Stargazer tycoon Andreas Kaisis lost his booming businesses as Turkey invaded and stripped Cyprus of its most lucrative tourist and industrial assets, including his vehicle manufacturing factory, still trapped in a post-war no man’s land… But now, 50 years on, this swanky visionary has soared into his nation’s Rich List galaxy. His good church connections and strategic landholdings have helped to restore the family fortune.

By Terry Walker

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8 minute read

It all started in his home town of Paphos, which was left behind economically in the post-independence, pre-invasion boom period. When I arrived there in 1973, donkeys still played a big role in commerce and farming. I saw hundreds of them in the streets and surrounding fields.

Paphos was the island’s capital in Roman times. It attracted visitors from across the Roman Empire, but more recently, it has been seen as a backwater compared to resorts like Limassol, Kyrenia, and Famagusta. Tourism had already boosted the island’s post-independence economy, but Paphos was trailing behind other holiday resorts’ infrastructure and visitors.

A quality-build 4-star hotel on the Paphos beach had great potential, and I had been hired to ensure it became an international success. It was in the last stages of construction. The Orthodox Church of Cyprus owned the land and had a shiny new agreement with a hotel operator, Landmark Hotels, and a designated manager who had already signed up.

I got stuck in producing a marketing plan and copywriting a sales brochure—vital words that could attract free-spending tourists, generate local jobs, and raise enough money to build the town’s badly needed new gymnasium (school).

The “Aphrodite goddess of love” legend suggests that anyone who swims around the nearby Petra tou Romuiou (Aphrodite’s Rock) will be blessed with eternal beauty and fertility. Ancient Greeks and their Roman successors had galleyed in for their vacations and to worship at the Sanctuary of Aphrodite. It was quickly agreed that the legendary offer would still generate good business for Paphos and its new beach hotel.

For hadn’t the fictional love story of Romeo and Juliet powered Verona to become the fourth most popular city in Italy? Shakespeare’s words were weaponised to generate millions in tourist revenue; Homer’s Aphrodite legends could likewise entice visitors to her birthplace in Cyprus.

400 working donkeys in the fields 

Aphrodite would be a good vacation marketing strand, but we needed more amenities to attract European tourists to this remote place in the Mediterranean Sea. It was a four-and-a-half-hour flight from London to Nicosia with a high-end airfare of around £400 (£3,629 in 2024. Source: Bank of England).

In the 1970s, Cypriots regarded Paphos as the “Wild West,” I have no recall of any decent road going beyond Kato Paphos and Coral Bay. There was a lot of donkey power in the town, and there were 400 working donkeys in the fields around. One grateful village presented me with my own personal filly, a self-willed grey beauty called Paula. She helped me to establish tourist donkey trekking in the nearby Tsada Hills and appeared in publicity photoshoots.

Paphos in the 1970s

With the hotel due to open in around nine months, I spent long hours with Michalaides, the manager designate who was overseeing the finishes and equipment. We reviewed the hotel’s facilities and added an outdoor barbeque area, as it never rains for most of the year in Paphos. A long pergola was needed to delineate the pool terrace from the public beach and provide shady places with a sea view for lounger users.

A gardener inserted some two-foot-long bougainvillaea twigs next to the pergola supports. By my next visit, the twigs had grown to 12 feet with huge flowers. Aphrodite’s fertility influence may extend to plant life, as I saw picket fences sprouting green shoots several times afterwards.

Pelicans filled their pouches

I got to know the harbourside bar and restaurant owners of Kato Paphos, including Georgiou’s Restaurant, where local pelicans came around for meals. A pair of the enormous birds would hoover up the diners’ leftovers before waddling off to the beach for a nap, their bills crammed with delicious red mullet. The place was also a favourite lunchtime stop for round-the-island coach and taxi tours – very busy on tour days. It is an excellent opportunity for the pelicans to fill their pouches to overflowing and retire to the beach for their regular kip.

