgam of the day, opposing the sanctuary’s gentle entropy? If a wooden cross in memory of 20 year-old Stoker John Jackson of HMS Forte can survive with a few repairs, a little cracked and tilted since 1897, can’t the Commission let those in their care lie as close as he to the same rich earth? "I have a photo of those stokers. There were seven of them" said George "and they must have made up that cross for John Jackson between them."

Some of HMS Forte's stokers

I dropped him off near the Liston to take a pre-war black and white photo of a taverna there, showing ratings from HMS Hood, then our greatest battleship, posing cheerfully in their best whites.

I noted the plaque for Pippa Hughes who in 1992 died of cancer, so George told us, in post as Corfu's British Consul – only 45

‘…Nay I could all but understand wherefore through heaven the white moon ranges and just when, out of her soft fifty changes no unfamiliar face might overlook me, God suddenly took me…’

I’m almost certain she asked for those lines from Browning's naughty poem.

* * *

Ian came round on Saturday to look at our stove pipe and other things. Nick and Nancy, whose house in Skripero he’s helping restore, had told us that Ian “likes fixing other people’s mistakes”. Our chimney won’t draw, leaving smoke in the house and internal joints more prone to drip goo. We need a longer pipe outside, a supporting bracket to cope with gales, and a twirler at the top that, unlike ours that won’t turn at all, revolves in the slightest breeze. “It’s tricky to get at,” said Lin, “we really need it working by winter.” Ian peered out of our back bedroom window, ducked back at wasps swirling from the eaves. “I have to watch out for them. One sting and …” he signed the effect. “It can be done when they’re gone?” “No problem” We’d leave the details, a key, and the new parts with Sally on whose house near ours he’s also working. Then we discussed replacing the external steps to a balcony and door on our upper floor, incomprehensibly removed by the previous owners’ builder. He’d get an estimate and we’d plan that for next year.

** ** **

Was this because we tried to kill the wasps in the roof last night? Am I watching too many films? Eating too much cheese? Reason asleep, I woke from a loathsome dream in which some militia man was teaching us recruits his “interesting” discovery – handcuff two captives sat back to back and … “Watch this.” He shoots one in the head. He slumps; switched off. The other looks outward, the backsplat of blood freckling her cheeks, smiling bravely at us, so it seemed to me. “No” he says flicking his fingers at her unblinking eyes; the grin rictus. “She’s oblivious.”

After getting myself a drink of water I recovered by the windows looking out over the island, hours before sunrise. I could see the mainland lights of Sayaida – not white lights from small streets but the high arc of public lighting on the harbour and the roads – yellow turned orange by thirteen nautical miles of sea strewn with the blaze of ships, some anchored off, others slowly moving; on land below the house, the familiar constellations of street lighting below the village and miles southward, darkened land suffused with the doppler of engines. A few cocks crow in memory of the withering spirit of place; the exhaustion of the gift suggested by Lawrence Durrell, about the time I was born, that ‘Greece offers you … the discovery of yourself.’ I enjoyed and evaded that when, in youth, I scrambled down scrubby hills below Delphi, seeking a glimpse of sheep attached to distant bells – and on countless other occasions that I had Greece to myself on land and sea. Durrell’s use of the word ‘offer’ implies just that possibility – to uncover and reject a personal paradise, forced out by sword, or more likely, through volition, with the dawn of common day. Innocence lasts with children who die or unformed minds fixed in infancy. With age - mine and this cementing land's - and tho' nothing's more important, Greece no longer makes me that offer.

* * *

Talking to mum on the phone the chance she can come here next Easter increases, especially with Mark's assurance of making a small ramp to get her wheelchair down our steps when she comes to us, perhaps booked in to a suitable hotel. "One way or another I'm determined to do it. I'll bring my walker, if you find a wheelchair there." One of the places we'd definitely go was where we picnic'd yesterday with Honey and Alan, by the shore below Mon Repos - a lovely Sunday afternoon ending at Alan's house with scones, jam, clotted cream and real lemonade made by Honey.

