Gone to the Costas, but the unique Isle of Man could win back tourists lost to sunnier destinations like Spain, Italy and Greece by marketing its many “differences”. There’s a colony of “Little People” at Fairy Bridge and a 1,000-year lineage back to the ruling Vikings to differentiate the island and spearhead a tourism revival.

Fairies and Vikings quickly became one of the mainstays of the media and marketing contract London Mayfair-based Grafton Public Relations provided for the Isle of Man Government in the 1970s. First, we suggested emphasising the “differences” between that place and the rest of the British Isles. Press releases and briefings to travel writers, as well as general media and TV holiday programmes like Wish You Were Here, always stressed what made it such a unique place.

The Isle of Man might be the geographical centre of the British Isles, but it’s not a member country of the United Kingdom.

England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland comprise the UK, while Eire, the Channel Islands and the Isle Man are independent, each with its own Parliament and self-governance and taxation. Not a lot of people knew that at the time. In the case of the Isle of Man (and the Channel Islands), the income tax was so low that it has long attracted wealthy UK executives to practise the art of tax avoidance with offshore companies, residences, and secret bank accounts.

That one “difference” earned the Island – and Channel Islands – loadsa dosh and produced many new job opportunities.

But, tourism in the Isle of Man, the traditional “big earner”, was shrinking, as package holidays to Spain and other sunnier climes reduced the Manx arrivals to a fraction of what they had been in the halcyon years of post-First World War Wakes Week holidays. That was when thousands of workers from Glasgow, Manchester, Liverpool and other Northern industrial towns caught the ferry across from Liverpool for a holiday on the Isle of Man.

Real ale pubs by law

They came for the green countryside, long sandy beaches, magical leafy glens and great nights out in concert halls and old-fashioned real pubs that, by local decree, could sell only real ale. There were, and remain, typical seaside attractions in Douglas and a range of heritage transportation – steam, electricity and horsepower – to visit other scenic places and resorts.

The island may have mature palm trees and semi-tropical greenery, but the weather is no better than in mainland Britain. The Isle of Man is washed by the warming Gulf Stream that keeps it very temperate, but it can be deluged by Atlantic rain clouds that deposit bucket-loads – bounced across the Irish Sea from the Mountains of Mourne. Mainly, though, the Mourne Bounce sends rain clouds further to reach the Lake District on mainland England, where the very name provides its regular weather forecast.

There is not much difference in the climate, so how can we boost the important big earner of tourism and regain some of the visitors and vital revenue lost to Spain and other Med destinations? With tourist board officials, my Grafton partners and I looked carefully at the prospects for special interest holidays: Fell walking, bike trails, vintage transport, dance and sporting festivals, fishing, and whale and basking shark watching. These activities, and others, existed and could be developed with targeted investment and marketing.

The Manx Government realised tourism would no longer be a numbers game – the mass market was lost to the Costas, probably forever. The Island’s tourism bosses were keen to pursue different niche and special interest markets that could be enhanced by the unique elements of place, form, tradition and heritage.

The most significant special interest had to be the famous Isle of Man TT Races when 40,000 bikers descended on the island. They came to watch daredevil riders whizzing along standard roads and streets at speeds up to 200 miles an hour. It was always a week-long fest of adrenalin-fuelled racing and alcohol-fuelled mayhem that meant everybody had a great time and promised to return to the most dangerous race on the planet –“‘til death do us part.” There have been 242 rider deaths in the 107 occasions the races have been staged since 1907.

The carnival atmosphere of TT week peaks on “Mad Sunday”, when every visiting biker has unfettered access to the 37-mile long TT course and can give it some throttle. Thousands of bikers soaking up the thrills of sharp bends, long high-speed straights and the sensation of flying across humped Ballough Bridge adds up to a unique, very scary experience.

TT detractors often count up the dead riders and biker fans who never made it around the circuit and call for the event to be abandoned. It has been described as the most dangerous sports event on the planet due to the high death rate.

Many headed for a Costa holiday

Because of this, it lost its official status in 1976 after 10-time TT winner Giacomo Agostini and other pro riders boycotted the event, and the once most prestigious race on the Grand Prix calendar was stripped of its world championship involvement. Despite that setback, the event continues to prosper and attracts record numbers of fans worldwide.

The local business owners had a wonderful time, too, and spent days counting up their newly provided wealth and deciding how to spend it at the end of the holiday season. Many headed for a Costa holiday on direct chartered flights.

However, the island needed other “special interest” visitors to survive against the Mediterranean attractions. What role could the media play in getting that message across?

Experience special interest activities

Would it be possible to enlist the aid of prime opinion formers, the ladies and gentlemen of the Press who might appreciate a freebie trip to the Isle of Man and could help to put in a good word to their readers?

After further meetings with the Manx Government, we finalised a special interest tourism strategy that we could test via an official press trip, the biggest ever, to the island. And we had a television crew included.

The media people could experience all the special interest activities like hill walking, beach combing, bird watching, cycling, golf, tennis, rugby and football, etc. We hoped these different activities would replace the lost bucket and spade holidaymakers and help the island’s tourism survive. The unspoiled beaches and clear sea would always be major attractions at the height of summer, but we also want to increase arrivals in the shoulder periods of the year.

We compiled an invitation list covering travel media, provincial, special interest and national media. We finished up with a dozen journalists representing national, regional and city publications and a film crew assembling at Liverpool Pierhead to board a brand new ferry, the Lady of Mann II, for the 77-mile crossing to the Isle of Man.

The new ferry was fast, smooth and comfortable and the local Manx ales travelled well enough to keep us occupied and excitable when we were invited by the ship’s master to the bridge for the first view of the Island.

When we disembarked, we did a press team photoshoot with my new Citroen CX company car, driven from the ferry’s car deck. It was the first of those models to be seen on the island. I thought it would be helpful on side trips to distant attractions, especially as there are no speed limits on island roads.

Free drinks for gamblers

Our party was booked into the Palace Hotel & Casino on the promenade of the island capital, Douglas. Everyone was given a bay-view room in the newest part of the hotel and invited for welcome drinks with officials and to sample local cuisine in the restaurant.

The heart of Island social life is the infamous Round Bar at the Casino, and that’s where we assembled for our first look at something different – Britain’s only public casino. It’s not Monte Carlo, but there are gaming tables, one-armed bandits, and free drinks for gamblers who can stay until 3am or whenever they have lost all their cash – whichever comes sooner.

There was cabaret and dancing, but despite those temptations, everyone in the press party boarded the coach on time the following day for their first look at this different place.

Protected from the wrath of fairies

The Manx are a different people and harbour superstitions about fairies, giants and certain wildlife. A few miles south of Douglas, our guide on the coach PA warned the passengers about the mischief and wrath of the fairies who live at Fairy Bridge that’s “coming up in a few minutes”. Automated “Fairy” warnings are fitted to the Island’s buses. It is the custom that every Manx person adheres to, which is that they should greet the fairies as they cross the bridge, and if they don’t, something untoward will happen to them.

The press party was encouraged to practise “Good morning, little people” as the coach crawled slowly across the fairies’ tree-lined haunt. An onboard film crew recorded the muted response and demanded a more robust communal greeting. The coach went back and forth several times before the sound recordist was happy, antics that presumably had the watching little people in raptures.

But our greetings meant we were protected for the rest of the day. I noticed one of the journalists had not fully participated, but you couldn’t blame a serious writer from a broadsheet national newspaper for being a bit dubious, could you? However, I couldn’t help but wonder what his fate might be. 

We toured Castletown Brewery and the 12th-century Castle Rushen, the last Royalist stronghold to fall in the English Civil War. It is said to be the best-preserved castle in Europe and big enough to get lost in – as happened to the guide presenter in this video tour.

A large clock presented by Queen Elizabeth I in 1597 still keeps good time for the Castletown folk who are used to the lack of a minute hand. Time passes slowly on the island, based on the old Manx saying “Traa-dy-Llooar, ” meaning “Time enough”. It makes the Spanish “Hasta manaña” look pretty damned quick. The national emblem displaying three legs and a castle clock with only one hand are notable differences on this island.

So is an annual Viking invasion reenactment that includes longboats landing on Peel Beach to slug it out with staunch Celtic defenders. The Vikings always win, but then they must lay on a boozy feast in their nearby Longhouse. It would test the stamina of Fleet Street’s finest drinkers.

The Vikings established Tynwald (meeting place), the world’s longest continuously sitting parliament at the very centre of the Isle of Man in AD 979. Queen Elizabeth II, as the Lord of Mann, sat on a wooden throne atop a tiered earthworks to hear the latest Island laws read out in Celtic Manx on July 5 1979; 1,000 years later. It was the highlight of the Millennium celebrations.

Some media people on our trip couldn’t grasp how Tynwald could precede the so-called “Mother of Parliaments” in London.

Basking sharks are Gulf Stream drifters

Fish in Manx waters are cooperative and easy to catch. One day, we took our visiting journalists on a tour of various special interest activities, with trout fishing proving a great hit. There were a lot of catches, bringing happy shouts along the banks of the lake. The guy from the Daily Mirror didn’t need to hook one – a large trout leapt out of the water and smacked into his face. His report was headed “Fish Bites Man” and highlighted the island’s differences.

I recalled an angling trip from Douglas Harbour and filling our little boat with dogfish that we were hauling in non-stop using just standard fishing rods.

Basking sharks drift northwards in the warm Gulf Stream through Manx waters and there are boat trips during which tourists can enjoy close-up views and even pat the spikey backs of the 40-foot giants. Dolphins and porpoises can be seen frequently.

By the end of the press tour of the island, something had changed about our fairy-sceptical reporter. Since leaving Liverpool Pierhead, he had been wearing an expensive Astrakhan Nehru-style hat, which had been on his head throughout. Now, it was missing, and he was very concerned.

I thought about his subdued greetings at Fairy Bridge and couldn’t help wondering… Anyway, the headgear was never seen again and, cue, more folklore of this different place.

Resultant editorial coverage confirmed our “different place” message had got through to our Press guests. Their reports highlighted the strong identity and rich heritage of a quirky, fascinating holiday destination. Television’s Wish You Were Here devoted an hour-long programme that covered activities and attractions, including horse-drawn trams, the world’s biggest working waterwheel and a live-work crofting community village.

Coming up in Ancestry Stories.
Don’t miss true stories of Cyprus, including:
Bombed out of Cyprus as the Turks invaded. | Hands-on with naked Goddess of Love.

A family’s ancestry can take many different turns through time. My “turning” came when, as a determined 16-year-old, I arrived at the crossroads and changed direction without hesitation. I had two feet on the ladder in journalism, and our family history was mapped out. I was on the road to a career I had dreamt about for a long wanted, above all else, to be a newspaper reporter.

I had landed a summer holidays office junior job at the pioneering Oldham Press Agency based at the heart of the Lancashire cotton spinning industry. The firm employed freelance writers and photographers to serve news and features to British national newspapers, radio and television. I made the tea, kept reporters supplied with sandwiches or cigs and filed newspaper cuttings.

The week before I was due to return to school, I persuaded my bosses to take a further chance on a young working-class bloke. Keeping me on for a trial period as a trainee news reporter. My main advantage was that my grocery store “Saturday job” had paid for private lessons in typing and Pitman’s shorthand – essential skills for the press role. Probably, I had spent as much time on “required skills” as preparing for the next year in the sixth form and more exams, then further education options.

My English master was an ex-journalist who encouraged my ambition and admitted, “Walker, I can’t mark your essays by normal standards”. I took that as a compliment. That he might have meant it another way didn’t occur to me then.

My “persuasive words” at the news agency meant I could be a trainee journalist – my dream wannabe – sooner and with more certainty than taking the further education route. And, as they say in Lancashire, “A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush”. So I had pushed the idea to my parents (“Opportunity seldom knocks twice”) and, reluctantly, (“Look before you leap!”) they went along with it. One foot on the ladder in journalism (“You reap what you sow”) and I was ready to climb higher.

It also helped that, in 1958, I was in the right place at the right time as wartime shortages of newsprint were ending gradually. This enabled newspapers to expand with increased demand for news stories and features, with more people required to produce them. And, of course, more advertising because war materials production had switched to consumer goods – like twin tub washing machines, televisions and Ascot water heaters. Advertising gave additional pages for newspapers and magazines and more stories to “Keep the ads apart”.

Sniff out more good stories

Soon, I did my best with bottom-of-the-page stories in the Manchester Evening Chronicle and Manchester Evening News. As I watched and learned from my colleagues at the Oldham Press Agency, my confidence grew, as did my news sense – that elusive “nose for news” essential for success. Freelance journalists were paid only for what appeared in print and the number of column inches occupied. Do you need to eat? Sniff out more good stories.

As a trainee, I was paid a weekly wage, as were the three other reporters and two photographers at Oldham Press Agency. For this opportunity to learn on the job, I would have paid the agency… Getting to this same place on the career ladder might have taken five or more years of further education. What I needed now was more skills and experience. All looking good. I was in the right place at the right time.

The company was owned by Tom Brennand and Roy Bottomley, two brilliant journalists whose skills and experience attracted every major newspaper and agency to their visionary news service. Within a few years, their talents were evident on successive hit television programmes, and millions of viewers followed their storylines on soaps like Emmerdale Farm and soccer saga United. Roy subsequently worked on This is Your Life scripts with presenter Eamon Andrews for 26 years.

They were inspirational and encouraged my early efforts with short “fillers” for the Manchester evening papers, which were keen to add circulation in the Oldham area. Snippets from local councils, police, fire, and ambulance contacts could be tagged onto more significant stories and help fill out the typeset column.

Trained to dictate stories

My first task during the working day was to browse every edition of every newspaper the news agency served and clip out the stories and pictures we sent as a check against payments duly received. I could study the nuanced differences in the treatment of stories in various national papers. That was an invaluable daily lesson in editing and headline writing. How do they do that – it was dazzling.

I was trained to dictate our stories (called “copy”) to lightning-fast typists (“copy-takers”) down the phone, adding in detailed punctuation and pacing my voice to synchronise with the typewriting. On a good day, stories flow at speeds of up to 120 words a minute.

Pictures were all black and white, and prints were sent to railway stations for collection by regular messengers. I slipped our captioned photo offerings into hard-back envelopes and labelled them for collection by the publication. Then I rushed to Oldham station to ensure they were deposited in the guard’s van of the next departing train for Manchester. It worked smoothly; often, photos went from the darkroom to the picture desk in about an hour.

Life at Oldham Press Agency changed as the principals, Tom Brennand and Roy Bottomley, spent more time at the Daily Mirror’s Manchester office. By now, it was the biggest daily seller in the land, with its sensational story presentation, massive headlines, and appeal to the working man – epitomised by its cartoon character, Andy Capp.

Heady cocktail of local interest pieces

The Mirror and its sister paper, the Sunday Pictorial, had the most journalists. They were driven relentlessly to find the most sensational stories of each day. A heady cocktail of “local human interest” pieces full of colourful quotes and Lefty social ills reportage was served with every issue… Exactly the coverage the average working-class family in every region of the country could relate to.