One day, the pelicans didn’t reach the beach because a reversing tourist coach ran over them. “Tourist attractions killed by tourist bus” isn’t a helpful message. There have been generations of pelicans in Paphos. So there should always be replacements to replace the originals. – and they can live for up to 25 years…

At the end of the harbour was a squat, shoebox-shaped bar called Le Blat. The owner, Paphian-born Andreas Kaisis, had valuable local contacts he was happy to share for my copywriting and marketing plans. Sundowner cocktails enabled us to work on our mutual ambitions for Paphos. Andreas taught me how to conjure up the island’s version of the whisky sour cocktail. It quickly became my drink of choice.

On busy evenings I even mixed the drinks for customers who came to appreciate my rookie bartender’s liberal pours.

Best mate of President Makarius

Andreas wanted to provide his own cabaret – romantic Cypriot ballads delivered with his solid guitar playing. He looked right for the part: late twenties chiselled features beneath a mane of jet-black hair and an open blouson-style shirt. Very Greek Cypriot, a shoo-in for a role in Jason and the Argonauts.

But Andreas had significant connections to the Church of Cyprus. He was the best mate of President Makarios III—a fellow Paphian—and a close insider to the government hierarchy. These critical links gave brout development land in Paphos and a large factory in Nicosia, where he built Dennis trucks and fire engines for sale locally and in 20 neighbouring countries.

One night, after the bar closed, Andreas and I drove into the hills overlooking Paphos, where the night sky was so clear I saw shooting stars for the first time. Andreas pointed to the land between our hillside perch and the beach. He revealed: ”I can get all this land for future development. Tourism can produce a promising future for my town. But first, we have to make a success of the Paphos Beach Hotel.”

He couldn’t have foreseen that artillery shells would replace shooting stars in just over a year and that the Paphos Beach Hotel and his truck factory near Nicosia Airport would be bombed out of business. His company’s purchase of the blueprints for the Clan sports car, designed by a team of former Lotus engineers, came with plans to set up an assembly line in a new Kaisis Motor Corporation (KMC) factory.

Well placed Government contacts

This plan was cut short after the Turkish invasion of Cyprus later in 1974 when the Kaisis factory was caught in the war’s resultant buffer zone and had to be abandoned. The factory sits vacant to this day. The Pathos Beach Hotel had enjoyed a successful opening period leading up to the Turkish army invasion, but the damage to the building caused by their trigger-happy fighter pilots. was a significant setback.

But despite the invasion, Andreas Kaisis has become one of his nation’s wealthiest and most influential businessmen. He’s had timely assistance from Kikko Monastery and well-placed Government contacts- plus his natural entrepreneurial verve.

The Turkish occupation stripped the Greek-speaking Republic of Cyprus of its largest port, much of its richest farmland, and its leading tourism and manufacturing centres. It left a third of the territory controlled by the Turks. But that didn’t stop the enterprising Greek Cypriots from rebuilding their economy.

Most of the major revenue sources were cut off behind enemy lines. Fortunately, Cyprus was well-positioned to prosper.

Andreas Kaisis, entrepreneur

Andreas Kaisis claims Cyprus might not have become the important regional business hub it is today if the war hadn’t demolished the tiny country’s economy in the decade after the invasion.

“Most of the major revenue sources were cut off behind enemy lines. Fortunately, Cyprus was well-positioned to prosper,” says Kaisis. He proved this by reviving his truck and bus building business on a new site. He has added development and financing to his activities. And hed is in the top ten wealthiest Greek Cypriots

The ballad-singing/bar-owning entrepreneur has morphed into a thriving international business tycoon over the fifty years since the Turkish invasion. He is now in the top ten of the Cyprus Rich List with a finger in many pies.

Paphos is now the major tourist destination we jointly dreamt it could become as we swam in the brand-new pool of the Paphos Beach Hotel, took shooting stars as a good omen and revelled in the tiny quayside bar where it all began…

The Stargazer has undoubtedly soared into his island’s rich list galaxy

Here’s what happened in 1970s Paphos, Cyprus

UPDATE

Andreas Kaisis, the president of the Cyprus Tour Development Company’s administrative council, threatened to resign in protest at allegations concerning hotel development budget overruns.

