A Dream Fulfilled...
My name is Carol Lynne Ellis, I have always dreamed of living in Cyprus ever since I visited the island in 1961 as a small child. My great great grandfather came to Pervolia in 1862 from the island of Crete. He married a local village girl and raised a large family. It does seem sometimes that I am related to nearly everyone in the village !!
This does help because if I need something done I only have to mention my grandfather's name and someone always helps me.
My grandfather moved to England in 1928 and married my Welsh grandmother in 1930, he spoke 6 languages, Greek, Turkish, English,
Spanish, Italian and French. When I was a child, Bapou (sp) always promised that he would take me to his homeland, and as I mentioned earlier, he fulfilled
that promise when he had a big win on the card tables. In the daytime he ran a café in Brixton, London but during the evening (and most of the night!!) he
was a professional gambler.
Our Journey in 1961
We left Victoria Station on a train and arrived in Calais, took the Transcontinental Express directly to Venice. We stayed in Venice for a couple of days and then
got a boat to Limassol on the SS Achilleus. The journey took about one week, calling at ports of Athens and Alexandria, Egypt. We finally arrived at the port of Limassol
and took a taxi to Pervolia. The earliest memory I have is getting out of the taxi in the dead of night and noticing the extremely high kerbs and pavements, some of which
can still be seen today. There was only one telephone in the village and my relations ran the post office and coffee shop. For those of you who know the village of Pervolia,
the post office and coffee shop is now the Grapevine Bar, just opposite Kokos Taverna. We stayed in Pervolia for 6 months and one day my mother heard this kid speaking fluent Greek,
and much to her surprise, it was me!!!! Unfortunately as time went by I forgot it, and I still cannot remember it, but am learning again!
The next time I visited Cyprus was 1983 and then following that, I've lost count of the number of trips. My mother moved to Kiti in 2001 and loves the way of life here and she has more
cousins here than anywhere else.
Amazing with modern technology, the village went from having one telephone with people queuing to speak to their relatives in England, Australia and South Africa etc, to me in 2005 running an internet centre with ADSL Broadband!!
If you would like to know more about the area and its history then please do call in for a coffee - you will always be assured of a warm Cyprus welcome!
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