Northern readers, who worked in the coal mines, the steelworks, shipyards, textile mills and other industries, mainly voted Labour while remaining conservative in outlook. They laughed and cried with their copies of the Mirror. Cartoon character Andy Capp has had his finger on the nation’s pulse since its launch in 1957.

Daily Mirror editorial staffers were the best paid in the business, and freelancers like Tom and Roy, working “day duties” at the paper’s Manchester office, became big earners. When they got too busy at the Mirror, they called in their senior employees from Oldham Press Agency to help with a few day duties.

First “death knock” with shotgun story

That gave a bit of a boost to the lower rankings like me, who stepped up to the bigger, better stories and the experience they provided. There were human interest stories all around. Oldham Press Agency managed to get ever-increasing coverage in the national dailies and television news programmes were a new and expanding market for freelance journalists.

One of my more gruesome stories was the 16-year-old farm kid from hill town Saddleworth who accidentally shot himself with his dad’s shotgun. I got to the scene quickly. It was not a pretty sight. Part of his face had been blown away.

This was my first “Death Knock” asking for a photograph from a grieving father whose gun had slain his only son, which is as bad as it gets. It was a tragic accident that would haunt his family and locals for many years to come. I remember it still.

There were quite a few “Happy Knocks” too. In those days, everybody played the football pools, including my dad and gran, hoping to win a fortune in prize money. Oldham Press Agency got a contract from Norman Martlew, a former Daily Mirror journalist who became the PR chief for Littlewoods Pools in Liverpool. The job was to tell the lucky punters they had won a big jackpot prize and get their story into the newspaper.

Football pools winners

Every time there was a big winner, Littlewoods sent in details, and one of us (with a photographer) would race out to get the interview and pictures of the delighted winners. A rare few had marked an X on their entry, requesting no publicity if they won anything. They quickly forgot this in the excitement and their story inevitably appeared in local and national papers and TV news programmes.

The pool wins got bigger, and in 1961, when Keith and Viv Nicholson won the £152,000 jackpot, it generated historic levels of coverage with her answer to the reporter’s first question. “I’m going to spend, spend, spend.”  It was all gone within three years, but her story of the working-class woman who preferred glam adventure inspired a TV drama, a book and a hit West End musical.

The Nicholsons lived in Halifax, so Oldham Press Agency missed out on the biggest pools story ever, including the cheque presentation by entertainer, Bruce Forsyth.

There were happy moments, too, as rock n roll swept across the Atlantic and newspapers learned how to cope with the social changes that followed the whirlwind. Rock groups as they stormed across the land.

One junior reporter sent out to review an early rock concert wrote:
“The double bass player had the girls in ecstasy when he lay down on the ground and waved his instrument in the air.”

It didn’t surpass an earlier Oldham Evening Chronicle headline over a story of the Commonwealth Trans Arctic Expedition, in which Sir Edmund Hillary led a New Zealand Team and Sir Vivian Fuchs was head of a large British team that raced each other to the South Pole.

“Hillary reaches Pole – Fuchs 200 on the way.”

The paper sold out within hours. Readers were delighted for Hillary and rushed to Failsworth Pole*- to join the fun. The devout, churchgoing Chronicle lady features editor responsible for the headline had no idea how it would be interpreted – and nobody dared to tell her.

Or, there’s this Oldham Chronicle headline reporting on a court case:
“Steak pudding and chips (twice) slapped on wife’s head.”

Times were good for the newspaper industry and profits soared in line with additional pagination, sales and advertising revenue. Pay rises for journalists were still few and far between, but there were no caps on “expenses, ” which gave newspaper owners and hacks tax breaks. Claims for “expenses” generated some of the most creative writing, and the industry is awash with legendary claims that got through.

Query on Middle East reporter’s expenses.
Accounts chief: “I checked, and camel hire is £400, and you’ve charged £1,000.”
Reporter: “, but this was a racing camel.” He was paid out.

World’s biggest newspaper publishing centre.

Newspaper readers enjoying their daily diet of unrelenting news from across their city, county, country and the globe probably imagine their newspaper has its journalists in all places providing stories for the day’s issue. This was almost true for people living in the north of the country, served by the mighty presses of Withy Grove, Manchester, for decades the free world’s biggest newspaper publishing centre.

The Manchester offices of the national newspapers employed around 700 full-time journalists who busied themselves in smoke-filled newsrooms located above the print rooms. These were manned by 1,000s of print and kindred trades operatives who controlled the publishing operation according to working agreements, entirely skewed in their favour.

They operated through craft chapels, each of which had a “Father of the Chapel” (FOC) whose main task was to oversee the agreements and cause trouble if they felt they were being breached in any way.

Journalists were also subjected to restrictive practices, such as not being allowed to physically handle typeset. A “job” for “Wall Men” had been generated as a direct result of this ban.

It worked like this: If the journalist, called a stone sub-editor, wanted to move a story from one page to another or carry over a long story to another page, he told the compositor working on the relevant pages. The page make-up comp would then look around the comp room, the walls of which would be lined by operatives looking pretend-attentive while chatting among themselves. This great skill had been honed over years spent leaning against the wall.

It was a highly prized job

The “Wall Man” task was to walk across to lift the indicated typeset and its accompanying paper galley proof and carry them to another part of the composing room where the destination page was located. Sometimes, it would be worked on by another compositor and stone sub, the latter being a journalist able to read upside down, mirrored (right to left) typeset.

Having fulfilled their turn, they returned to the wall. As there could be a dozen Wall Men, the chance of any of them becoming exhausted was minimal. It was a highly prized job, usually allocated to the “family” or “friend” of a FOC. Paychits were often made out to M. Mouse or R. Hood to complete the pantomime scenario.

Nobody suspected it then, but within three decades or so, hot metal typesetting and the restrictive practices that went with it would be swept away by a completely new electronic publishing method. Nobody at that time could possibly imagine the bloody last-stand to save their crafts by print trade unions, nor that I would find myself regularly at the frontline of the printers’ Battle of Wapping 1986-1987.

But it all happened; my journalism skills have evolved with the electronic publishing technology to the point that I can currently compose and publish an article like this using only a smartphone…

How we got there is highlighted in similar articles from My Life, in Words by Terry Walker.

UPDATE

‘Spend, spend, spend’ football pools winner, Viv Nicholson, died in April 2015 aged 79. Nicholson and her husband lived up to her promise, taking just three years to spend the £152,000 – the equivalent of £ today – they won in 1961 – The Guardian.

** Failsworth Pole was a Germanic totemic pole in the town centre, dating back centuries. Pack mules, stagecoaches, trams, omnibuses, Royal visitors, and campaigning politicians all staged at Failsworth Pole. It was famous around the world. North Pole, Failsworth Pole, South Pole. There are no pubs at the North and South Poles, but Failsworth has three in the Pole conservation area. History of the Poles of Failsworth.

Every family has a story to tell – browse these?

An act of chivalry becomes a bomb scare and a unique moment in family history with repercussions that stop just short of a hanging… A historic event, for surely the mighty fortress Tower of London has never been abandoned to its fate?

Two American millionaire booze barons and their wives were involved in an incident during their VIP visit to the 1,000-year-old Tower, officially His Majesty’s Royal Palace and Fortress of the Tower of London. It is one of the oldest royal palaces and will be four times older than America, even though the United States Semiquincentennial Anniversary will be celebrated in 2026.

The booze laws in the United States were drawn up to stop alcohol from being transported across State Lines. This ban remained in place in the Seventies when I got to meet legitimate American Booze Barons who distributed wine and spirits exclusively throughout their domicile State. I was working as a PR and marketing consultant for White Horse Whisky, a fine Scottish product which, since 1927, had been sold only in export markets.

The Barons were the officially appointed distributors for their respective US State, selling White Horse whisky and other foreign brands into bars, restaurants and stores and earning commissions worth millions of dollars every year.

Day out in London programme

They liked to spend some of their hard-earned dollars on trips to Europe that included a tour of the distillery in Scotland a few days in London to enjoy some of that old fashioned Limey hospitality, courtesy of the Mayfair or St James’s offices of the various big booze brands, replete with their in-house chefs and faux baronial decor.

I enjoyed meeting the distributors and their wives and had a Day Out in London programme for them. It started with morning tea or coffee in the White Horse Whisky corporate office in St James’s and a trip up the NatWest Tower. It was London’s tallest building and the best on offer at that time, compared with American cities. This was followed by a VIP guided tour of the Tower of London, concluding with lunch on the good ship RS Hispaniola. She was moored on the Thames Embankment, but bobbed up and down as if at sea when certain tides were running.

After that, the limo would drop them off at Harrods so they and their wives could spend more of their booze dollars.

Easy peasy, huh? How could one explain why from the viewing platform at the top of NatWest Tower, the streets of the City of London looked so “higgledy-piggledy” without relating this to the history of the place from pre-Roman times? Americans build their Cities in a grid of blocks, anything otherwise is alien and needs a full explanation.

Off to the Tower and a place in history

Likewise, the Tower of London has been around for 1,000 years – probably about twice the age of any public building left standing in America.

As we left the NatWest Tower and I ordered the limo driver to take us to the Tower of London, I had no inkling that on this visit, our American guests would share their own family history with that of the Royal Palace’s history. Nor that our visit would provide a unique record in my family’s history.

As VIP visitors we were allowed to drive past the hordes of queuing tourists, ushered through the main gate and parked in the Inner Ward of the Tower.

Doing my tour guide routine I assisted the wives of the barons out of the limo and made sure their husbands were, likewise, OK before we followed our allocated Yeoman of the Guard. We were led straight to the office of the Deputy Governor who offered us tea and biscuits and some anecdotes of the Tower. This was the normal preamble to the private formal tour arranged for our American guests.

As the tea arrived, the our host answered the phone that was ringing on his table… He listened for what seemed like ages, then went rigid before replacing the receiver. “Ladies and gentlemen, my apologies. I’m afraid we have to leave as we have an emergency.”

Our American guests looked puzzled. What’s going on here? But, we had to leave and right now.

Exit with ravens tucked under their arms

This is hardly sinking in before the sound of police cars and then fire engine sirens surged through the ancient windows. This was quickly followed by a clanging of insistent bells going off around the building.

Hundreds of visitors were being herded out of the Tower to safety by well-drilled Yeomen of the Guard in their crimson uniforms. Was that the Raven Master and his assistants heading towards the exit with the rare and precious ravens tucked under their arms. The Royal Jewels. What’s happening with the Royal they go or do they stay?

Wow, this is exciting. A historic moment, for surely the mighty fortress Tower has never been abandoned to its fate, never succumbed to outside forces in its long history. Legend says that the Kingdom and the Tower will fall if the resident ravens ever leave the fortress… Not a raven in sight – oh crikey!

As the sirens get deafeningly closer, the Americans become convinced that this isn’t just a Disney-esque theme park scenario being played out for their enjoyment. This is a real-life bomb scare in a City that has been terrorised for the previous decade by IRA mobsters.

Centre stage… a black leather briefcase

To prove the point, the Deputy Governor waved our party over to the window. Looking down into the Inner Ward we saw it was deserted, not a human being nor a hopping Tower Raven in sight… just our parked limo (stage left) and centre stage, a black leather briefcase. It seemed to be familiar, even from that distance.

“Oh my gawd”, says I, “That’s my briefcase.”

I survive the hard look that precedes the customary “Off with his head” edict heard so many times within the Tower of London. The Deputy Governor picked up the phone again to end the emergency and summon the guard.

Public executions of earlier troublemakers

I was escorted to the briefcase, which was exactly where I placed it when doing my Sir Walter Raleigh impression of chivalry, assisting the booze barons’ wives to exit the limo. Unlike Sir Walter, who was imprisoned for 13 years in the Tower of London and then executed for alleged treason.I am to survive with my body parts intact.

Later, as we were ejected from the premises by Yeomen of the Guard, the Tower of London was still surrounded by emergency vehicles, and many onlookers scrutinised our limo as we drove slowly away – towards Tower Hill, the scene of 125 public executions of earlier troublemakers.

The White Horse Whisky executives who joined us for lunch on board the RS Hispaniola were regaled by our American guests with the latest tale of the Tower. And we composed a corporate note of apology to the Deputy Governor over coffee and much-needed brandy…

When the US party returned home, their “Terror at the Tower of London” tale would be repeated endlessly to newspapers and TV stations throughout the Mid-West of America. Sales of White Horse Whisky soared in Milwaukee and Minneapolis/St Paul, Kansas City, and even Chicago. The job was done more by accident than design.

Another unique family tale for my own and the Americans’ ancestral records.

UPDATE

The IRA planted 17 bombs in London during its Seventies terror campaign, including one at the Tower of London in 1974 that left one person dead and another injured. There were many bomb scares and hoaxes.

Retired Major General Sir Digby Raeburn was in command of the Tower of London Yeoman Warders; as Keeper of the Jewel House, he was responsible for the security of the Crown Jewels from 1971 to 1979. He and his wife had just finished lunch when, on 17 July 1974, a 10lb terrorist bomb exploded in the Tower’s Mortar Room, a small basement exhibition hall. It was thronged with tourists at the time, and one woman was killed and more than 40 injured. Three days earlier, a warning had been received: “The Tower is going up.” Raeburn commented after the explosion: “We have had several such warnings, and always there is an immediate search by staff. We have a procedure for this and it is very thorough. Nothing was found during the search, and it had to be assumed that it was another hoax.” It was concluded that the bomb had been planted only the day before it went off. Source: Wikipedia.

Dramatic eyewitness accounts from visitors to the Tower of London bomb on 17 July 1974 were collated by the BBC and describe how lives were saved by the solid walls and doors of the White Tower Jewel Room.

The author was in Parliament Square, London, on 30 March 1979, when a car bomb planted by the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA) killed Shadow Northern Ireland Secretary Airey Neave MP as he left the House of Commons carpark.

The author was in London Docklands on 9 February 1996 when an IRA bomb exploded nearby and badly damaged his office and blew up into the air a car with his family in it, all miraculously escaping injury, as it landed back on its four wheels. His eyewitness statement was carried that evening led the ITV News at Ten and featured in the next day’s media.

A fairy tale grand hotel that welcomed Royalty became haunted after the mysterious deaths of guests and the three brothers who owned it. The Berengaria Hotel in Cyprus has been padlocked and decaying for 40 years and now ghosts have secured five stars for the totally derelict hotel. Ghostbuster tourists, who provide 5-star rankings on TripAdvisor, love its mountain-top location and scary atmosphere.

The glory days of the Berengaria Hotel ended in 1984. This was when the last guests checked out and hundreds of staff were dismissed. The hotel is in ruins, with missing and leaky roofs, wind and snow-battered facades and collapsed walls. There are rubbish-filled swimming pools and weed-strewn terraces where once-refined afternoon tea was taken.

Built at 4,600 feet above sea level, it means extreme weather has taken its toll. It can be baking hot in summer, often sub-zero in the winter months.

Today’s tourists sneak through razor-wire fencing to gain admission and then spend hours exploring the once-luxurious buildings and grounds. They like the imposing building design, constructed using hillside stone gathered by local villagers. The Berengaria’s hideaway hilltop location deep in the pinewood forests of the Troodos Mountains in Cyprus is another highlight.