My very own Aphrodite was standing next to me in the glistening sea. We had just a few more minutes until sunrise. I was hands-on with a naked Goddess of Love, getting more Max Factor Panstik onto her white bits with a sponge and then spreading it evenly to match the surrounding suntanned body. She was adjusting her wig to replicate Renaissance paintings of the Goddess Aphrodite being born from the sea.

By Terry Walker

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5 minute read

We were here to add our own 20th-century take on the event depicted in ancient Greek mythology, shooting photographs needed for the marketing brochure of the upcoming Paphos Beach Hotel. The hotel was being built on land owned by the Church of Cyprus. It was my job to handle the launch PR and marketing – and, any local goddesses that happened along.

The Paphos Beach Hotel was in the last stages of construction on land above a sandy beach that curved around the bay to the small harbour of Paphos, guarded by a 13th-century Ottoman fort. A string of local bars and restaurants lined the harbourside. It was unspoilt; it was idyllic because, in the 1970s, Paphos was the least developed town in Cyprus. A quality 4-star hotel on the beach had great potential. I had gained the marketing contract six months earlier through London contacts, so I got to work quickly in producing a marketing plan and copywriting a sales brochure.

I had quickly cottoned onto the Aphrodite myth as a good gambit for bringing in tourists, as had been the case for 3,000 years or more. Paphos had been a favourite holiday destination for the elite of ancient Rome. The area was dotted with palaces and luxury holiday villas that contained some of the finest mosaic floors. Aphrodite was their Venus, worshipped for love and fertility.

Blessed with eternal beauty

The temples in which the ancients worshipped this goddess might be in ruin, but hey, a local myth suggests that any person who swims around Petra tou Romuiou (Aphrodite’s Rock) will be blessed with eternal beauty. Good for looks and good for the soul. Good place for a holiday. Good for business for the new hotel.

Aphrodite had a key role to play. The photoshoot was vital. We had deadlines to meet.

According to Homer’s Iliad, Aphrodite was born of the foam that covered the shoreline and she ascended to Mount Olympus, home of the gods. That bit about the foam might just be true. At certain times of the year, along this stretch of the coast, a natural phenomenon of foaming sudsy sea occurs – but not this month. So, we brought a truckload of our own soapy suds for the photoshoot.

The photographer yelled that we needed more foam around Aphrodite’s naked body. I left off on the bum work, hauled drums of detergent from our truck to the water’s edge, and tipped the contents into the sea. Then, I spread the suds around the reclining goddess with a large yard brush.

I quickly discovered saltwater and detergents are not the best mixers, so getting up a head of foam was hard work as the waves swept in.

Eventually, the photographer was happy with the foam and worked around the posed Aphrodite, using fill-in flash for some shots. He got the main picture as the goddess emerged from the foam. The rising sun nudged over Petra tou Romuiou, illuminating her long hair, reaching just short of her now dulled-down derriere. This replicated the scenario every Greek and Greek Cypriot had learned about at school. And, for the most part, believed in. Ruins of ancient temples dedicated to Aphrodite were close by, and figurines of the goddesses were unearthed, dating back to 700 BC.

The legend of Aphrodite was still big in Cyprus. As the photo session concluded, the first truck of the day, grinding its way along the coast road from Limassol to Paphos, screeched to a halt alongside the beach. Its driver leapt from his cab and raced towards the foaming sea, yelling, “Afroditi, esy” (“Aphrodite, Aphrodite – it is you.”)

He couldn’t see the photographer and me packing away kit in the lee of the low cliffs. However, he got an eyeful of the nude Aphrodite, all right. She was standing in the shallows, recovering from the sea’s buffeting. This scene had been imprinted in the trucker’s mind since his early school days and was now happening before his very eyes.

The truck driver kept running towards the mythical figure but stopped short as the goddess raised her right arm majestically, with two fingers extended and formed into the internationally recognised symbol of virility, the vee-sign. She spoke unto him in a God-like tone: “Fuck off, will you”… Even as Aphrodite gave her fond farewells, the driver turned tail and ran back to his truck. We could hear the frantic grinding of his gear changes disappearing into the distance.