A richer dust concealed

22 Oct 1946. Photo: T A Russell D/KX100469

I received this e-mail yesterday from Frank Carrick, a veteran of the Royal Navy living in Ayrshire:

The British Cemetery and The Corfu Channel Incident*

As a regular visitor to Corfu I thought I had seen most of the island and places of interest. However about three years ago one of my Greek friends asked if I had ever paid a visit to the British Cemetery in Corfu Town. To my shame I had never even heard of it! The very next morning I set off for the Town and the Cemetery thinking it would be difficult to find as I had never seen it in all my visits to Corfu, but my fears were unfounded; just crossed San Rocco Square to the Airport Road, walked about a hundred yards and there it was, the gate to the British Cemetery. As I opened the gate it was like entering another world, it was so quiet, tranquil, and after the traffic noise and the hustle and bustle of the dusty town centre it was like heaven, unbelievably peaceful and quiet. A little bell disturbs the peace for a second as the gate is opened, and almost instantly the figure of the caretaker appears before you. He enquires as to your preferred language, introduces himself and then proceeds to give the visitor the history of the cemetery, locations of certain memorials and a bit of his own life story, and offers a guided tour. The caretaker is called George Psaila and he was born in 1927 in the Cemetery. He was married in the Cemetery and he will show you where he will be buried when his time comes. George took over the duties of caretaker in 1944 on the death of his father, who had looked after the Cemetery since 1924. The British Cemetery in Corfu town is also famous worldwide for the orchids that grow in the gardens. Some, so I've been told, grow nowhere else. Visitors from all around the world come to see them bloom in I believe March/April/May. In addition to the supervision of the cemetery, George is also responsible for the orchids and is a bit of an expert. On my first visit George accompanied me around the cemetery gardens pointing out interesting monuments and telling me of some of the people buried there. In the main the cemetery is the last resting place for British soldiers, sailors and members of their families since 1814 when Corfu was under British Protection (1814-1864). However there is a section dedicated to Germans killed during their occupation of the island (1943-44) and even some from the Kaiser's time (his personal boat crew). Most of the German remains have been returned to Germany although the monuments remain. One interesting German grave is of Erich Kerizen (09.10.1944), murdered by his own men after he prevented the destruction of the harbour in Corfu by cutting connections to the explosives as the Germans were leaving at the end of the occupation. The cemetery also contains the remains and memorial to British VC holder John Conners (1830-1857). He was about 24 years old, and a private in the 3rd Regiment, (later The East Kent Regiment - The Buffs), in the British Army during the Crimean War when the following deed took place for which he was awarded the VC.

On 8 September 1855 at Sebastopol in the Crimea, Private Connors showed conspicuous gallantry at the assault on the Redan in personal conflict with the enemy. He rescued an officer of the 30th Regiment who was surrounded by Russians, by shooting one and bayoneting another and then for some time carried on a hand-to-hand encounter against great odds until support arrived.