Ghosts, apparitions and spirits

But, the big attraction for the brave and foolhardy visitor is ghost spotting. This now totally derelict building seems to be the home of apparitions and spirits who appear to be mostly benign. This reflects the previous urbane lifestyle of the Berengaria – rather than their anguished final hours before death.

The hauntings followed the mysterious deaths of several guests, the manager and the three Kokkalos brothers, who inherited the Berengaria Hotel from their father, Ioannis. There have been sightings of ghosts in corridors and the windows of public rooms. Screams and cries have echoed through the night. In addition, the lady guest found dead in the pool is said to be seeking revenge.

Moviegoers who enjoyed The Shining will suspect the caretaker, except the Berengaria ghostly hotel does not employ one…

Travel writer Maureen Murori has investigated the macabre tales that local villagers are spreading. She said: “Trouble began when the hotel owner left the business to his three sons to share equally. After his death, the sons, full of jealousy, greed, and a lack of pride, allowed the hotel to become rundown. They lacked respect for each other and the business.”

Shadows, screams and cries

According to legend, all three brothers died mysteriously and in suspicious circumstances. Other stories, including that of a manager who killed himself (found hanged) at the hotel, added to the gossip. Local villagers became convinced that the hotel was haunted because some people claimed to have seen shadows through the windows and heard “screams and cries”.

Another story holds that two female ghosts roam the hotel. One of them was found dead in the swimming pool. It is said she still hangs around to avenge her death. The other is that of a young woman seen at the hotel dressed in white linen. Some say she can be seen leaning against one of the windows, but only at sunset.

Experienced ghostbusters and tourists seeking an adrenaline rush find themselves retracing the footsteps of early visitors like King Farouk of Egypt, Winston Churchill and the Duke of Marlborough. Haim Weizman, the first president of Israel, stayed there for months and ran his country from his suite.

Death at the Berengaria

Troodos folklore suggests one Kokkalos brother drowned, the second hung himself and the third used a pistol to end his life. One guest drowned, and another guest’s death remains a mystery. Cold cases in police files, but close questioning of village elders in nearby Prodromos suggests:

Hanging 2 | Drowning 2 |
Shooting 1 | Mystery 1

IMAGE:
Skiing took off in the 1930s at the Berengaria.

Now, visitors can only stroll the long corridors and empty dining rooms, lounges and terraces with magnificent views across the Troodos Mountains. They can ponder on the luxurious lifestyle of the guests. Every room is empty as the beautiful furnishings have been “removed” over the years by local villagers.

Few people risk the propped-up, a partly collapsed staircase that leads to the bedrooms or the outside communal toilets where there might be a definite health risk lurking.

Julia Hayden Wells described the place: “I was so in awe of the building, so freaked out by its spookiness. It was an overcast day; much of the building was in the shade, and it was utterly terrifying. But it is utterly fascinating, too. We all agreed that the day’s highlight had been our visit to this mysterious derelict building.”

It is estimated that some 200 tourists a week visit the hotel – situated at an altitude of 1,600 meters – attracted by the building’s architecture and macabre history. They leave reviews and many 5-star ratings for the creepy atmosphere and the ghostly apparitions they may have seen – Ghosts secure five stars for the haunted hotel.

Can’t keep people away

It is not an ideal family history legacy for Michalis Ioannides, who is a descendant of the Kokkalos family, who built and owned the hotel for three generations. He has warned sightseers to stay away. The crumbling estate posed a danger to visitors who did not know their way around.

“You just can’t keep people away. They flock there from all over the place. They are intrigued by the hotel’s rich history. Imagine if the hotel was still operational,” said Michalis Ionnides. His ancestors’ efforts to bring in investors to revive the historic hotel failed and the estate fell into the hands of the Bank of Cyprus via equity for debt swaps. The bank failed to find a suitable buyer until December 2021.

But now, the writing may be on the wall for the ghostly guests. A Cypriot developer has agreed to pay €2.2 million for the site. General Director Lefteris Constantinou confirmed that Prime Property Group plans to restore the hotel to its former glory and add luxury villas to the 25,000M2 plot.

Potential investors “Scared off”

 “We intend to get the Berengaria up and running as a hotel again. Our team is already working on options. When it comes to such properties, the investor has two options. One is to knock it down and build something new. The other is renovating and reinstating it as a classic mountain-style resort. We have opted for the second,” he added.

Renovating the Berengaria could be a risky business with hidden costs that scared off earlier potential investors. He said the firm’s marketing would be based on the history and legends surrounding the property. He didn’t mention that “ghosts” were the hotel’s current five-star attraction.

But, unless the new owners appease the current inhabitants, some might say they don’t stand a ghost of a chance of bringing the hotel back to life…

Warning – This video contains unexplained apparitions…

UPDATE

The Berengaria was once the most luxurious hotel in Cyprus. It was named in honour of Queen Berengaria, the wife of King Richard the Lionheart. They were married in nearby Limassol in 1191. There was little joy in their marriage. This was mainly due to Richard’s need for a son and heir to succeed him as King of England.

The new owners say they “Fully intend making the most out of the property’s legends, but without disturbing the character of the hotel or surrounding area.” The Berengaria Hotel covers a built area of around 5,000 M2 on a mountaintop plot of 26,520M2.

“We’re all ghosts. We all carry, inside us, people who came before us.”
― Liam Callanan, The Cloud Atlas

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Browse another story from the Troodos Mountains in Cyprus

Coming up in Ancestry Stories.
Don’t miss true stories of Cyprus, including:
Bombed out of Cyprus as the Turks invaded

Like millions of other people, I know where I was and what I was doing on 22 November 1963. It was just seven days to my 23rd birthday and I was stalking the Beatles at their concerts at the Globe Theatre, Stockton on Tees, England. Later, with my editor, Harry Evans, I was due to attend the Teesside Press Ball at the infamous Rex Hotel in Redcar, North Yorkshire. But, suddenly it was all change and it became a hard day’s night for the Beatles, JFK and Harry Evans.

As the Beatles’ first concert ended, shots rang out in Dallas, Texas, and President John F. Kennedy was assassinated. He was being driven through city streets in an open-top limo. It was also the day Beatlemania was born. The old Globe Theatre rocked as 4,800 fans shouted, screamed, stomped, wet seats and fainted their way through two performances by the new pop sensations.

Nurses and ambulance medics treated several hundred girl fans who had fainted with the excitement of seeing the Beatles performing live.

Eventually, the second performance was abandoned, and the Fab Four legged it from their fans, as depicted in their hit movie, A Hard Day’s Night, released eight months later.

Earlier in the day, the Beatles’ second album, With the Beatles, had been released on Parlophone Records. By the time they went on stage for their first concert, it had already clocked up world-beating advance sales of 300,000 copies. Their first album, Please, Please Me, remained at number one for the 29^th successive week.

My colleague Guy Simpson, from the Northern Echo’s sister paper the Northern Despatch, had struggled with Tony Barrow, the newly appointed Beatles press officer, to organise an interview with the group between their performances. Although it was officially my night off, I was there to write a sociological “colour story” on the new pop music phenomenon. In the chaos around the theatre, I wondered how successful we might be.

I phoned the Northern Echo news desk from a nearby public phone box and told them of the lack of progress on the editorial interviews. I was told that US president, John F Kennedy had been shot in Dallas, Texas. The situation was still unclear, but obviously, the big story in tomorrow’s newspapers was not going to be The Beatles.

Concurrently with my call to the news desk, the Echo Editor, Harry Evans, was being chauffeured to the press ball, his first since his surprise appointment. He got as far as Stockton on Tees when a radio news flash on the JFK shooting made him instruct his driver to race back to the office. Shortly afterwards, the BBC confirmed President Kennedy had died as a result of the shooting. Harry saw it as a major, major story and planned rolling coverage across multiple editions, with backstories, library images and strong editorial comment.

The print union FOCs decided to co-operate with the changed schedules and an extended print run. Journalists and sub-editors rolled up their sleeves in expectation of a busy night ahead.

As ever, the open-plan newsroom was bustling. Sleeve-up arm waving was a norm as Harry deployed subs on the news feed from Dallas, comments from political leaders around the world, and archive material. There was a local angle, too, because the US car firm Chrysler had chosen Darlington as the location for a new engine factory. 

A new front page for the Northern Echo was required as rival national newspapers would probably not be able to replate their front pages and get copies to readers in northern counties. The Echo could also replace existing inside pages with comprehensive coverage of the assassination. This could mean valuable extra sales and prestige with a commemorative edition of the historic event.

Any editorial produced that night on Beatlemania was unlikely to get much coverage in the JFK special edition of the Northern Echo.

“We made it to press on time. On every November night of the shooting, I again feel the chill of the loss of the prince of promise. From this day… to the ending of the world, it shall be remembered.”

Harold Evans, Editor of the Northern Echo

Meanwhile, back in Stockton and 22 miles away from the frantic Northern Echo newsroom, my wife Christine was kitted out for the press ball in a posh frock, killer shoes and hair shaped into a beehive (yes, that’s what they did in those days), stayed close, as Guy and I crept backstage to flush out the Beatles.

In readiness for the press ball later, Guy and I were wearing dinner jackets and bow ties and, aided by the general chaos, we blended nicely with the theatre management who were dressed just as formally – as was the case in those days. That kept the group’s fearsome roadie Neil Aspinall off our backs as we sauntered around backstage, part of the scenery, smartly dressed infiltrators seeking whispered words of wisdom from any or all of the Beatles.

We found them resting in their over-crowded, makeshift dressing room, otherwise known as the theatre manager’s office. John Lennon was the nearest Beatle because he was leaving the scrimmage. In a prescient moment, I told him President Kennedy had been shot, but as he didn’t react I assumed he hadn’t heard me. He had, because, minutes later, he told the Vernons Girls as they were going onstage that “John Kennedy has been shot.”  Vernons leader, Maureen Kennedy, didn’t believe him: “Oh John, that’s sick.”

I have wondered since that night what she might have said 17 years later when she first heard another loner had shot John Lennon with a gun in trigger-happy America.

ONE DAY ONLY…
The Beatles’ nationwide concert tour took them to Stockton on Tees on that fatal day. By the time they took to the stage for their first performance, sales of their second album, With the Beatles, had reached 300,000 on its first day. By the time the group performed their second concert, President Kennedy had died in hospital.

With the second show underway, Christine and I returned to the auditorium where the supporting acts were building up to the Beatles. It became noisier and even more chaotic. It seemed to me the fans might become uncontrollable when the main attraction took to the stage – so there might be a bigger story as a follow-up in Monday’s Echo.

Based on the earlier concert, I reckoned we might see a 30-minute onstage performance from the Beatles, but a girl fan leapt on stage, hugged George Harrison and was heading for John Lennon. Bemused security guys panicked and dragged her away as thousands of teenagers screamed their adoration, for the group – not the security lumps who were keeping them apart.

There was equal panic backstage. Without warning, the stage curtain dropped and the music ended as the Beatles were told to leg it. As depicted in the first Beatles movie, they leapt into their limo to escape their screaming fans. The group were driven back to the Eden Arms Hotel, Durham, where they stayed over the weekend as a frantic press pack searched for them.

The next morning’s Northern Echo had blanket coverage of JFK’s death, and the North East readership was probably the best informed in the North about the death of the US president. UK national papers were hours behind with their coverage, but their main editions in London and the Home Counties were able to take advantage of the six-hour time difference with Dallas.

There were five paragraphs on Stockton’s Beatlemania in the Teesside edition of the Northern Echo, and I didn’t recognise the words I had written. I didn’t care. I had seen the Beatles in action twice in one night. I was a fan. The Sixties went on to be the best time in history.

Homeward bound at the end of that day

Christine, Guy Simpson and I left The Beatles mayhem for the press ball in Redcar, parking on the promenade some distance away from the Rex Hotel. Press balls are an opportunity for local cops to get their own back for critical newspaper reviews of their crime-solving. Roads leading from venues staging boozy events – Henley Regatta is another example – tended to be well patrolled at closing time, but breathalysers were way in the future. The chief constable, police chiefs and civic leaders attending the dinner can be blue-lighted safely home if necessary. Press and others had to run the gauntlet.

I guess it was the social event of the year for Teesside, not just for the local press, but all the mayors, MPs and industrialists, many of whom were looking forward to some face time with the new editor of the Echo. They sensed he intended to shake things up in this tight-knit region. However, Editor Evans was stuck at the office producing a master-crafted newspaper the press ball guests would be reading in the morning.

Guy, Christine and I were late due to our Beatles diversions and gave apologies for our editor and colleagues who might not make it at all on such a busy news night.  

Some journalists would probably leave soon for an early start on the production of Saturday evening papers to follow up on the JFK story. The next Northern Echo was, of course, Monday morning. I planned to go in earlier on Sunday afternoon as the story would be just as hot on Monday and Harry Evans was ever keen to follow up on the Saturday issue. There might even be a slot for a Beatles Concert Chaos story?

The happenings in Dallas were obviously the big talking point in the Rex ballroom, but we were in a bubble so far as live information was concerned. No mobile phones in the Sixties, and no 24-hour tv news stations, BBC radio might have stayed on air, but we didn’t have a tranny radio. How did we manage without them?

A group of us leaving the press ball after some hours of downing pints of Newcastle Brown Ale (Wor Broon” in Geordie) were likely prospects for a little police drink-drive interference. So we kept the noise levels down. But, there was some funny wiggly walking from my wife Christine as we made our way along the Redcar seafront. I swear we’d agreed she would be the designated driver. I think she may have been on the brown ale.

“Yes officer – I’ve had a few. The passenger beside me is my dear wife. She’s the designated driver, you know.

– Rehearsed response, as police blue light closes in…

I managed to get her into the passenger seat and did a pre-check with sidelights and rear lights and then the headlights before starting the engine. I checked my mirrors, gripped the steering wheel tight and slowly headed homeward with a “take-it-easy” 45-minute journey time. There is a stretch of road passing by the ICI chemical works where flared-off gas soared into the night sky, but I concentrated on my driving.

I looked across at Christine, who by now had slid into the seat well and would not be visible through the car windows. My next rearward glance revealed a distant blue flashing light, but it was approaching fast. Don’t panic, grip the wheel and stay inside the centre now the police car was within 50 yards.

It flashed by me at a speed that suggested my driving had escaped suspicion. A minute or two later, he’d slipped into a lay-by, and I saw another car had been pulled over. Phew, what an escape. “Yes officer – I’ve had a few. The passenger beside me is my dear wife. She’s the designated driver, you know.”

We arrived home safely and I assisted the “inert wife” into our rented place. It had been a hard day’s night all right… for Harry Evans and my newsroom colleagues, the Beatles and their entourage, and for the family of the dead president.

But that’s where we were when JFK was shot dead in Dallas. Beatlemania started its sweep around the world, and everybody remembers what they were doing at the time.