Retelling that close encounter with his mates in the taverna later might suggest to them that too much of last night’s ouzo remained in his bloodstream… Conversely, some of them might remind him of my appeal on Cyprus TV the previous week for local girls to apply for the role of Aphrodite in our upcoming photoshoot.

None had applied, leaving it to a German model holidaying on the island to play the goddess. And to bid a fond farewell to a local she rose to her legendary place with other Gods atop nearby Mount Olympus

More on Paphos: :

President John F Kennedy had been shot in Dallas at 12:30 pm Texas time, and that meant tight Press deadlines in Darlington. I guess it was near 7:00 pm UK time when I heard the news flash on my car radio. I was 20 miles from the offices where I’d just been entrusted with the editorship of the Northern Echo (circulation: 100,000).

It was, and is, a regional morning daily with a glorious heritage going back to the sensational editorship of WT  Stead in the 1870s (he died on the Titanic), but with its circulation ebbing before the challenge of nine national dailies, two rival regional dailies, three city papers and TV and radio.

I heard the first uncertain fragment of JFK’s shooting on BBC Radio. I was wearing a dinner jacket, driving in the dark to a Press Ball in Teesside in the industrial northeast of England,

This dinner dance was quite an occasion for me. I was the new boy, early thirties, putting in a first appearance as an editor at a big social event where all the rival purveyors of news hobnobbed with mayors, MPs, police chiefs, bosses of the coal mines, steel mills and shipbuilding yards: in short, all the news sources of the entire northeast we covered.

The president pronounced dead.

But I turned right around and drove back to Darlington. By the time I’d navigated the traffic on cold, greasy roads, negotiated with my blood pressure, and run up the backstairs to the editorial floor, the president had been pronounced dead.

My deputy, a masterful text editor, had his head down amid the flood of telexes. Given the time difference between the UK and US, we had just over three hours to deadline to make sense of the rapidly changing story, send the words by pneumatic tube to the hunched-up Linotype operators in the composing room, and get the lines of hot metal to fit our page designs.

I added to the tension. To the alarm of the sub-editors and the printers, even then buzzing for “more copy, more copy” for the other news scheduled for inside pages, I said that we were also going to produce a four-page special. They were not to pause updating the running story. I’d compile and edit the four pages on Kennedy’s life and discuss how often a president’s life had been ended by murder.

It was the biggest story in the world

What was I thinking? It was crazy to attempt to crash out pages when everyone was stretched to the max already. But I’d caught a bug while in the US for two years of study and travel as a postgraduate Harkness Fellow from 1956-8. I’d become infatuated with US politics and, in turn, by the people attempting to realise the ideals of its constitution.

Day after day, I’d watched Senator John McClellan’s Labor Rackets Committee investigate big union ties to the mob, notably Jimmy Hoffa’s International Brotherhood of Teamsters. Bobby Kennedy, the committee’s chief counsel, sat side by side with his brother, Senator John Kennedy, in face-to-face confrontations with the dregs of American society.

I was enchanted with his cool wit

I’d also recoiled from the extremism I saw in travels through all the states in the Deep South and Texas, too, witnessing with sickening frequency the rule of fear imposed on blacks seeking the shelter of the rule of law for the right to vote and acquire a halfway decent education.

Three years later, when Senator Kennedy had become president, I was disappointed by what seemed to be his overly cautious approach to redressing the wrongs I’d seen in the Deep South, while his cool wit enchanted me. In one of his open press conferences, he was challenged to respond to a Republican group’s vote to condemn his erratic foreign policy. “I trust,” he said, “the vote was unanimous.”

At the same time, I caught a glimpse of the simmering hatred besetting reformers. Revisiting DC, I began to take the political temperature, as reporters are wont to do, by asking a taxi driver – then middle-class and white – how he thought President Kennedy was doing. “He’s great in his right place,” he growled, “but they ain’t dug it yet.”

Tight deadline, presidents’ photos missing

At the Northern Echo that November night in 1963, the first thing I did was commission a portrait of Kennedy’s life and an analysis of the forces that had spawned the dreadful sequence of attempts on the life of a president. I sent for every photograph of the Kennedys and whatever we had of presidents Lincoln, McKinley and Garfield and their assassins.

