Monday 21st May 2007, after telling my father over twenty five years ago that I would one day take his ashes and scatter them around his home Village, I actually kept that promise today.

The week before, Aunt Sophia had arranged for priest Michael, to say prays at Saint George’s Church, Larnaca.

My dad left home when he was twenty to travel to England in 1938, this was after his mother Margarita had died of Pleurisy at the age of thirty eight, this was after she had ten children.  So, when 40 days of mourning was over, he left Cyprus not to return again for thirty five years.

In London during the Second World War he met my mother, Sarah and they were married after the war, living in South London. 

In the late 1940’s there were three children, my sister Rita, followed by Rene and then me, Christopher, Kyriacos.

I don’t know how he got into the restaurant business, at some point he worked in a posh hotel in Surrey during the War and I suppose he was good at it.  So in the early 1950’s he started working at the ‘Casa Pepe’, a Spanish Restaurant just off Wardour Street in Gerrard Street Soho, in the West End of London, at some point becoming the manager.

Although my dad spoke good English, he actually spent half his day speaking Spanish, in fact he spoke it so well that he was without question Spanish.  No matter what I said, anyone who knew him refused to believe he wasn’t.  In the end I gave up trying and like my dad went along with it.

During the 1950’s Aunt’s Chrystalla and Niki, also Uncle’s Nicos and Andreas made the journey to the South East of England.  Sadly Uncle Nicos died some years ago in North London leaving a widow Sotira, they had no children.  Recently Uncle Andreas also passed away leaving a widow, Giorgoulla, three children and two grand sons.

My mother Sarah was born in 1908, passing away in the year 2000, she was ninety two, a pretty good age which I’m hoping might rub-off on me.