He survived the war and died in Corfu 29th Jan 1857. There are a few more interesting monuments all around these quiet gardens, with their own captivating tales, but the area I personally found to be most intriguing was the memorial and graves of British sailors killed during what became known as 'The Corfu Incident'. In the far left hand side of the cemetery, deep in the shade stands a large white stone, with the names of 32 Royal Navy personnel from the ships HMS Volage and HMS Saumarez, killed by Albanian mines in 1946, and whose bodies were never recovered. In a neat line leading away from the main memorial lie another 13 smaller white stones. These mark the remains of those 12 sailors recovered from the ships, plus the remains of a young midshipman (18 years old) from HMS Forth who died in Gibraltar in 1951 and was transferred to Corfu. Being ex-RN I became intrigued by these graves and the story surrounding them. I had never heard of the 'Corfu Incident', and yet here lay the remains of 44 British Seaman killed by mines one year after the war had ended. Why and how? I decided to find out not only for myself, but to keep the story alive in the hope that these sailors would not be forgotten. Here is what I've found out so far. In May of 1946 Albanian shore batteries fired upon two British cruisers, HMS Orion and HMS Superb. As Britain had just won the war and supposedly ruled the seas, they could not ignore this episode had to make the point that the straits between Corfu and Albania could and should be used freely by ships going about their lawful and peaceful business. In a show of force designed to demonstrate who was boss (my opinion), in October 1946, four British ships led by the cruiser HMS Mauritius sailed through the narrow channel, which were at the time recognised International Waters. HMS Saumarez, a destroyer, was in second in line, with the cruiser HMS Leander and destroyer, HMS Volage, following behind. Just off Saranda, HMS Saumarez struck a mine. It was a massive explosion just below her bridge on the starboard side. HMS Volage was ordered to aid the crippled ship and if possible take her under tow. The Volage managed to secure a tow rope, (despite the surrounding sea burning with oil) and start the tow. Tragically as she moved off, she herself hit a mine which blew off her bow, the tow and instantly killed eight men. Despite the damage and loss of life to HMS Volage her crew courageously manoeuvred her back to a position where she could recover the tow. She accomplished this but had to tow the Saumarez astern; that is both ships sailing stern first. What a feat of seamanship and real bravery. It took thirteen hours to travel the sixteen miles to Corfu, it must have been a terrifying experience for all the surviving seamen, living through the horror of the explosion and the loss of their shipmates and friends and for every minute that passed of those long hours at sea, the thought in the back of their own minds must have been are there any more mines? Thirteen hours of expecting another explosion, of 'is this my last moment?' The channel had been swept clear of mines after the war. The straits had also been used recently without incident. so there was no way of knowing if the rest of the passage through the straits would be safe. Terrifying indeed. They must also have been very brave. A total of 44 men were killed. There were also another 50 men who suffered serious injuries. Albania denied laying the mines and any knowledge of them. However the Royal Navy swept the Straits and found that, in all, there had been a total of 25 brand new mines in the channel. This proved they were not rogue mines left over from the war. The League of Nations proved that the mines could not have been put in position without the knowledge of Albania, who had manned look-out points and shore batteries all along the coast. Albania counter-charged Britain for trespassing in Albanian waters without permission and sweeping for mines. Britain was found guilty of this charge! Albania was found guilty of laying the mines or having knowledge of them and fined about £830,000. The fine was never paid nor an apology ever received for the murder of those sailors, for that was what it was. Murder!! In June of this year 2007, I returned to Corfu with a wreath from the RBLS Irvine Branch and placed it at the memorial to the men killed in the Corfu Incident. I was accompanied by a friend Dave Hughes (ex-Para). It was his first visit and he was quite moved by, not only the incident, but the British Cemetery and the dedication of George Psailas to his task of looking after the gardens. I say 'gardens', for that is what they are. Every grave has wild flowers growing on them, and although it is a cemetery it is still a delightful place to have a stroll or even spend some time watching the resident tortoises wander around (George also puts out fresh fruit and veg for them) in the shade. It must be really beautiful when the orchids are in bloom. On leaving the cemetery there is a visitors' book and many messages in many languages appear here. You can also leave a small donation to help with the upkeep. You don't have to and no offence taken if you refrain. The wreath laid this year was dedicated not only to those men lost during 'The Incident' but to the Late Peter Smith who served on HMS Saumarez and survived the mine. He died on the 28th April this year. Peter's best friend or 'Oppoe' was AB Vernon Francis who was killed by the mine and his body never recovered. Peter named his son after his pal, and that son, Vernon Smith, asked me to say a few words on his behalf at the memorial. Vernon also told me his father was always troubled by the fact that he never knew if his friend Vernon's body was ever recovered. It is to my regret that I could not give a definite answer to him before he passed away. I have included some pictures with these notes, most are my own. Two B/W of the funeral in the British Cemetery are by kind permission of George Psaila the caretaker of the British Cemetery Corfu and are featured in a little booklet he wrote 'The Orchid House' in 1984 Martin Richards for the B&W pictures of HMS Saumarez and HMS Volage. I don't know him personally, but the pictures came to me via a very long route.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old: Age shall not weary them, nor the years contemn. At the going down of the sun and in the morning We will remember them.

