Monday, February 20/2017

Seems to be spring, although perhaps unwise to say so aloud. J and I meet at St Helena's charity shop and pick up short sleeved shirts that can always be redonated later. Conversation with Liz who runs the shop about what we all perceive as the unlikelihood of Cyprus reunification, given (among other things) that the government has recently passed legislation requiring schools to commemorate Enosis (with a holiday?) considering the number of Turkish Cypriot deaths associated with the Enosis movement (an attempt to force political union with Greece), this has naturally triggered huge Turkish protest. Liz says that she lived in Cyprus during the sixties, when her husband was in the British forces. This, of course being well before the Turkish invasion (or intervention, depending on which side is providing the narrative). She remembers when the British provided convoy escorts to take people from Nicosia to Kyrenia because Turks were likely to throw stones at the vehicles on the road. On the other hand, she also remembers General Grivas [Greek] entering a village with soldiers and killing women, children, and the old.