Not a single photograph of anything came back. “Sorry,” it was explained, “no one can find those files. The night manager of the picture department has one night a week off, and this is it.”

Well, I said, that very nice day manager seems to know where she’s putting things. This was young Shirley Freeman, known to admirers of her retrieving skills as Shirley Fileroom. She, too, could not be found. I summoned my indispensable secretary, Joan Thomas.

Cinema screen SOS saves special edition

She suggested we call Shirley’s parents. “Oh,” they said, “she’s out with her boyfriend.”

Where? “I think they went to the cinema.”

But which one? Joan said the Odeon was the most popular.

“Kindly get the manager on the phone.”

Joan did. The manager hadn’t heard of the shooting. He was aghast when I asked him to stop the film and search the cinema for Shirley, who might or might not be there. Then, I had a better idea. Would he mind just pausing the movie for a quick message on the screen? A handwritten message on a Perspex slide flashed into the consciousness of a couple canoodling in the back row:

“Can Miss Shirley Freeman call the Echo urgently?”

Her date was ruined, but back at the office, she deftly found everything we wanted. We made it to press on time.

UPDATE

“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.” –  Sir Harold Evans.

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, supported by an impromptu 4-page special 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”. Terry Walker is the author of A Hard Day’s Night for the Beatles, JFK, and Harry Evans.

Another version of this story for descendants, fans and friends:
A Hard Day’s Night for Beatles, JFK and Harry Evans

Reuters tribute piece in 2020 to “a journalist of tenacity”:
The Insights of Harry Evans

A peaceful village wedding and the biggest military bombardment in history, taking place simultaneously… The first wedding bells and the first shots of World War II rang out as Hitler invaded Poland and spoiled an ancestor’s runaway wedding. It was a Friday like no other in the history of our family and the history of the world.

By Terry Walker

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8 minute read

On Friday, September 1st, 1939, my mother, Daisy Ann Barnett, was as happy as the swallows swooping above the hedge-rowed fields around the village of Clymping in Sussex by the sea. Mum’s new-found friends, Eileen Beach and Ellen Maxwell, fussed around her in the little guest house where she was staying.

Aged 18, she had travelled from her home in Failsworth, Lancashire, to the Sussex coast to get married. It was a match that, even at this late hour, did not have the approval of her parents, Solomon and Elizabeth Barnett, who remained steadfastly in Failsworth.

In Clymping village and nearby Littlehampton and Shoreham on Sea, residents gathered around radios and shared newspaper reports. They were anxious to hear the latest news from Mr Neville Chamberlain, the British Prime Minister. It had been eleven months since he had returned from meeting Adolf Hitler and declaring “Peace in our time.” Now, the peace was over, and the nation was preparing for war.

Nearby, the gunners of the 113^th Regiment of Field Artillery were setting up a field headquarters in Buckingham Park. They had been ordered to train their new 25-pounder guns on the beach and nearby RAF Ford, where the enemy might be expected to turn up.

War with Hitler was a strong possibility

My dad, Harold Walker, was close by and anxious, too. Like nearly everyone else in Britain and as a serving airman, he realised that war with Germany was a strong possibility. His plans for the future were in jeopardy – including the short leave for the wedding and the upcoming honeymoon.

He was pacing the pathway among rows of gravestones that led to the Norman period south transept entrance to St Mary’s Church. It was hidden among trees close to the perimeter fence of the Ford Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS) base where my dad was stationed. He chain-smoked and gazed at two Crusader Crosses carved into the Caan stone above the church entrance. Medieval knights in armour had used their swords to mark their departure with King Richard the Lionheart to wage war in the Holy Land Crusades.

My 22-year-old dad had just concluded his own long crusade, conducted from Hut 14 at 712 Squadron, RNAS, Ford, with a final missive to win approval to marry my mum. 12 days earlier, in a long handwritten letter to her parents, he’d pleaded with them to give their consent to the marriage:

Runaway wedding in the offing

“I wish you would say yes. I intended to ask you while on leave, but certain circumstances prevented me from doing so. I hope, Mr & Mrs Barnett, you will think it over and let me know your answer immediately.