Read Death of JFK in Dallas, Deadlines in Darlington – Sir Harold Evans’s version

John F Kennedy Presidential Library version with video, “The Last Two Days“

UPDATE

When Sir Harold Evans died in September 2020, age 92, my personal tribute to him in The Times Obituaries detailed his news foresight and production skills in reporting on the death of JFK as a running story across multiple editions of the Northern Echo. I must have got the words right because it struck a chord with many Times readers—it was the highest-rated tribute. One reader commented: “What a great first-hand account! Harold Evans was a great journalist and decent man.”

In the weeks leading to the Stockton on Tees concerts, the word “Beatlemania” was used in headlines in the Daily Mail and Daily Mirror. The biggest incident so far was 1,000 of their fans in an all-day blockade of the London Palladium. The group rehearsed their appearance on ITV’s Sunday Night at the London Palladium and then made a dash for it. The Beatles’ status as a new pop phenomenon was confirmed after the Stockton on Tees mayhem. Beatlemania dominated the airwaves and media for years.

Newcastle was the next stop on the Beatles’ tour. Philip Norman, another 22-year-old Northern Echo staffer, and Dave Watts from the Darlington Despatch managed to sneak interviews with John, Paul, and Ringo in their lounge at the City Hall venue. George was enthralled by The Avengers, which was showing on their TV set, and refused to get involved with any press interviews.

Paul even allowed Philip to hold his trademark Hofner violin-shaped bass guitar and told him he “Only paid 52 guineas (£) for it as I’m a skinflint.”

Philip Norman joined the Sunday Times and went on to make a career as a renowned showbiz biographer, including writing the worldwide best-seller Shout, recounting the Beatles and their generation. Mick Jagger and the Rolling Stones, Buddy Holly, Eric Clapton and Elton John were among the pop gods who got the Philip Norman treatment. After John Lennon was killed, Yoko Ono invited Philip Norman into their apartment in the Dakota Building in New York, from which emerged a controversial interview in the Sunday Times and, later, the definitive biog of John Lennon.

“Skinflint” Paul McCartney became the first pop billionaire when his spending spree on music rights, added to ongoing royalties on Lennon-McCartney compositions, made him rich beyond his dreams.

The best seat tickets for the Beatles’ 1963 tour were 10s 6d (50p), which would cost £ today. A Beatles Rubber Soul mono LP released in 1965 would cost £25-£100,000 today.

Newcastle Brown Ale, first brewed in a city centre brewery in 1927, remains a local favourite, despite now being brewed in Yorkshire and having had the alcohol strength lowered after police filled their cells nightly with drunks succumbing to its potent % BV.  The Geordie brew is a big success in America – the favourite beer of Clint Eastwood – but it’s now not brown in colour.

This story is from My Life, in Words by Terry Walker ©2021

Did you ever have a bad day? I mean, a really, really bad day? Trapped in a 5,000-year-old tomb before being snatched out alive, turned a bad day into a great day for the victim and the rescuers. In western Cyprus, one particular September day was not only bad but could have been fatal…except for luck and happenstance. Here’s the true story of a lifesaving tomb rescue from a prehistoric necropolis.

There are good and bad days when you combine being a trained archaeologist and a professional tour guide. I’ve had my share of digs and tours of treasures in western Cyprus. From the 1970s, for 30-plus years, most of my work involved digging Bronze Age chamber tombs as part of a strong team from British and Cypriot institutions. These were exciting times and were my good days, especially when our efforts uncovered rare “finds”.

Most of these tomb excavations were “rescue digs” required because new roads were cutting across the virgin landscapes, exposed ancient burials in the road line. Or, as new buildings were going up, the building works would truncate the top portions of tombs. In a few cases in the mid-1980s, the installation of telephone lines along narrow village streets struck ancient tombs.

We had to work to tight schedules as the Greek part of the divided Cyprus was modernising after the hiatus caused by the Turkish invasion of 1974. It was a bad day when we had to quit an interesting site, leaving parts that had not been thoroughly investigated.

I now share my experiences of the archaeological wonders of the Paphos area of Cyprus, with the increasing numbers of international tourists deciding to ditch their sunbeds for a unique and exciting single-day excursion. We offer adventures aimed at the serious traveller who seeks that “extra special something” to enhance the texture of their holiday in Cyprus.

Suppose tourists seek an eye-opening experience, a less conventional and more environmentally friendly approach to discovering the island’s history, culture and natural landscapes. In that case, we will open all the right doors and push all the correct buttons.

That is how, in September 2018, I met Sally Miniel and Joe Lamm from Texas, USA and guided them on a full-day Private Excursion. The tour was aimed at mainstream and off-the-beaten-track archaeological sites in western Cyprus. I shall not easily forget this day because one of the most unusual experiences I’ve ever had, either as an archaeologist or a professional tour guide, occurred mid-way through the excursion.

Lifesaving tomb rescue

We had just ended a visit to a rather unique 14th-century painted church located down some isolated dirt track, miles from anywhere. When Joe Lamm mentioned that he was interested in prehistoric archaeological sites, I told him: “You’re in luck because nearby, there happens to be an excellent example of a Chalcolithic Period (ca. 3000BC) necropolis (burial ground). Dozens of shaft graves have been cut into a soft limestone outcrop. It’s only a ten-minute drive from where we are now.”

So, that’s how it all sudden last-minute decision. We diverted from our planned itinerary to include this special site. Under normal circumstances, we would not have visited this place that day. But on these Private Excursions, spontaneity rules. We ended up in the right place at the right time to bring about a lifesaving tomb rescue.

“All around us are tombs of people who died five-thousand years ago, and then suddenly a loud sound attacks our ears from below the ground! You might guess where your wild thoughts might take are all stunned.”

David Pearlman, archaeologist and tour guide

We approached the site in our 4×4 vehicle and then walked the last section up to the tombs. I noticed a large flock of sheep and goats milling around nearby, but I didn’t think too much about that. As I brought my Texas guests up to the rock outcrop, I explained burial practices and pointed out the shaft graves.

Suddenly, there was an unexpected interruption. We were stunned –shocked, really – to hear the loud noise, as if it was coming from underground. Definitely sub-terra. Consider the context and setting of this specific moment:

Here, we are standing on top of a prehistoric cemetery, a burial ground. All around us are tombs of people who died five thousand years ago. And then suddenly, a loud sound attacks our ears from below the ground! You might guess where your wild thoughts might take you before logic sets in and you realize it’s the sound of a living animal.

Trapped in a deep grave

We searched frantically for the noise source by checking inside each of the many dozens of holes. Then, three or four minutes later, there it was!

An adult sheep had fallen into one of the deeper graves. There was no way this animal could move in any direction. It could not escape the hole by itself as it was something like two metres below surface level – and beyond our reach. None of us possessed the physical resources to pull the sheep up and liberate the poor creature ourselves. I told my esteemed guests, Joe and Sally, that I knew they were paying top dollar for the day tour. But  I would forfeit all the money if necessary to get help to pull the poor bugger out. I thought I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I abandoned this sheep in the catacomb hole.

Tomb rescue gallery

Of course, Joe and Sally were 100% on board and felt just as strongly about mounting a rescue mission. In complete agreement, we abandoned our tour and returned to Kouklia Village to seek help. The first stop was the local museum, but unfortunately, they could not give immediate assistance, so we moved on.

Then we went to a nearby police station, but our pleas for help were met with expressions of indifference. Nobody seemed interested in getting involved. I thought: Where is the love? Is there no heart left in a place that overlies the Sanctuary of Aphrodite, the ancient Goddess of Love?

Seeking the owner

However, I was wrong:  There is heart and compassion in Kouklia Village, and we soon found it along one of the side streets. I remembered the name of a sheep/goat farmer – a really nice guy named Aspris – who grazed most of his animals in the abandoned Souskiou Village near the necropolis where the sheep was stuck. It was a start, but I was not 100% sure the trapped sheep was his. I drove through the village to find somebody to point us to Aspris’s house.

Along the way, I found a pick-up truck with a driver inside, window open, chatting with another villager. On the side door of the pick-up was the logo and lettering of the Village Council of Kouklia. Bingo! The driver was a bearded fellow in his late 20s, maybe early 30s. We showed him the photos of the trapped sheep that Sally had taken on her phone.

Mid-way through the conversation, he interrupted me, asking: “Hey, Aren’t you David, the archaeologist?” I said: “Yeah, that’s right, but how do you know me?” He explained that his name was Spyros Petridesand. When he was a young kid, he and his mates used to hang out at the village Demotic School, where we archaeologists were staying. We played football together back in the old days. I had no memory of this but pretended to remember: “Oh, yeah, of course, Spyros. I remember you now.”

Organised a rescue party

Spyros took total control of the tomb rescue situation. He organised a rescue party. He told me to wait five minutes and then he would come back and follow us to the necropolis site. Spyros went into his office first and produced a few bottles of cold water, which he offered us as refreshments. Village visitorts and guests were , treated as royalty, were always offered philoxenia (“hospitality”) in Kouklia Village,

Our new animal rescue leader disappeared for maybe four minutes whilst we drank the cold water. (It was a hot day, and we were indeed thirsty). He reappeared with two of his pals, one carrying a rope. As promised, he followed us as we returned to the necropolis site.

We all expected that when we relocated the trapped sheep, one of these muscular guys would climb down and attach the rope to the trapped animal. However, as soon as we arrived at the outcrop and found the sheep stuck in the hole, the rope became irrelevant. We all marvelled at one of Spyros’s mates, a giant of a guy named Yiorkis with massive forearms. He just bent down (exposing his massive “cheeks” and “crack” in the process) And grabbed the sheep by its fleece – the way you pick up a cat by its neck — and yanked the poor animal out of the hole!

Mission accomplished! We all gave the Spyros-Yiorkis team rousing applause as we watched the now-free sheep hightail it down the dirt track to join the rest of his flock. Great story, all true! Another good day chalked up.

UPDATE

“Looking back on it, I recognize it was an entirely accidental and spontaneous experience. It worked well for the unfortunate sheep that fell into the tomb that day. It was just chance that brought us to the site that day. I also see how fantastic and empathetic the Cypriot people, generally, and the inhabitants of Kouklia Village specifically, can be, even in these modern times. Spyros and his assistant Yiorkis showed great determination and genuine compassion to help a fellow living creature of this Earth get out of a bad situation that day. To everyone who witnessed the above events, these two gentlemen stand out as true Cypriot heroes.” SOURCE: David Pearlman, author.

Browse Ghosts secure five stars for derelict hotel

Getting started on this short story publishing website was relaxed but we published on time with seven minutes to spare. Amid the lockdowns and government strictures of the COVID-19 era, I stayed cooped up in my office with its panoramic view of Dead Lane as inspiration…

For centuries that North Essex track has been a smugglers’ and pallbearers’ route to the village graveyard and the adjacent “request stop” for London-bound stagecoaches. Plenty of inspiring social and family history stories. Good news and bad news for locals along that winding track, at each end, and the surrounding fields where history was made.

I had the idea, and now due to COVID-19, the time to research and to write a memoir covering my 60 years in the “Words Business”. As a trained journalist, turned public relations, turned marketing creative, I have written millions of words for national, regional and local newspapers, magazines and documentaries. My work has taken me to more than 20 countries. There have been lots of adventures and unique encounters.

In those horrendous Covid years, more than 80,000 typed words flowed quickly into a solid draft memoir. Then, I reviewed 1,000s of family and career black and white and colour photos for possible inclusion in the newly titled “My Life, In Words“. After that, I explored online publishing with greater spontaneity and extra scope for images and videos.

Longer reads for the Twitter X generation

Online searches revealed computer code king Bill Jenson had designed a wonderful, multi-module, off-the-shelf publishing platform. Plus Spanish tech maestro Rafael Martin has hand-coded (twice) a perfect page display theme for writers and publishers. The Literatum theme design is clean and uncluttered focusing the reader’s eyes on the words with few distractions. It has other features make it easy to bring those words to life. These include images, videos, sounds and original documents such as birth certificates and testimonials.

After confirming, that their website creativity would mesh and work well together, I set to work to publish the early chapters of “My Life, In Words” memoir. A newly purchased domain name, (Note the hyphen) was to carry the content of our family history. Research showed that the Twitter-X generation was, by now, looking for longer “reads”‘ while older generations worldwide were as interested in family history as ever before.

Researchers at Google suggested 1,200-word articles would attract readers across all age groups. Many would have their own true family narratives to share and that would boost the online library provided by . Short stories would attract readers of all ages when they commuted (where permitted) languished at home (government orders) or on the beach. Millions of Work from Homers (WFH) with much more time on their hands would add to the potential. Google thought that word count would require a four-minute read.

At Ancestry-Stories, we thought a bit longer, perhaps 1,400 words and more like seven minutes. Further research confirmed we should go with a typical read time of seven minutes. It was a “Go”.

True stories from family history safeguarded

Our published stories are typically around a seven-minute read as we are confident everyone has at least “7-minutes to spare”. Time for a relaxing dip into our ancestors’ lives, antics, trials and tribulations. True stories from family history are now safeguarded for the current and future generations.

Swift editing of earlier chapters to fit a customised online page design enabled us to hit our target of going live by the end of 2023. You might say, with just “seven minutes to spare.” So now, here we are with up and running, thanks to the COVID-19 era lockdowns. Ready to enthral and entertain folks with lots of stories from family history. My family and your family:

“Uncovering family secrets”… “Spilling the beans”… “Letting the cat out of the bag” … “Sharing our good news and bad news”.,. “Revealing skeletons from the closet”…”Having our place in history”…

Our first published stories involve family and social history in four countries (Cyprus, England, the Isle of Man and the USA). These stories have a background of significant historical events. Importantly, these and subsequent stories have thrown up links with people who have already secured their place in history. These include the Beatles, President John F Kennedy, Archbishop Makarios and even Aphrodite, the goddess of love herself…

We have many more enthralling stories in our publishing pipeline. And there are opportunities for you to have your family history story published. Ancestry Stories will make it available to 1,000s of avid readers – because there are many out there with an average of 7-minutes to spare. Write on?

A few ideas for your family history story below – or browse the Library

How to find your ancestors and their endearing stories and share them with the world. Our Ancestry Blog offers advice, practical experience and pro help.

Once you start digging into your family’s past you may strike “Ancestor Gold” in no time at all. A Blue Plaque in the family?

Your newly discovered ancestor may turn out to be “famous” or “infamous” or merely have been an “associate” of someone who was. “Heroes” or “heroines” or “do-gooders” excite the immediate family and the public at large.

Relatives in all these categories have become Blue Plaque superheroes. But there are also seemingly less important people hanging on buildings in London and other parts of the country. Like the man who made wigs and the guy who boasted “My old man’s a dustman…” and made himself £millions in just six years. One woman was awarded a plaque because “she was a friend of all in need.”

The main criteria for getting an official Blue Plaque is that your relative must be dead and buried and had lived in a house that’s still standing. However, Napoleon was still alive when he managed to accumulate three Blue Plaques. One was in a London house he left in such a hurry that his bed remained unmade. He’d fled to France to become that country’s new ruler. So that’s all right then.

Commemorative plaques celebrate People and Places and a wider community. This is why not every “name” is instantly recognisable. Be assured they are also an important part of Britain’s story.

