Παράθεση:
…I belong to the first post-war generation of Greek migrants and was born in Alexandria, Egypt, where I attended Greek and French schools, followed by a two-year course in an English commercial school. Both my parents were Greek Cypriots and being a British subject, I served in the British Navy until the end of the war in 1945. It was during these war years that the urge to write first manifested itself and, for some reason which I still cannot fathom, I made a conscious decision to write in English – a language in which I was not as well versed as Greek or French. Little did I know then that my obvious infatuation with this foreign language was to develop into a life-time love affair. The publication of my first book, early this year, was the realization of this ambition and now in the 75th year of my life I find myself writing another book and looking forward to a new literary career.
Like most Greek migrants, I married a Greek girl and both my wife and I have been blessed with two daughters and three grandchildren. During the 52 year span of my life as a migrant I had a variety of jobs and occupations, ranging through public servant, cook, clerk, café owner, barman, grocer, storeman, house salesman, business agent, estate agent, furniture and electrical retailer, land developer and home builder. I made and lost money, and consider myself fortunate to have a loving family and good health. Now in the twilight of my life I am poised for a new beginning and I am just as enthusiastic about the future as I was when I first arrived in Perth with ten pounds in my pocket back in 1948.
I still vividly remember the small ship on which I embarked in Port Said in Egypt, together with 250 women and children who were on their way to rejoin their husbands and fathers who had migrated to Australia before the war. The ship, a small 800 ton converted yacht, named s/s Komninos, owned and captained by two Greek brothers, had to detour from Colombo in Sri Lanka, to Jakarta in Indonesia for refueling in order to complete its journey to Perth. The Indonesians were then fighting their colonial masters, the Dutch, for their independence and we were not allowed ashore because of the war hostilities. But the overwhelming memory of that sea voyage was the passage from Jakarta to Perth down the North-west coast of Australia, renowned for its cyclones and shipwrecks. We were barely out of Jakarta when we ran into mountainous seas which buffeted our small ship and tossed it about like a toy. For all of the seven days it took the ship to reach Fremantle everyone was kept below decks, an order readily complied with because hardly anyone could stand up. I remember lying down in my bunk, seasick, but still able to observe through the porthole daylight turning to darkness as our small ship was engulfed by the huge waves. The women wailed and prayed, the children fretted and cried, and the Greek crew, 50 odd experienced sailors, remained calm performing their duties and soothing the passengers’ fears. But the sturdy, small ship must have been well built because it withstood the force of the waves and emerged, time and again, from the dark depths of the ocean into the bright light of day. To compound our problems, the ship’s radio was smashed and we lost contact with the authorities in Fremantle who assumed we were in trouble and sent out aircraft to locate us. We survived and finally made it to port, to be greeted by the local media who for days had been speculating about our fate. The next day the newspapers proclaimed: “Smallest migrant steamship ever to sail to Australia” and demanded an enquiry into the seaworthiness and hygiene conditions of the ship.
When eventually I made it to Melbourne, I discovered a city which was still a sleepy colonial outpost of the British Empire in the Pacific. Those were the days when migrants were expected to renounce their ethnic and cultural identities and assimilate into the prevailing Anglo-Saxon culture. Migrants were referred to as “wogs”, “dagos” or “reffos” and dared not speak their own language in public for fear of being verbally abused or physically assaulted by some aggressive or inebriated Aussie. In this drive for assimilation, migrants were also compelled, by the sheer pressure of conformity, to anglicise their names to avoid undue attention to their origin. My own name, Solon Papadopoulos, was typical and most Greek names were either abbreviated or changed. The prospect of being called “Pappas” did not appeal to my youthful, romantic nature, so I opted for Lawrence Darrell, the name of the protagonist in the novel “The Razor’s Edge”, with whom I developed a spiritual rapport. My contemporaries will probably remember the movie of this novel by English author Somerset Maugham, which starred the late American actor, Tyrone Power, in the leading role of Larry Darrell, back in 1946. To this day, I am treated like a traitor by some of my fellow Greeks for abandoning a name which belonged to the illustrious Athenian poet, law maker and statesman, Solon, who lived in the 6th century before Christ.
In this second half of the twentieth century I was privileged to observe our beautiful island continent being transformed into the modern, multicultural and multilingual society it is now and I am immensely proud to have been one of the many Greek migrants who have contributed to its new, social order, which not only preserves and protects individual cultures but through their fusion and interaction enhances and enriches all humanity.
Πηγη 