“Perhaps it is because I am in the RAF, where I have three more years to do? Well, I’ll tell you that Daisy and I will not wait until I am out of the RAF before we get married. If we did wait until I had finished my time, we would not have saved enough to have a house and other comforts. Yet, if only you would consent, we could be married shortly, and I should have a lot more money raised.

“We don’t want to have to get the court’s consent, but we will be compelled to. If we get the court’s consent, it will only reflect on your character.”

Strong stuff, but his ultimatum had evidently fallen on deaf ears. A runaway wedding was in the offing…

A day not to be shared with family

Outside the church, my dad stubbed out his cigarette and checked the details of the special marriage licence he had held in his hand. It had cost him the equivalent of a week’s pay. But today was the Big Happy Wedding Day. It was a day destined not to be shared with family members from either side but featured strongly historically.

The vicar, Reverend J. Lowry Maxwell, also the honorary chaplain to RAF Ford, conducted the ceremony. His wife, Ellen, was a bridesmaid and witness. That’s all you can expect when it’s a runaway wedding and everyone’s preparing for another war against Germany.

Despite the circumstances, my mother was a happy, runaway bride. But as the latest war news swept around the village, any proper honeymoon was over shortly after it began.

King ordered the mobilisation of military

For, at that same time, 900 miles away, another ultimatum was being ignored as Hitler’s army invaded Poland, backed by the biggest artillery blitzkrieg in history.  The invasion triggered the start of World War II, formally declared 48 hours later by Neville Chamberlain when he realised his agreement with Germany to leave Poland alone had been shrugged off by a rampant Adolf Hitler.

Soon after ringing out for my parents’ wedding, the bells of St Mary’s Church, Clymping, were silent, in common with Britain’s other 16,000 churches and 43 cathedrals, for much of WW2. Later that day, the newly launched BBC television service was suspended, and the King ordered the full mobilisation of the army, navy and air force.

That order included my father, whose skills as an aircraft frame rigger were in line with the training, professionalism and dedication of RAF ground crews. These skills were to prove vital in keeping planes flying in the war that was just about to start.

The honeymoon was cut short, and it may have been only a few days riding along the South Downs on a tandem —”A bicycle made for two,” as the popular song of the day had it. The newlyweds listened to the prime minister’s formal “We are at war with Germany” announcement on the radio. Like millions of others, they worried about their future.

My dad went back to RAF Ford to see if they could move into “married quarters” and to get stuck into the Nazis threatening to invade England. My mother found herself living in a succession of homes adjacent to RAF airfields and facilities. The first allocated accommodation started in nearby Littlehampton, and eventually, new postings for my dad progressed as far as Aberdeen.

Two years, two months and 28 days after the runaway wedding, I was born in Nunsthorpe, Lincolnshire and after that shared my mother’s nomadic “camp following.” My sister Sylvia’s birth in April 1945 in Oldham, Lancashire, was celebrated with a short leave for my father. However, it wasn’t until April 1946 that we started to live together as a complete family for the first time – in my mother’s home town, Failsworth.

UPDATE

RNAS operations at Ford, Clymping, became known as HMS Peregrine, a land base for training Fleet Air Arm personnel. 712 Navy Air Squadron was active there from 1936 to 1940. Shortly after German Stuka bombers attacked the airfield in 1940, the Ford airfield was incorporated into the RAF as a night fighter base. It also housed the Aerial Photography School. RAF Ford was heavily involved in the air war to the D-Day Normandy landings and beyond.

At the onset of the Second World War, the Fleet Air Arm consisted of 20 squadrons with only 232 aircraft. By the end of the war, the strength of the Fleet Air Arm was 59 aircraft carriers, 3,700 aircraft, 72,000 officers and men and 56 air stations.

Two standards are laid up at St Mary’s Church: the Royal Naval Association and the Royal Air Force Association. The wooden plaque is for HMS Peregrine, the Royal Naval Air Station at Ford during World War II. The churchyard contains a memorial to 28 service personnel and civilians who died in an air raid on 18 August 1940. The Commonwealth War Graves Commission also maintains a number of war graves.