Founded over 150 years ago, the London blue plaques scheme has been driven mainly by suggestions from the public. Howard Spencer, English Heritage’s senior blue plaques historian said: “Commemorative plaques appeal to people of all ages and backgrounds in London – to residents and visitors alike. We welcome interesting and viable proposals for London blue plaques. They should celebrate prominent individuals and mark other significant historical associations.”

Noor Inayat Khan, featured here, was born in Russia. She was a trained spy who helped save many British and Allied lives with her WW2 activities in France. This was only revealed decades later. There are still many “unsung heroes” awaiting discovery – maybe in your family?

You may be related to one of these worthies?

If you discover an ancestor you think worthy of being immortalised with a Blue Plaque, try English Heritage

The City of London and other cities and towns have their own version of the Blue Plaque. Selection panels would evaluate your request to commemorate your ancestor. English Heritage has details of these organisations:

A secret agent served Britain and four terror groups in 1950s Cyprus but 30 years later he discovered how his multiple PSYOP roles brought peace to the strife-torn island of spies, Cyprus. Armed with a 9mm Sten sub-machine gun and a pistol he was ever-ready for action, but never fired a shot in anger.

His main armoury in the escalating battle for the hearts and minds of Cypriots was his typewriter and a hand-cranked Gestetner duplicator that produced thousands of propaganda leaflets in what became Britain’s biggest post-war psychological warfare operation (psycho-ops).

He was a super secret agent provocateur in an RAF sergeant’s uniform who later discovered he had been tricked into working for three Greek Cypriot terror groups in addition to British Military Intelligence and a British army breakaway organisation threatening death and destruction to locals.

In five years of anti-British and ethnic strife, his activities with the printed word helped to pave the way to peace and prosperity for the Mediterranean paradise. Codenamed “Phillip” he typed up propaganda messages for British MI5 and produced 1,000s of leaflets using his Gestetner printer.

As an active serviceman, “Phillip” had joined the search for the leaders of EOKA and other paramilitary groups opposed to British rule. Secretly, he also produced propaganda leaflets for a clandestine militia of disgruntled British military who wanted to toughen the fight against the terrorists killing Brits and any Cypriots who failed to toe the EOKA line.

While, by now, this social and military history story might look more like the plot of a new John le Carré novel, it is the real-life true story of a British family’s ancestor who survived the marauding death squads only because he was helping their cause This unsung hero was a secret agent whose activities helped to prove that “The Pen is mightier than the Sword” and so shaped a nation’s future.

“Phillip”, a sergeant in the Royal Air Force Regiment was based in Nicosia. But lived off-base, in a nearby village, where the Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots were ethnically divided. The demarcation was close to the rented bungalow where agent “Philip” had a large windowless safe room. His wife and their two young sons used it during skirmishes between the two communities. “Philip’s” landlord, Yiannis and his wife and family also shared the safe room when Greeks and Turks were killing each other in nearby streets.

Killings as British troops seek EOKA

Agent “Phillip” and his family were never threatened by any of the insurgents. He said later: “There were many skirmishes by the Turks against my village. Some became massacres because both Greeks and Turks would be killed and the bodies abused. I was ordered not to take any action other than to protect myself, and my family. I never needed to do that.”

In other parts of the island, Greek Cypriot para-military groups were killing British servicemen and Cypriot police as part of their campaign for Enosis – union with Greece. Led by Colonel George Grivas, whose codename was “Digenis”. EOKA murdered British military personnel and local police. Greek Cypriot opponents of EOKA were punished and some of those working for British organisations were shot dead on Nicosia’s “Murder Mile” or in their villages.

At one time 30,000 British soldiers and local police were trying to capture the man who issued edicts via leaflets signed “Digenis” as EOKA pushed its Enosis aims. The leaflets were aimed at the British authorities and the local Cypriot population. “Philip” was ordered to join patrols seeking to destroy EOKA and arrest its leaders. With an EOKA-coerced population and dense mountain forests, this proved to be an impossible task. The conflict evolved into a stalemate between EOKA and the British military.

RAF planes dropped 1,000s of leaflets on towns and villages urging support for continued British Rule. The government-controlled Radio Cyprus beamed out the same message:” You are better off with the British.

War of words for hearts and minds

EOKA produced streams of leaflets demanding that the island become a part of Greece and threatening any Greek Cypriots who opposed this view. Minority Turkish Cypriots were happy with the status quo of British rule, but fearful of increased ethnic oppression if EOKA became victorious.

Soon it became a war of words, as all sides fought for the hearts and minds of locals. Greek and Turkish “sides” attacked each other, while EOKA continued its campaign for Enosis. RAF planes increased leaflet drops over towns and villages to push the benefits of British rule. EOKA’s efficient courier and leaflet distribution service countered with opposing messages and new threats. Turks stepped up their demands for change but the United Nations had little impact on the conflict. They were dangerous times for the super secret agent, his comrades in arms and all Cyprus residents.

British forces began to lose the propaganda war with EOKA. Many military commanders claimed this was due to the politically imposed soft rules of engagement. One rule banned stop and search on priests of the Greek Orthodox Church. Many of them smuggled rifles, pistols, and hand grenades beneath their cassocks. Schoolchildren, who often couriered pistols from the scenes of shootings, could not be searched.

In 1958, a group of British intelligence officers decided to “fight dirty, like the enemy.” Using the nom de guerre “Cromwell” they set up a clandestine organisation to directly confront EOKA. “Cromwell” threatened EOKA members that British soldiers would affect swift retribution by killing two or more Greek Cypriots for each murdered Brit. If Grivas ordered the bombing of a British establishment, “Cromwell” would destroy Cypriot property.

Terrorist propaganda to British intelligence

Agent “Philip” was recruited by “Cromwell” to type and print off thousands of warning leaflets. These were then handed out in towns and villages around the island. British military chiefs ordered a crackdown on “Cromwell’s” activities. To avoid bad publicity in the UK and the United Nations, service personnel involved in “Cromwell” were secretly shipped back to the UK. Others were removed from their posts or reduced in rank.

But our super secret agent continued to be involved in the conflict, his printed leaflets were directly assisting British intelligence in its psychological war against EOKA. At the same time, he was being supplied with clandestine EOKA leaflets by his landlord, Yiannes who claimed he collected them when visiting his mother’s village in the mountains.

Yiannes also collected and handed over streams of leaflets from other Greek Cypriot anti-British groups that fought against the British and Turkish Cypriots for the union of Cyprus with Greece. These included:

• PEKA (Politiki Epitropi Kypriakou Agona –
  Political Committee of the Cypriot Struggle, the political wing of EOKA;
• ANE (Alkimos Neolaia Tis EOKA –
  Valiant Youth of EOKA) was the youth movement.

“Sword” armoury outgunned the insurgents

British Intelligence received their EOKA propaganda leaflets via ”Phillip” who continued to live with his family in their rented village bungalow. No threats against them came from EOKA or any of the other insurgent groups.

The secret agent was surprised their home was never attacked by EOKA or by warring neighbours. He told an interviewer: “My landlord, Yiannis, knowing I was armed, would plead to be allowed to move with his family into my blocked-off safe room. I always agreed. Yiannis gave me lots of EOKA, PEKA, ANE, and other leaflets telling me they were in gratitude for my protection.”

The leaflets handed over included threats against “traitors” – Greek Cypriots opposed to EOKA and its stated aim of union with Greece.

”Phillip” assumed he was never attacked because his “sword” armoury outgunned the weaponry of the insurgents, mainly country shotguns. His vital work with his “pen” was never discovered by the terrorists and this proved to be more effective in ending the island’s insurrection.

Shock as 30 years later the full story is revealed

However, 30 years later Agent “Phillip” returned to Cyprus and was shocked to discover the full truth of the time he was based on the isle of spies:

• Yiannis was an EOKA operative and go-between under threat of death.
  “Phillip” kept alive for EOKA propaganda to reach British Intelligence.
  EOKA tactics were influenced by “Cromwell” leaflets produced by him.

His brave and heroic story may still be unknown to his family, so if any readers suspect they might be related to Agent “Phillip” please get in touch with to share information etc.

In a letter that arrived unexpectedly, Agent “Phillip” revealed details of the deception that tricked him into the war of words as an agent provocateur for British Intelligence, a British rogue terror unit, and three Greek Cypriot terrorist groups.  

“In 1990, I went back to Cyprus on holiday and contacted Yiannis. He invited me to spend a day at my old bungalow where he and his wife now lived. He asked me if I remembered that he regularly visited his aged mother. I replied that he was a good son. He said that, in this case, that was not true.

“He told me that whenever the British found and destroyed an EOKA hideout EOKA forced him to use his skills as a carpenter to build a new hideout. He said he did it under death threats against his family. EOKA also told him he must develop a relationship with me and give me their leaflets as if he had found them in the street. He told me from that time my life was useful to EOKA and I was safe from assassination. I was the unknowing conduit for EOKA propaganda to reach the British authorities.

“On the bright side, I recently discovered that the Cromwell leaflets affected Grivas’s thinking. How satisfying to think that his use of me may have saved some soldiers’ lives.

“Yiannis and Cromwell are dead. Both were good men. Cromwell became a prominent member of the government.”

Pen victory over the sword as insurgency ends

The end of the Cyprus insurgency proved to be a victory for the pen over the sword. It was words and not bullets that eventually brought peace to the country.

It had become obvious to all sides in the conflict that a military solution was unlikely and there had to be a negotiated settlement. At one stage, there were 30,000 British troops in Cyprus under Field Marshal Sir John Harding, His opponent, Colonel Grivas, had 300 Greek Cypriots in his EOKA. The ratio between regular troops and guerrillas was 110-to-1 in favour of the British. Grivas remained at large in the Troodos and Paphos Mountains for years, although he had a narrow escape when his diary and EOKA accounts were seized in a raid on his discovered headquarters.

After five years of strife, the British Government preferred to come to terms with the rebels. The independence agreement for Cyprus was negotiated in Zurich and London in 1960. It was a compromise that gave each of the main protagonists something of what they had sought. But none could claim an outright victory.

When Cyprus became a republic, EOKA and demands for Enosis faded away. Increased factional in-fighting between the Turkish and Greek communities, led to the introduction of a United Nations Force to keep them apart. It remains in post 60 years later…

UPDATES

On the night of 31 March 1955, 16 bombs exploded in Nicosia and several other main towns on the island of Cyprus. The insurgent organization, EOKA (Ethniki Organosis Kyprion Agoniston or the National Organization of Cypriot Combatants), proclaimed that it was acting to induce the British to grant Enosis – the union between Cyprus and Greece.¹

The following day, Grivas distributed a first leaflet that said in part: “With the help of God, and faith in our honourable struggle, with the backing of all Hellenism, and the help of the Cypriots WE HAVE TAKEN UP THE STRUGGLE TO THROW OFF THE ENGLISH YOKE, our banners high, bearing the slogan which our ancestors handed down to us as a holy trust – DEATH OR VICTORY.

A second Grivas leaflet said in part: “To the Cyprus People. Cyprus must get rid of the English and will do so. Our slogan: self-determination, with the dire warning that if anyone loses his courage and attempts to co-operate with the ruler he will be struck implacably.”

A third Grivas leaflet said: “To all British soldiers and citizens and to their families now on Cyprus. You have been sent to Cyprus to slaughter innocent Cypriots at the behest of a narrow and selfish clique of politicians in London. The sooner and stronger you object and resist these forces of Colonialism, the faster this man’s slaughtering of British and Greek people in Cyprus will come to an end. This will be done by giving the Cyprus people the Divine Right of Self-determination.”

Who or what was Cromwell? Some believe he was a member of the Royal Horse Guards in Cyprus because they trace their origins back to a force raised by Oliver Cromwell prior to the second invasion of Scotland. Others believe the Cyprus “Cromwell” adopted the name because the original Oliver Cromwell was the last strong man to govern England.”

Cyprus has been called the Isle of Spies; a clearing house for secret agents of friend and foe. The island was a key location for London and Washington during the Cold War, a military and data collection base for the wider region of the Eastern Mediterranean.

The British moved their Middle East Headquarters to Cyprus in December 1954, making it clear that they intended to stay on the island for the immediate future. The main MI5 station for the Middle East was based in Nicosia and the Middle East High Command was in Episcope. Permanent radio signal monitoring stations were placed on Aghios Nikolaos and Mount Troodos, Olympus, and Pergamos.

British radio stations targeting Arab populations in the Middle East transmitted from Cyprus. The Arab Near East Radio Station transmits from Polemydia, and its signal reaches as far as Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Jordan, Northern Egypt, and parts of Saudi Arabia. A source of British propaganda, this station was a major means of PSYOP against the Arabs.

Documents in the National Archives (released in 2018) reveal that there was resistance within the Colonial Office to the concept of psychological warfare. One unnamed official said that the propaganda efforts in Cyprus failed partly because people had made up their minds. “Reason, logic, thought, common sense, analysis, all the processes which are usual in the Western mind are absent,” the official wrote. “Once the Greek Cypriot has taken a side in an issue, he will tenaciously cling to a belief in that side.” 

Agent “Phillip” revealed his multiple secret agent roles in a letter to the author, David French who was researching material for his book, British Intelligence and the Origins of the EOKA Insurgency (David French, British Journal for Military History.

Details and texts of the leaflets and other propaganda from all sides in the 1951-1960 Cyprus Troubles are available online. Psychological Operations in Cyprus 1954-1959 by Herb Friedman and Brigadier General Ioannis Paschalidis

Read what happened next in Cyprus Bombed out of Cyprus as Turks go to war in

More revealing short stories of our ancestors

A fire revealed an ancestors’ long-held secret. There were surprising revelations when a family history researcher discovered the secret of Peterboat Inn, which her innkeeping ancestors owned. What they had been up to for 300 years at the River Thames fishing village was finally exposed in a 150-year-old official forensic report on the blaze recently found in Town Hall archives.

Heather Gentry’s ancestors were known for centuries as respectable innkeepers, cocklers, watermen, and even farmers until the diligent family history researcher discovered the dark side of their lives.

Ancestors can be honest and upright or dishonest and dishonourable, but they remain an ancestor hanging on the family history tree forever. Being an “innkeeper” is probably an upright occupation. But what does it take to shift that newly discovered forebear into the dishonest and dishonourable category?

The Peterboat pub had been recorded at the heart of the waterfront at the picturesque fishing village of Leigh on Sea, Essex, England, since the early 1600s. Records indicated that Samuel Osborne was the most likely early owner until he died around 1695. One of his 21st-century descendants discovered Samuel’s son, John Osborne, who became the landlord in the same year his father’s death was recorded.

Confusing for family history researchers

John Osborne died in 1739, while further records showed the Peterboat pub had passed not to his son John Osborne (II) but to his grandson John Osborne (III). Local documents confirmed he was the licensee in 1769. Giving a son the same name from generation to generation was a standard practice in the olden days. However, it can be confusing for family history researchers.

The Osbornes continued this for four more generations. So many Johns, including Grandpa John (VI). A total of six John Osbornes could have been serving pints of cockles and pints of beer at the Peterboat Inn.