The words written in the previous pages are my own, as are the opinions. The whole incident has been covered by better and more informed people than me. There has been a book written on the subject, which I have been unable to acquire at this time. The title is 'The Corfu Incident" by Eric Leggett. New English Library: 1976 ISBN-13: 9780450024740 ISBN: 0450024741 George Psailas attended the funerals of the sailors killed by the mines in his second year as Supervisor. The Commonwealth War Graves Commission awarded him a prize of honour in 1977. It reads:

Certificate Presented by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission to George Psailas In Recognition of Long and Devoted Service

[Directions: From Corfu seafront to south of the old town and turn inland onto Alexandras Avenue, which is a big tree lined avenue. At the top of this is Place George Theotoki which contains a roundabout. From this roundabout follow the signs for the hospital and the British Cemetery down Polichronis Konstanta. The cemetery is to the left and very close to the prison.] Further accounts by Thomas Arthur Russell gathered on the BBC People's War site (he is the source of the photo at the top of this entry. It cannot he by him as he was on HMS Saumarez.

* * * * *An earlier 'Corfu Incident' occurred after four Italians, including General Enrico Tellini, were stopped on 23 Aug 1927 on a road between Greece and Albania by a fallen tree. They were shot and killed on the Greek side of the border. Mussolini sent an ultimatum demanding 50 million lire reparation and the execution of those involved. [see Corfiot Italians used as a pretext by Mussolini for Italian expansionism] Greece was unable to identify them. Italy bombarded and occupied Corfu on 31 August, killing at least fifteen civilians. Greece appealed to the League of Nations, which handed the issue to the Conference of Ambassadors - set up by the allies to deal with problems arising out of treaties following WW1. Italy and Greece agreed to be bound by its decision. The Conference ordered Greece to apologise and pay reparations. Italy left Corfu on 27 September 1923 after Greece accepted the Ambassadors' decision. This incident enabled Mussolini to use Tellini's murder as a pretext for seizing a strategic foothold on Corfu and, even more important in terms of his reputation, to show that he could use force majeure to achieve his ambitions. The 'Corfu Incident' of 1927 comes up on Google before the one in 1946. It is far better known among Greeks. It was the first and highly public failure by the fledgling League of Nations' to resolve an international dispute. The incident of 1946 is a vicious footnote to history. The incident of 1927, or how it was handled by the democracies of Europe, helped to make history by sending a message to the world that might makes right. A picture I requested from Frank Carrick, which captures the serenity of the British Cemetery in Corfu. Thanks to George Psailas for his stewardship of 'our people' in this green plot under a Greek sun:

If I should die, think only this of me; That there's some corner of a foreign field That is for ever England. There shall be In that rich earth a richer dust concealed; A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware, Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam, A body of England's breathing English air, Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home. And think, this heart, all evil shed away, A pulse in the eternal mind, no less Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given; Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day;And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness, In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.

[My Iraqi friend said: 'A smile starts on the lips, A grin spreads to the eyes. A chuckle comes from the belly. But a good laugh bursts forth from the soul, overflows, and bubbles all around' Rupert Brooke, poet and officer of the Royal Navy who died on a transporter off Lemnos departing for the fighting at Gallipoli, is buried on Skyros in the Northern Sporades. I've added for pleasure and joy another English thing (er - actually - a German born composer sung by a New Zealander), Teddy Tahu Rhodes, on the edge of triumphant laughter, singing Handel's 'The Trumpet Shall Sound' to a fine trumpeter. Were I to name a British Zorba , T T Rhodes would be he. Note to perceptive Greeks: I use 'English' in its archaic sense to mean 'British'. Now we are becoming four nations again, I refer to those from England, Wales, Scotland and N.Ireland as 'British' but I'm 80% Scots. Linda is all English, Frank Carrick is surely Scottish, and no doubt all these, and probably more, are to be found among the men of Saumarez and Volage who lie in the cemetery near San Rocco Square.]

The Corfu Channel. Saranda in the distance - September 2006

[Back to the future: My visit with Frank Carrick, writer of most above's post, to the British Cemetery this September 2009]

[Back to the future 3 Nov 2009: I've just seen a story by Malcolm Brabant reporting the discovery of remains on a stern portion of HMS Volage. ... 12/11/16 The link to this story no longer exists. Try HMS Volage - see final paragraphs]