In 1961, an IBM 704 at Bell Labs was programmed to sing “Daisy Bell” in the earliest demonstration of computer speech synthesis. This recording has been included in the United States National Recording Registry.^[5] – Source Wikipedia

Science fiction author Arthur C. Clarke witnessed the IBM 704 demonstration during a trip to Bell Labs in 1962. He referred to it in the 1968 novel and film 2001: A Space Odyssey, in which the HAL 9000 computer sings “Daisy Bell” during its gradual deactivation – Source Wikipedia.

Every family has a story to tell

Last outpost saves Jesus of Nazareth’s mother tongue. Aramaic was the language spoken at the time of Jesus and is still in the remote mountains of ancient Syria. It was the mother tongue of Jesus, his disciples, and most people who attended their gigs. It has survived wars and changing dynasties and remains the language of Christians and Muslims living peacefully in its last outpost – a biblical-style village called Maaloula that I have visited.

by Terry Walker

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5 minute read

One medieval despot threatened to cut out the tongues of anyone heard speaking their exclusive language. Despite this, generations of ancestors have spoken Aramaic and successfully passed it on to today’s population.

Maaloula is known to scholars as the last surviving place where Western Aramaic is still spoken widely. Anthropological linguists now reckon the dialect is still pretty close to that used in the first century when Jesus and his followers went walkabout and originates many years before that.

One day, during an official press visit to Syria, I led a party of British journalists out of Damascus and across the desert. A couple of sightseeing hours later, our convoy of Mercedes limos arrived at the last outpost, Maaloula, in the Rif Dimashq mountains.

Our arrival was years ahead of the ongoing Syrian uprising against the Assad regime that has seen more than a decade of fierce fighting between Government forces and rebels that has seen control of towns, including Maaloula, changing hands.

Going back to Biblical times

At an altitude of more than 1,500 metres, Maaloula’s cave homes are built into the rugged mountainside. At the time of our visit, there was little motor transport, but the many donkeys were able to negotiate the steep, narrow streets. Our sweating but fascinated journalists were pretty nimble as we explored churches, a mosque and a monastery.

Our Arabic-speaking Syrian Government minders from Damascus could hardly converse with the villagers we met. International sign language saved the day and helped dispel the surprise of our party’s arrival. The Syrian Government had not hosted the international Press in numbers previously. A gang of UK media types can be disconcerting anywhere in the world. But we were welcomed and assisted by officials and the public in Maaloula, Damascus and other places.

It was like going back to Biblical times. I estimated fewer than 4,000 people still lived in the village, many of whom appeared to own working donkeys. These donkeys often had wicker panniers, some with building materials, others offered goods for sale.

There was a Coca-Cola vendor donkey in the shade near the base of the cliff-face village. I was dehydrated and still suffering from the gut-busting spit-roast lamb banquet we’d shared in Damascus a few days before. Our group wandered over to see what was on offer. I selected a standard-size Coke bottle. Then I showed the kaftan-wearing donkey owner my loose change displayed in the palm of my hand. He took the local equivalent of 6p and looked happy. Whatever happened to inflation over the 2,000 years since St Paul was last seen in these parts?

Last outpost saves Jesus’ language

It might have been a gesture to have learned to ask for a drink in Aramaic, but it’s unlikely that anyone in my local pub would understand it… A shepherd in Maaloula talks to his sheep in Aramaic and Arabic and he swears they understand both languages. His favourite movie was Mel Gibson’s Passion of the Christ (2004), which he claimed to have seen many times. The dialogue is in Aramaic throughout.

Aramaic was one of the major languages of the ancient Near East. Since the Middle Ages, it has largely been replaced by Arabic, but it has survived as a spoken language in some Jewish communities in the mountainous regions of northern Iraq, south-eastern Turkey, and western Iran down to modern times. Spoken Aramaic also survived to modern times among Christian communities in the same regions and a few remote villages in Syria.

Aramaic speakers in Maaloula seemed determined to keep the language alive in the Christian and Muslim communities, and they coexist happily in the village.