Inn and homes destroyed

All were socially “respectable” enough, with no cause for concern, even when one of the Johns showed his occupation as a waterman and farmer. It was a departure from beer pulling but a logical expansion given that fields overlooked the pub and the River Thames estuary flowed right by it.

“Respectable” until 1892, when a disastrous fire destroyed the Peterboat Inn and nearby. It started during some after-hours drinking, during which the ancestor landlord and his nephew knocked over an oil lamp… They then had to knock down the wall of the house next door to rescue his wife and children and help evacuate other neighbours as the blaze spread along the street.

Villagers were shocked at the fire and the damage caused to the waterfront properties and felt a lot of sympathy for the Osborne family. But then came gossip-worthy disclosures following a closer inspection of the inn’s fire debris.

Evidence found in secret cellar

Town hall officials discovered a hidden cellar and passages extended beneath the quayside. A door provided direct access for boats tied up to the quay. The authorities found “contraband and evidence of smuggling in the cellar.” The Osbornes were suddenly in big trouble.

Leigh on Sea was suspected to be a haunt of the smuggling fraternity along the Kent and Essex coastlines. So when, in 1892, the Peterboat pub burned down, few locals were surprised at the smuggling allegation. The cellar and secret passages directly accessed the waterside adjoining the Alley Dock. A path from the dock ran up to Daws Heath — a notorious area for lawless highwaymen, transients and drifters.

For nearly 300 years, the Osborne family were seen as respectable innkeepers at the heart of the local community. Now it looked like their big secret was out, and they were lawbreaking smugglers and part of a network of “Free Traders”. Two Osborne brothers, Joseph and Joshua, were alive at the time of the discovery.

More research after discoveries

Their customers might not have been surprised at the smuggling revelations. However, should the current family history researcher re-categorise her ancestor’s social standing? It seems harsh, but maybe ”dishonest” and “dishonourable” might be more accurate for the Osbornes on the Leigh on Sea waterfront.

The family’s researcher, Heather Gentry, says: “I wasn’t really surprised at the revelations, so why should I judge them? After all, many family trees include black sheep ancestors who have strayed from the straight and narrow path. I was taught on my mother’s knee that Essex folk have been ‘Free traders for centuries’. To discover I was a descendant of ‘Free Traders’ adds a new dimension to my life.”

More research might establish if there had been enough evidence to convict them as smugglers and if they were punished by banishment in Australia. The transportation lists contain many Osbornes.

How we catch cockles in the River Thames

Our cockle boat Mary Amelia goes out from Leigh on Sea into the Thames Estuary when the tide is coming to reach its destination to begin cockling. The boat is well equipped with radios and plotters used to plot a course to the permitted cockling areas.

Cockles are fished using a dredge placed into the water when the boat is floating between five and 15 feet above the cockle beds. During this time, the vessel will be moving at a speed of around five knots. A blade is submerged into the ground while high-pressure pushes water into the ground to dislodge the cockles to be sucked up through a pipe onto the boat.

These cockles then pass through a screen that rotates around. The screen bars are spaced so any small, young cockles, plus mud, sand and water, fall back into the sea. Cockles then move onto a conveyor belt and fall into the boat’s hold. It can take as little as three hours to fish 10 tonnes of cockles. This is the amount permitted by the Kent & Essex Inshore Fisheries and Conservation Authority.

Once the boat reaches its permitted quota, it will return to Leigh-on-Sea. Depending on how quickly it has managed to fish them, it may be able to return to Leigh on the outgoing tide. If it misses this, the boat sits on the mud until the next tide.

: : Written by Graham Osborne of the Peterboat pub and Thames cockler.

Leigh on Sea has been the first port of call for smugglers for centuries. There were plenty of customers in surrounding towns like Rayleigh and Southend. London is a mere 30 miles upstream for local cockleboats. Contraband can be easily concealed among cargoes of cockles, oysters and other seafood. The Peterboat pub is still owned and run by a branch of the Osborne family. They also own the best-known cockling business in Essex County.

Economics finally signalled the end of the great smuggling era. In the 1840s, Britain adopted a free-trade policy that slashed import duties to realistic levels. Within ten years, large-scale smuggling was just a memory… or just a “diminished” family concern in some cases?

The boats used by fishermen up to the mid-20th century were much smaller than those in current use. The earliest type seems to have been the ‘Peter boat’, originally a double-ended boat without gunwale or rim. But as solid and safe as a fisherman’s boat should be.

Related ancestry story: Bar brawl in Bahia Blanca

Another true ancestral smuggler story

A Samaritan sea captain saved my ancestor, a Russian Imperial Army draft dodger with Cossack bounty hunters hot on his trail. My great-grandfather Jacob fled with his 12-year-old wife-to-be, Rachel and her daughter Leah, a baby in arms not yet a year old.

They arrived safely in England sometime in 1871. But it took a life-saving Samaritan act by a British sea captain and a conspiracy on the high seas involving Queen Victoria to get the family to safety.

They had fled Russia so Jacob, a tinker who sold cheese to local taverns, could avoid the forced conscription of young male Jews into the imperial army of Czar Alexander II. Russian laws decreed Jews should serve for 25 years or become Russian Orthodox Christians. Jacob wanted neither and became a draft dodger. But for the Samaritan sea captain’s rescue act, Jacob would have drowned. The Cossacks missed out on the 50 rouble bounty offered by the Czar. There were plenty of names on their list.

Jacob, along with 1,000s of other persecuted Jews, was aware of an escape route to freedom starting with the long trek to the German port of Bremen. Steamships left the port for Canada, the United States and England. Local agents for the shipping lines arranged paperwork and tickets for refugees. They came from Russia and Baltic countries like Lithuania and Belarus, which were under the yoke of the Czar.

Jewish Quarter, a short walk away

It seems likely that Jacob, Rachel and baby Leah booked tickets on MS Adler with its important route to London’s St Katharine Dock, from which the main Jewish Quarter is just a short walk away.

However, family folklore has my great-grandfather swimming desperately in the sea in the Bay of Riga to escape Russian Cossack bounty hunters who were closing in on him. He was spotted by the crew of a British passing tramp steamer and he was rescued and worked his passage to England. For his safety, when he returned to Russia to collect Rachel and baby Leah, it was decided he should take the name of the ship’s captain.

The captain even completed a retrospective birth certificate to indicate Jacob had been born aboard the ship. At that time, sea captains were issued with blank certificates to register the births and deaths of passengers. An impressive-looking official stamp carrying the inscription of Her Imperial Majesty Queen Victoria authenticated the certificate. It was as good as a passport – or better as passports did not exist in their current form until 1915.

Rescued by a passing steamship

The captain recorded his first “onboard birth” in the ship’s log and completed the birth certificate. He inserted the name Jacob Barnett and his place of residence, as Wrexham, North Wales. And so, says one family legend, my great grandfather was “born” – at sea at the age of 22.

Another, even more dramatic version was published as a full-page feature article in the Sunday Express in 1980. It has Jacob plunging into the freezing Baltic Sea, hotly pursued by Cossacks recruiting for the Russian Imperial Army. Jacob swam far from the shore and was rescued by the crew of a passing steamship. The ship’s captain produced a British birth certificate for Jacob, who then used it as his “passport” to return to Russia and bring Rachel and baby Leah to England.

Because of the mid-passage “name change,” it has proved difficult to establish the precise details of the escape from Russia.

With his family safely in London, Jacob decided they should “live in the place where I was born”—North Wales. Jacob’s completion of the family’s first national census proves the last stage of the journey. In 1881, he was the head of the household in the small town of Buckley near Wrexham. Then, he listed himself, Rachel, and little Leah as all born in Russia.

Wrexham in North Wales was to be the focus for immigrant Jews for nearly three decades after the arrival of Jacob, Rachel and Leah. There was already a well-worn route into the newly industrialised valleys of Wales. It was used by immigrant Jews seeking a better life than that in Russia and Eastern Europe. Britain’s coal and industrial boom offered fit and able refugees unlimited work opportunities.

Like other Jews arriving in Wales at that time, my great-grandfather had commercial and people skills related to the employment restrictions placed on Jews in Russia. Many Russian immigrants became hawkers, as did my great-grandfather. They travelled up and down the valleys to sell everyday goods to homemakers. They also attended country markets.

Life was safer and healthier

Rachel, a teenage mother who cared for baby Leah in whatever rented accommodation they could find, must have struggled to learn English and local ways. She seems to have retained her Yiddish and some Russian traits. The family had survived the traumatic dash for freedom from Russia and found Welsh life safer and healthier.

Within ten years of landing in Britain, the Barnett family had a four-room house on the straggling main street running through Buckley, near Mold in Flintshire. In 1883, my great-grandfather married Rachel, now age 24, at the main Jewish synagogue in East London. Subsequently, Jacob and Rachel produced eight more children.

My grandfather, Solomon (Saul) Barnett, was born in Britain in 1895, almost 24 years after his Jewish father fled Russia.

At some point, my great-grandfather dropped the name Jacob, preferring the English John or sometimes a Welsh version—David John. Rachel successfully raised little Leah and her eight siblings. Welsh English was their first language, and within the family, Yiddish was used.

“Thee leaves England at Chester and enters Wales. Eight miles on and thee comes to Buckley.”

Instructions written by a Buckley man to a prospective visitor from “furrin parts”

The Barnett family enjoyed a quiet, sheltered life in Buckley, a town that depended on coal mining and brick-making for its progress and growing prosperity. Rosanna was born in 1895, and Jacob, two years later, registered as a home birth. Within two years, there was Sarah and the following year, Rebecca arrived. Then, at intervals of two years, Abraham, Solomon, (my granddad) Doris and Lazarus arrived. They were recorded for the first time in the 1911 census.

The census recorded that John (Jacob) Barnett and Rachel had produced nine children, six born over just 13 years. The neighbours would have dubbed this birth rate “steps and stairs” because this frequency was quite common then. They all lived into adulthood and beat the lousy survival odds of poor families in Victorian Britain. The family mastered English very well. John Barnett wrote his census entry in his 1901 census form in a firm and legible hand. Another census form showed Rachel had also become a licensed hawker. She was probably trading from their front room on the main road in Buckley.

Acquired obvious survival skills

My grandfather, Solomon “Saul” Barnett, who was listed in local trade directories as a licensed hawker—complete with horse and cart—was ambitious and hardworking. As a youth, he was often involved in neighbourhood escapades. As an adult, neighbours described him as “nabbert” (nothing but trouble).

He was born in Wales, served briefly in the Welsh Fusiliers in WW1, married in an English Bethel Chapel and was buried in a Jewish cemetery.

Subsequently, Solomon (also known as Sol or Saul) Barnett became my first direct English-born ancestor on the maternal side of the family. He had acquired evident survival skills from his Russian parents and hard-working neighbours in Buckley and Leeswood.

My granddad Saul was brought up in a Yiddish and English-speaking household. From an early age, he helped his father as he peddled silver jewellery and household items along the grimy streets of Buckley and nearby Leeswood.

Working as a coal miner

By 1911, my grandfather was working in a nearby coal mine, according to Dr Cai Parry-Jones, Curator of Oral History at the British Library. In his landmark book, Jews of Wales: A History, published in 2017, he wrote: “Jews in other parts of Wales also worked in essentially working-class occupations. Solomon Barnett of Buckley, the son of a Russian-Jewish hawker, was working as a miner in Flintshire in 1911, while Russian-born Abraham Glazier was an ironworker in Shotton, Flintshire, during the same period.”

Buckley and neighbouring towns were booming at the end of the 19^th century because of what was brought up from out of the ground:

• Best quality clay for Buckley bricks, pottery and tiles that sold around the world and
• Cannel coal had a pithead price five times that of standard coal and twice the value per ton excavated of gold mined in Australia and California.

Better than an Eldorado gold rush

It was better than an Eldorado gold rush. Cannel coal was mined, gas flared off from steaming stacks and coal tar was produced. The coal also produced town gas. The oil content was refined into petrol at a much lower cost than that supplied by American oil fields. Cannel came from newly worked mines in the nearby Clwydian Range, the Hope and Buckley Mountains and the Mold Valley.

The Prime Minister of the day, William Gladstone, visited and declared: “We have a splendid steam coal, with an immense demand for it— a demand greater than we can at present supply.

“This extraordinary treasure of the Cannel coal is, as you know, far better for the manufacture of gas than any other coal. Reviews of the Mineral Specimens at the Exhibition in London indicate that the Cannel coal from Leeswood, near Mold, is considered to be the very finest ever brought before the public.”

As the Cannel coal boom continued, landowners and mine owners became very rich and mines and mining rights were traded for huge sums. Some of the proceeds trickled down into the wider working community. Not that all people experiencing poverty would notice or benefit from it.

Some families did manage to improve their living standards and raise their aspirations on the back of the smelly coal oil industry.

Work was dangerous, death rate high

The Barnett family had money coming in from John, my great-grandfather, tramping the streets with his peddler’s cart. Their daughter Leah, probably a servant in a big house up the road. But times remained tough.

My granddad, Solomon, at 17, was, as detailed in the book Jews of Wales, working at one of the privately owned local coal mines. The pay was low, work was dangerous, and the death rate was high due to lax standards in what today we call “health and safety”.

There was enough money for my great-grandma, Rachel, to provide regular meals and a good table. That kept the family strong and healthy. She and John had produced nine children, all of whom survived. This survival rate was against the odds, given the high mortality rate in 19th-century Britain.

“Ensure your baby’s feed milk comes from the same cow”

Official motherhood advice

It was estimated that 1 in 5 children died before their fifth birthday. Infant mortality has always been high. This was mainly due to the lack of sanitation and general hygiene, especially among low-income people. However, wealthier families were not immune to early death. Consumption was the cause of death of many young people, as were cholera outbreaks. Childbirth claimed many women across the whole social scale.

In retrospect, official motherhood guidance didn’t help much: “Ensure your baby’s feed milk comes from the same cow.” This directive could not apply to mother and child in many urban tenements.

Despite the poor survival odds, the Barnetts of Buckley thrived and stayed Jewish. This was when there were few Jews in North Wales for mutual support. Some older children became locally employed and moved out of the family home.

However, a major family scandal that shocked local communities resulted in a wholesale family move from Wales to England. Life for the Barnetts was about to change dramatically.

Another version of Terry Walker’s ancestors’ Flight to Freedom

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Every family history is unique and the brutal bar brawl detailed in this seaman’s story came after a month of fierce Atlantic gales that drove Tyne-based cargo boats hundreds of miles off-course, flying the signal “Not under command” because “we could just not steer”…

They were heading for the Eastern seaboard of the USA but finished up in Bahia Blanca, the first peaceful haven for our author’s ship in 45 days. But the port, known as “The Gateway to Patagonia”, was about to have its own “Perfect Storm”…

Bahia Blanca is in Argentina. What a place, and how lucky we were that the dockworkers decided to call a strike. In Argentina, everything was state-owned in 1958. The dockworkers went on strike, so everyone else did, too. Our cargo boat – part of the Chapman and Wilan fleet – was trapped in port and, as its radio officer, so was I.  We were there for about a month and the only ship that managed to get away was a German twin-screw vessel that did not need tugs to get off the quay.

Several other vessels were stranded in port, and a great camaraderie was all about the place between the various international crews. I hardly ever ate onboard. The morning would be spent onboard, poking about catching up with corrections – the bane of a radio/officer’s life.

Come noon; it was my habit to disappear ashore to a local cantina just outside the dock gate and tuck into a “bife de lomo completo con huevos y patatas fritas” – along with a bottle of the local vino tinto.

Sometimes I had company; sometimes I managed to meet up with one of the other R/Os later on. But, whatever, I never made it back aboard that same day. I would sit for a good while over my meal and then wander down the road to another cantina for a beer or two.

Free plates of local gambas

One never seemed to get too drunk – there were always things to eat. All bars automatically put a soup plate of large prawns (gambas) on the table as soon as you ordered a beer and these were renewed regularly.  They were caught locally and cost next to nothing. My lunch of steak and wine cost around 2/6d (around 12 pence)!

The other choice for the languid days was to catch the bus up the road to the town of Bahia Blanca, but one had to be a bit canny to return.  There was a rush hour, and unless you had good elbows and no manners, you stayed until later.  The night usually ended in the local nightclub to watch Paula who could do quite amazing things with various parts of her body.

Then back to the ship to repeat the whole thing the next day. The second local cantina was the scene of one of the most amazing bar brawls I have seen. It happened on a day that everyone from the ships had decided was to be a “day off”.

These days seem to happen on ships and occasionally seem to occur to all ships at the same time. So the bar was quite full of all nationalities and the beer was flowing. A perfect storm was forming… Bar Brawl family history is coming up.

Bit of slap and tickle

About halfway up the wall in one corner they had a square balcony platform. An attractive girl was stationed on the balcony to play record requests. Or, just what she fancied. Unfortunately, what she fancied most was a bit of slap and tickle in the many intervals…

This particular afternoon there were two hombres involved. One would give her the wink and she would manufacture an interval and return a few minutes later dabbing at the make-up. Then the other guy would become interested and the same procedure would follow.

Of course, the inevitable happened and through an alcoholic haze, the signal winks coincided. Both hombres retired behind the cantina with spectacular results.

A bar brawl kicks off…

Round one – Brief fisticuffs
A fight ensued between the hombre rivals, but this was quickly suppressed by amigos on both sides. That, however, was not to be the end of it. A bar brawl is about to be added to my family’s history.

Round two – DJ senorita’s treachery
As the day progressed and the beer flowed, the two aggrieved hombres rallied. In fact, in a way, they had joined forces. They were equally aggrieved at the senorita’s behaviour – nay treachery! Soon, Spanish comments were directed to the stage. Then came the derogations…

Round three – Pump the bilges
Now, the two-timing senorita was right in the line of fire of insults from both hombres and their supporters. Finally, the nail in the coffin. “Puta!”

A hush descended on the cantina. Fists, bottles and glasses were in suspended animation. Several faces disappeared into beer glasses, and other men decided too much had gone on and it was necessary to ‘pump the bilges’.

Round four – All hell from the balcony.
Quite what was being said was not clear, but the general meaning was understood by all. Especially when a 78-rpm gramophone record was launched like a spinning frisbee and headed into the crowd below. Do you remember the 78s?  They could decapitate a drunk if one landed in the right (erm, wrong) place.

Round five – Risking life and limb
Now was definitely the time to take cover. The 78-rpm records were coming thick and fast, as the DJ senorita worked her way through the cantina’s library.  Tables were put on their sides to provide missile cover.  Those 78s that survived impact – surprisingly, many did – were hurled back to the balcony. The launching punter risked life and limb in the process. The air filled with whirling missiles.

Cantina’s record library fully weaponised

Opening salvo: A recording of She’s My Baby by Tennessee Ernie Ford on Capitol Records skimmed over the contestants, followed by Eve Boswell’s Pickin’ A Chicken With You on Parlophone.

Then, flying across the cantina in quick succession came: Got A Head Like A Rock by Josh White and Rumble Boogie by Roy Vaughan’s Boogie Trio, both on the Jazz Parade label.

Another salvo included Dorsey Brothers’ Orchestra’s I Get A Kick Out Of You on Capitol Records. Then, music aficionados noted new platters flying into the crowd. These included Things Got Worse and County Jail Special recorded by Champion Jack Dupree.

Then, a salvo of Argentinean tango band 78rpm records was launched from the balcony. These included a rare recording of La Yumba by Orquesta Osvaldo Pugliese – an indication shellac ammunition was running low at this stage.

Round six – Flying platters of prawns
Bottles, glasses and records as weapons gave way to platters of prawns flying through the air. Soon followed by chairs and anything else detachable. Crewmen from the many nations were now in newfound alliances and slugged it out – mainly with fists and chairs. It was getting hairy with groaning victims in recovery mode.

Round seven – Enter the cavalry.
My party decided to make for the door in an honourable retreat and started a move to do so. Suddenly, the doors burst open, and our chance was gone. Someone had called the police. Without warning, enormous horses burst into the cantina; their riders were waving long batons that quickly connected with skulls. They do not take any prisoners down in Bahia Blanca. 

Round eight – Western-style exit
When I last saw the DJ girl she was directing operations from on high… I did a spaghetti western exit from a window into the street. Later, the brawl survivors gathered in a bar up the road and spent an enjoyable session recounting, with increasing elaboration, the afternoon’s main event. It was a bar brawl worthy of any family history, confirmed by all of us…

The sequel – Sentry boxed
Some Dutch seamen returning to their ship in the early hours of the next day decided to comment on the police action. It was not until the shift change that they found the policeman on gate duty, still in his sentry box. It was horizontal, lying with the door down on the ground. Heavy things them! 

UPDATE

The author has only a vague recollection of the name of his ship in Bahia Blanca. It was one of the so-called “Greyhounds of the North” cargo ships owned by Chapman and Willan of Tyneside, England. This firm of ship-owners had a reputation for “running a tight ship”. Tyne folklore suggests every “Greyhound” in the fleet was painted grey to save on paint costs. All the ships included in the fleet had names ending in “ton” so it is assumed that this was the company naming convention. Their crews had to learn to steam into the River Tyne backwards and reverse onto the berth. This was to avoid paying for a tug on the way out.          

Ships’ radio was used to navigate vessels and make distress calls in emergencies safely. It enables communication with coast stations, port/harbour authorities and with other vessels. On many of the author’s ships, there was only Morse code signalling and Aldis lamps for shore and nearby shipping. Chief navigation aid was the sextant invented in 1731.

Watch video: Bahia Blanca – Gateway to Patagonia

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When Italian business people go for an impromptu night out on the tiles in a famed gastronomic city it comes with a Sicilian corker and tableside performances… However, what happened afterwards provided “la ciliegina sulla torta” for the diners.

In the 1970s, I had PR and marketing clients involved in the Italian ceramic tile industry and every year or so I travelled to Bologna, a famous gastronomic city and location for the construction industry’s marketing event, Fiere di Bologna. Here hefty men, materials and equipment gathered for updates on previous exhibitions. Many thousands attended and at times it was like Old Trafford on match days – but noisier, maybe.

I spent days helping to staff the exhibition stands of clients and stalking the press office to brief journalists on clients’ progress and new products. I talked to potential clients who designed and baked floor tiles. Then there were distributors and retailers to provide their thoughts on the future of their industry,

There were side trips to nearby Sassuolo, the heartland of the country’s tile manufacturing. Here I could cycle along the football pitch-length tile production lines of the big boys and chat with family bosses of the more artisan tile makers. 20,000 people work in Tile Valley, close to Moderna and 70% of the tiles produced are exported – and UK sales needed a big boost.

With a little persuasion and clever marketing, ceramic tiles might begin to replace the “fitted carpet” era of British interior design brought about by new loom technology and cheap Belgian labour.

Italian-style sit-down lunches

By midweek at the exhibition, along with hundreds of others toiling away on the stands, and traipsing the aisles, I was suffering from “Fiera Feet”. This manifested itself as a raw numbness of soles, ankles and knees. It can be assuaged only by long Italian-style sit-down lunches. Luckily, there are excellent cafes and trattorie dotted around the extensive exhibition centre. Or, in city centre restaurants offering the best of the renowned Bolognese cuisine.

A group of tile-makers and their agents, mainly couples, decided they wanted dinner at one of Bologna’s best-kept-secret ristorantes. It was located in a village off the Tangenziale. That’s the crazy, jam-packed ring road that keeps more people out of Bologna than did the medieval walls they demolished to make way for it.

I was invited to join them for their night on the tiles and we set off in three cars. Other tiles people promised to join us later. I was in the rear seat and shielded from most of the driving excesses of rush-hour Italians crammed together heading to and along the Tangenziale. Soon though, I was able to yell “Basta, Basta” in support of our driver and in unison with my fellow passengers.

Bottles of wine for every diner

Eventually, we arrived at the village where we were told we would find the chosen eating place. There were quite a few cars, parked nose-in and haphazardly, around what looked like a small grocery shop. Our drivers likewise observed the local parking regime. Our party entered the grocer’s shop and we were ushered through a stringy fly curtain at the rear.

The dining room looked like it had been a farm barn and there were long refectory-style tables and benches. Our reserved table for 16 was along the barn wall. I slid along the wall bench to mid-table. I could keep in touch with our party members and see what might be happening in the rest of the dining area. It looked quite busy even at that early hour.

No sooner were we seated than corked bottles of red and white wine were sent sliding along the table top by a waiter. It seemed there were at least two bottles for every diner. I was happy with a red that I grabbed en route to the end of the table.

Party tricks for a night on the tiles

Sitting opposite me was the middle-aged, matronly wife of a Sicilian tile distributor. She looked a bit jolly housewifely, but she had a party trick that turned out to be a show-stopper.

Within seconds she was in action, extracting the cork from a bottle of wine she had intercepted as it slid down the table.

Bottle neck into her mouth… pop… tugs, and the cork was between her teeth. She poured the newly available wine into her glass. I was gobsmacked. At home, my John Lewis air pump wine opener would take longer than this slick signora. She grabbed my bottle and handed it back corkless a second or two later. She performed the service for others of our party. Most were amazed. There are many bottle-opening hacks on the internet – including one from Portugal involving heated tongs (please note the spelling) – for drinkers deprived of a corkscrew, but they hardly compared.

After the end of a glorious banquet and gallons of vino, we discovered our table corker’s husband had a little party trick of his own. He was wearing a coarse wool suit with a waistcoat. He pushed back his chair and stood up. I noticed his trousers had button flies when he started what could be a speech. Not so, Sicilians like “performance” after a good nosh and he’s brought his little minchia along as a prop to his folklore recitation.

Never trained for dining cabaret

By the second verse, a fat, hairy finger is poking out through his flies and wiggling as the tale of minchia’s little adventure unfolds. I don’t need to understand every word (Sicilian accent) because the puppet-like action spells it out graphically and to ready audience appreciation. Other diners gathered around as the tale of minchia – it translates as male organ – alludes to all manner of sexual innuendo. The finale brings applause, cheers and a few gentile blushes from some of the women.

“A great act, all the way from Sicily. Ladies and gentlemen, next up for your entertainment we have…”

There’s a pause and the Sicilian, his wife and a couple of others have a short huddle This results in me (“l’unico Inglese”) being chosen for the next act of the DIY cabaret. The score is Italy 1 England 0. Mamma Mia… how can I beat that minchia performance? My minchia has never been licensed for public appearances so definitely, isn’t an Equity cardholder. I was never trained for dining cabaret, my Italian is dodgy, particularly after the bottles of vino I have consumed.

A night on the tiles with a Sicilian corker

Bottles of vino…consumed? I accept the challenge. Cry God for Harry, England and Saint George. The English, against the odds, might yet come up trumps.

I collected empty wine bottles from the tables and lined them up on a narrow shelf running along the wall behind me. I stopped when I had ten green bottles standing on the wall, well, a shelf in this case. Kids of all ages love this nursery rhyme…

Even my Italian was up for this performance, but I stumbled over “should accidentally fall”. Deliberately flicking the first couple of bottles onto the floor added to the confusion for a short while.

By the time we got to seven green bottles left standing on the wall everyone was joining in. There was cheering and yelling if a bottle crashed onto the tiled floor and shattered. Other diners sang and waved their arms around in fine Italian style. The whole place was in a happy chaotic mood. I got up on my chair for a grand finale. This included many more bottles accidentally falling… Italy 1 England 1. I got a draw, at least.

Folk-style ballroom dancing

We closed the night out with a visit to a nearby la Sala da Ballo, where a live band played on the balcony, tables were topped with fine linen and the dancers dressed formally. Watching the carefully choreographed movements of couples was like going back 60 years, but there was an appreciative audience. Bologna has been the centre of this “folk-style” ballroom dancing for hundreds of years. However, I was keen to miss out on these traditional pleasures, considering the amount of booze I’d drunk. Lack of fitness, lack of practice, any excuse to avoid that dance floor.

That wasn’t going to be. The Sicilian Corker hauled me onto the floor. This was sure to end in humiliation judging by the complex routines of the other dancers. My two left feet sorted themselves out after a short while. But, my performance would not have made week two of Strictly Come Dancing.

I am unsure how I even made it back to my hotel in nearby Moderna. I hoped the Sicilian Corker, her husband and minchia all returned safely to their family business. Everybody enjoyed our night out on the tiles with an Italian corker and the very individual entertainment provided by the Sicilians – and the only Englishman.

UPDATE

Minchia is used a lot in Sicilian conversation. However, euphemisms like mizzica and milla come into play on more formal occasions. The word can be used to express joy, approval or irritation. For instance, the Sicilian author, Andrea Camilleri frequently has his famous Inspector Montalbano use the word as a curse. Minchia is the best Sicilian word to use if you see a beautiful female, thing, or person, You would say Minchia ch’è bedda! The double D is a Sicilian consonant somewhere between an N and a D.

“Cry ‘God for Harry, England, and Saint George!’ ” was the battle cry from Henry V at Agincourt, according to Shakespeare, and warriors reported that they saw their Patron Saint on the battlefield, fighting on the English side. Wikipedia.

Related ancestry story: Bar brawl in Bahia Blanca

The Covid era has persuaded people to do more talking and reading – and taking up creative writing. With record levels of online chat; new demand for short reads and many wannabe authors, the biggest genre is “Family History”. An article length of around 1,400 words is an easy 7-minute read! Every family history has a story to tell… Ancestry Stories can help you to discover yours and tell it to the online world.

Millions of people around the world are actively and passively involved in Genealogy. Search websites like Ancestry and Find My Past make it easier than ever to round up ancestral relatives and establish their place in your family tree and history. The dramas and hard times endured by some of our ancestors, and the triumphs enjoyed by others, reflect directly on your life right now and the lives of your descendants.

To write about your discoveries can be emotional, exciting, engaging and entertaining. Family history is always educational as it peels back periods and places shrouded in time and memory loss.

Ancestral stories hang naturally on any compiled family tree as they bring the “names” to life with fine deeds or misdeeds, moments of magic or madness or even a shared moment in history. offers a growing library of short, easy-read stories. They take, typically, around seven minutes to read: on journeys, work breaks or when it’s time to hit the sack. Here are some early questions to ask?

To be able to produce a strong family history story could be your family’s finest legacy and inheritance. Pages to be read avidly and added to by future generations. If published online “My Family Story” is easily updated with new adventures, achievements and heartaches. Good news and bad news echoes down the ages and helps descendants to find their place in the Family Tree.

New family sagas can often gain attention and fans from around the world. Such new work can be a lifetime achievement and it deserves to be shared with the maximum number of readers. Social media is one obvious channel, but with relevant links to specialist short story websites like “lost” family members can easily share their newly discovered history.

Family history story needs to be told

If you are itching to write and gain an appreciative readership for your work, can we suggest 2024* as the year to fire up your creative talents. Maybe, like Don Quixote, the inspirational hero of the 17th-century Spanish epic novel by Miguel de Cervantes that has intrigued, inspired and challenged authors and artists for centuries, you can tilt at a few windmills of your own. And they do say the pen is mightier than the sword?

• How did my ancestors fare in their lifetime?
• Where did my family come from?
• What have I experienced in my lifetime?
• Record the lives and times of ancestors for future generations?

Write it all down… and search for pictures and mementoes in the attic then ask relatives what they remember. Research the times in which they lived. Soon you could have a story so memorable that it will resonate with your family now and through the ages…

You may need help to write your story.
And share it with the rest of the world?

After 60 years of writing words that gained millions of readers around the world, I decided to write about my lifetime adventures and the people who have marked my life as an international journalist and editor. That was 2021, as Covid-19 raged and we were socially entrapped in deepest Essex County, England. By Government decree, we were cut off from family and friends around the country. So it was a good time to prise open the family history cupboard and reveal any skeletons therein…

I summoned up all my journalistic experience to probe my family’s past. Clues and relatives were discovered in South Africa, America, Russia, England, Wales and Denmark. Soon I was reeling under the startling revelations involving ancestors on my rapidly assembled family tree…

Mother, a runaway teenage bride

There were tinkers, cheese-makers, retailers, journalists, teachers, soldiers, sailors, airmen, a coalminer, a jailed protester who was expelled to Russia, a painter to a Royal Court, a runaway teenage bride (my mother) whose nuptials were probably the first of the 475,000 UK weddings during World War Two.

A great grandfather revealed as a military draft dodger fleeing 19th century Cossack press gangs in White Russia and a great grandmother producing the first of nine children when she was just 12 years old… And still digging in the closet…

1915 was evidently a very frantic year for my Jewish grandad who joined the British army, fathered an out-of-wedlock son, and then married (in a Bethel Baptist Chapel) a woman who was not the mother. In the same year, he managed to get himself shot and was invalided out of the army. For which he’d volunteered despite being in a reserved occupation.

Historic hard day’s night tribute

After a start like that and after I added in my adventures around the world my memoir quickly became a book-sized 80,000 words, entitled My Life, in Words. Even as I wrote down the stories, more of the participants took their leave of us. Sir Harold Evans, acknowledged as “The finest journalist of all time” – and my mentor over the years – left his own version of a story I had already written for My Life, in Words. The story of the historic hard day’s night we shared, together with John F. Kennedy, John, Paul, George and Ringo, became the most popular read in The Times tributes the day after Harry Evans’s death in 2020. I was happy to have been its author.

We have published both versions of that momentous day here in Ancestry Stories. Budding family history writers may find many useful pointers to their future success in the Hard Day’s Night story. And in the many other entertaining fact-based tales we have lined up for publication during the launch year of 

Terry Walker | Editor | North Essex, England | January 2024

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All short articles about your ancestors are welcome at Ancestry-Stories. As are those of today’s generation living adventurous lives, achieving their lifetime goals or inspiring our readers in their fight against adversity and disease. We can help you to share your family history.

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Our professionally written blogs provide advice and assistance in researching your family history and the social history period in which your ancestors lived, loved and strove to produce a better future for the next generation.

The blog also offers assistance in fact-checking and drafting the stories that will almost certainly emerge from your family research. We can guide you to cultural sources and markers relevant to the life and times of your most interesting ancestors. This will enable you to detail their activities within the most relevant social arena, even as generations progress:

from tinker to tailor to tech entrepreneur; or maybe,

from villain to vicar to victor ludorum in sport, academia or business.

All stories can be expanded with embedded videos, images, sounds and even 1-click documents like birth certificates or citations.

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Trouble was brewing, even in the remote Troodos Mountains. In 1974 I witnessed the first signs of events that would see us bombed out of Cyprus and change it forever. Soon there would be rebellion, invasion, ethnic conflict, deaths and an occupying United Nations peace-keeping force that’s still on patrol 50 years later.

The Troodos mountains in Cyprus had been the favourite hideaway of EOKA rebels fighting the British in the 1950s and the established battleground for regular rumbles involving intercommunal and local political differences since the island was divided between Greeks and Turks.

When staying at the Pinewood Valley Hotel just below the 3,000-metre summit of Mount Olympus, we had seen locals drive away in Jeeps looking all “military”. Off to settle a few old scores or just to hone up their militia skills for the next big ethnic set-to? I shoved a chair under the bedroom door handle for extra security – as seen in a recent Western movie.

I didn’t mention my fears to our host, Colonel Dick Richards, who had put his British army pension and savings into purchasing the Troodos hotel in which we were currently his guests. His investment would be in jeopardy if the balloon went up again in Cyprus. Tourism is the first economic victim of conflict.

With Geoff Walkden, a fellow partner in the London Mayfair-based Grafton PR and Marketing, our stay was extended for a few more days so we could advise the colonel on his plans to expand into an upmarket spa resort for wealthy Arabs. We had just concluded the successful launch of the first beach hotel in Paphos in the southwest of the island but we needed to update on the broader tourism market potential.

Mission Control for Intelligence

The most culturally, socially and politically important location in Cyprus was the Ledra Palace Hotel in the island capital of Nicosia. We had stayed and partied there regularly during the last year or so of the construction of the Pathos Beach Hotel. We drove from the Troodos Mountains to Nicosia to talk to the management and investors to get a feel of the political climate. The biggest shareholder was the Church of Cyprus, headed by Archbishop Makarios, who had been elected president a decade earlier when the country gained its independence from Britain. This reflected the hotel’s iconic place in the country’s troubled history.

Senior churchmen and their lawyers were happy to answer our questions but appeared downbeat over finding a solution for the inter-communal strife between the Greek and Turkish citizens. Hotel staff were known to earwig on the political meetings and events held there. Others had been involved in bomb incidents, including an assassination attempt on the life of the British Governor, so they were well-informed at all levels.

The Cyprus Bar at the Ledra Palace was Mission Control for Greeks, Brits, Arabs, Americans, Russians, Turks and assorted others with information to trade or subterfuge to share. Any intelligence we gained over Keo beers and complimentary pistachios was likely to be accurate and timely.

No power, phones or petrol

We couldn’t help noticing the underlying unrest on Sunshine Island. By now there were street demonstrations with impromptu slogans and banner waving. A strike of electricity workers had us sitting in the candlelight knocking back bottles of Othello. There were no phones or faxes. Soon we had no petrol. Filling-up involved hand pump workouts at each garage that still had fuel to sell, but no electricity to dispense it.

The signs were not encouraging for our proposed tourism marketing business in Cyprus. Some Greek Cypriots still wanted Enosis with Greece, the Turkish Cypriots were fearful for their futures if this happened. President Makarios was determined to retain the hard-won independent republic status. The Cypriot National Guard was stuffed with officer appointees of the new junta of colonels in charge in Greece and they wanted to add Cyprus to their Hellenic Empire.

The local militias might find themselves in action soon unless this growing mess is sorted. There were press reports on the activities of EOKA B, a revived version of the terrorist organisation that had given 30,000 British troops the runaround in the 1950s. They still wanted Cyprus to be part of Greece. There were increased ethnic disturbances as the Turkish Cypriot minority came under pressure.

Bad things were happening in Cyprus. Tourism is always the first to suffer as holidaymakers switch to rival shores in safer places. The future of tourism didn’t look too bright; investing millions of pounds in a posh Troodos spa would be a risk too far for Colonel Richards.

Makarius fled for his life

We returned to London and over the next few months kept in touch with the Paphos Beach Hotel and Colonel Dick Richards who had now put his hotel expansion on hold. It was the right decision. Cyprus wasn’t such a peaceful island any more as the situation deteriorated.

The balloon went up on Monday 15 July 1974 when rebellious Cyprus National Guardsmen shelled and machined-gunned the presidential palace in Nicosia in an attempt to remove Makarios from power. He managed to dodge the bullets as he fled for his life. The rebel forces tracked him to Paphos and were closing in as an RAF helicopter plucked him to safety. Archbishop Makarios was taken to nearby RAF Akrotiri and then flown by a military plane to London.

Five days later British owners of villas in Kyrenia and apartments in Famagusta saw Turkish army paratroopers dropping from transport planes. As the Turks hit the ground, ITN reporter Michael Nicholson welcomed them. Now every journalist wants a world scoop and ITN got lucky – the film crew vehicle had broken down in the right place at the right time. “Nick” rushed around shaking hands with the troops as they landed and welcoming them to Cyprus. His exclusive film was flown back to Britain for distribution to TV stations around the world.

The invaders moved south towards Nicosia and the UN-established Green Line between the ethnic populations. Towns and villages were attacked by the Turks and defended by the Greek Cypriots.

Hotel stranded in no man’s land

1,000s of Greek Cypriots, British and other ex-pats lost their homes as the Turks took over the north of the island. After a month of fighting and a subsequent ceasefire, a demarcation Green Line was established from coast to coast. It passed the front door of my beloved Ledra Palace Hotel, the scene of some of the worst fighting with hundreds of guests trapped inside. They were the last guests at the landmark heritage hotel that has never reopened. It remains stranded in no-man’s land, as does the international airport and many economically important enterprises.

In London, I watched on TV news as Turk planes bombed and strafed showrooms and factories along the Nicosia Airport Road. I am sure I saw the Dennis truck factory of my mate Andreas Kaisis take a direct hit. I hoped he was still at his villa in Paphos and had been delayed by invasion chaos in getting to the factory.

In a “Should have gone to Specsavers” scenario, the Turkish Air Force also bombed three of their destroyers outside Pathos Harbour mistaking them for Greek warships. They managed to miss the Turkish Castle and my favourite local watering hole, Le Blat, which both stand on the harbourside.

However, a late-night telephone call from Michalides, the general manager of the Pathos Beach Hotel, revealed that the Turk Air Force had bombed the hotel shattering the central atrium glass dome and damaging other sections of the structure. He’s been forced to shelter with his wife, family, and guests in the cellar.

Airport and resorts captured

Luckily, nobody was seriously injured and we conjured the immediate future of the hotel on which we had both worked so hard. All our work together to organise the fit-out of the place, recruitment and staff training and then produce brochures, stationery and advertising was now imperilled by trigger-happy invaders.

But in the fog of war, there are no certainties. No invaders reached Pathos or the Troodos Mountains. Thousands of Turkish Cypriots fled northwards with active encouragement from their Greek-speaking neighbours

The island’s top holiday resorts, Kyrenia and Famagusta had been captured by the Turkish invaders as had the international airport, manufacturing areas and northern districts of Nicosia. Tourism was suspended and was badly affected for many years. Our plans for more tourism PR and marketing consultancy and Colonel Richard’s spa expansion. were bombed out of Cyprus.

Cypriot Tourism peaked in 1973 with the arrival of 264,000 overseas visitors and hit its lowest point of 47,000 visitors the year after the Turkish invasion. Arrivals were a roller coaster for decades as regional conflicts such as the Gulf War scared off tourists. Still, the versatile Greek Cypriots gradually rebuilt and expanded their vital tourism industry. which currently benefits from 3.8 million tourists a year.

UPDATE

On 24 April 2024, the 50th anniversary of the Turkish invasion, the President of the Republic of Cyprus, Nikos Christodoulides, unveiled a 1974 Prisoners of War monument just before the Ledra Pallas roadblock in Nicosia. This year, he said, with the completion of 50 years since the Turkish invasion, perhaps more than ever, the memories and thoughts of those who lived through the tragic events and brutality are more intense and more compelling. The President referred in his address to the prisoners of war, the missing persons, the wounded, the refugees and those who died during the Turkish invasion. He noted that the state should respect and recognize them. SOURCE KNews, Cyprus.

Tourist arrivals in Cyprus saw a notable uptick in February 2024 compared to the same period in the previous year, according to data released by the Cyprus Statistical Service. The total number of arrivals reached 125,034, marking a 5% increase from February 2023’s figure of 119,081. Tourist arrivals in February 2024: United Kingdom had 24.6% (30,774) of total arrivals. Poland had 13.3% (16,591), Israel at 10.6% (13,290) and Greece at 10.3% (12,835). SOURCE: CyStat.

The Ledra Palace Hotel has retained its key role in the heritage and future of Cyprus as the venue for ongoing bi-communal meetings to settle the country’s intercommunal problems. But, more than seventy years after the construction of the Ledra Palace Hotel, its future remains uncertain, as is the future of Cyprus and its wonderful people.

The Pinewood Valley Hotel remains a 3-star hotel, but Colonel Richards’ dream spa never happened as it was bombed out of Cyprus. It now operates as Churchill Pinewood Valley Hotel. Fifty years on, Pathos has grown into a major resort with scores of new hotels and tourism facilities. A new international airport serves the conference and holiday markets. The Pathos Beach Hotel shares its beachside location with rows of new hotels and restaurants. But there are ghosts from its inception as a holiday resort 50 years ago. Some say that occasionally in the darkened Le Blat bar there are ghostly figures at the midnight hour… One (Andreas Kaisis?) with a guitar singing sad songs of a lost era; another figure (author of this article?) gently stirring tall glasses of whiskey sours lined up on a dusty bar top… Words are spoken: “Efharisto poli, Andreas. Yi Mas,” with an English accent.

Before Turkey invaded the island, the borders of the Republic of Cyprus were internationally recognised. The document granting Cyprus’s independence was signed by three “guarantor” states: United Kingdom, Greece and Turkey. These three states declared that they would “recognise and guarantee the independence, territorial integrity and security” of Cyprus. The Turkish invasion, as declared by numerous UN resolutions since, was a clear violation of Turkey’s commitments.

The crimes committed in the north of Cyprus by Turkey include but are not limited to, the following: indiscriminate bombings, the killings of civilians including children and pregnant women, the forcible eviction and deportation of Greek Cypriots, the systematic looting, pillage and seizures of homes, churches and other properties, torture, rape and forced prostitution, assault and battery, illegal detention and forced labour, among others. These violations were directed at Greek, Maronite and Armenian Cypriots because of their ethnicity, language and religion.

The ethnic cleansing of the north of Cyprus by Turkey resulted in the displacement of more than 170,000 Greek Cypriots, about 40 per cent of the then Greek population of the island. Turkey’s occupation forces have not allowed them to return home. The Committee on Missing Persons in Cyprus (CMP) was established in 1981. It c; claims 1,508 Greek Cypriots are still officially reported as missing. Source:: Uzay Bulut, Al-Ahram Weekly.

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