Our Press party was surprised at the extent of the commuity commitment to safeguarding Aramaic across sectarian lines. Although some Muslims claimed to speak it better than the Christian villagers it would need an expert to verify that. But there seemed little doubt that sharing such a rare language has helped to secure Maaloula’s unity and community spirit.

Listen as Maaloula villagers speak Aramaic

Aramaic is a Semitic language that originated in Syria and has been spoken and written for more than 3,000 years. It is closely related to Hebrew and Arabic and is part of a group of Ethiopic and Akkadian languages. The Aramaic alphabet has 22 characters and is the ancestor of the Hebrew, Syriac, and Arabic alphabets. Jewish Palestinian Aramaic (JPA) was a Western Aramaic language spoken by the Jews during the Classic Era in Judea and the Levant. Specifically in Hasmonean, Herodian and Roman Judea and adjacent lands in the late first millennium BCE and later in Syria Palaestina and Palaestina Secunda in the early first millennium CE. The Son of God Text (4Q246), found in Qumran, is also written in this language. Source: Wikipedia.

The Hollywood actor Mel Gibson funded and starred in the movie Passion of the Christ (2004), which, despite the dialogue being in Western Aramaic, became a worldwide box-office success. The actor/director invested the full $30 million production cost and received 50 percent of the £611 million box office take – plus $75 million from DVD sales.

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Here’s a typical tale for the family tree: Hands-on with naked goddess of love

I had requested a camel train to take us across the Syrian Desert to Palmyra, the hometown of the legendary Queen Zenobia, whose ancestry is unclear. She may have been raised as the daughter of her brother, who had married the widow of her father, who was the brother of them both. Palmyra was an important trading hub on the ancient Silk Road in the Third Century, so a visit might reveal more and help solve the ancestral mystery of the desert warrior Queen Zenobia.

by Terry Walker

05042024

17 minute read

We were keen to discover more about the fascinating ancestry of Queen Zenobia and the intricate web of connections that made her one of the most powerful women in history. From her noble lineage to her strategic marriages, every aspect of her family history was intertwined with the politics and power struggles of that period.

We had to be in her capital to untangle the ancestry of this iconic queen and uncover the secrets of her rise to greatness.

Travelling by camel was a romantic, adventurous idea, but not very sensible considering we were 250 km or around 12 days’ camel hoof away. However, my request to the Syrian Government was being considered. I was awaiting a decision sitting outside the office of Minister Ahmed Iskander Ahmed, in the grim black and cream Ministry of Information building in central Damascus. Alongside me were a dozen other supplicants wanting favours that were unlikely to mirror the one I was here to pursue.

This was the only place in Syria where I could obtain an authorisation for the camels to trek the barren desert to Palmyra from where Zenobia led her armies to capture Egypt from the Romans 1,700 years ago.

No camels, but request approved

It seemed like a long time perched on the dusty leather chair, from which I rose as the trying-to-be-helpful ministerial assistant emerged from the inner office. He headed towards me with a grin that suggested we might have a deal and a strong ancestral story for my party of travel writers.

“There is good news, Mr. Terry. You can take your journalists to the town of Palmyra, but it would be much too tiring to travel by camel. We will make more suitable arrangements, and please all be ready at 9 am in two days,” said the assistant.

With no camels on offer, I assumed we would use the three chauffeured official Government Mercedes limos to transport our group to distant Palmyra – a less adventurous substitute for my suggested ships of the desert trek.

1,000 miles of biblical history

Since arriving in Syria from London on this pioneering Fam Trip, we have had the use of three chauffeured Mercs, replete with damask curtains for passenger privacy. Traffic in downtown Damascus pulled over and stopped to make way for us as we zig-zagged to inspect the touristic delights of the oldest city in the world.

We had even taken the cars right into the bustling Al-Hamidiyah Souk and parked in The Street Called Straight, visited by St Paul, but which now has mosques, churches and synagogues along the way. There were fine oriental rugs, silk, copperware and spices on offer everywhere.

The marketing theme being promoted by our media visit, “1,000 miles of Biblical History” included Jordan, much of the Holy Land, and, emulating St Paul, finishing up in Damascus. Our hosts, the Syrian Arab Republic, provided the travel and met the hospitality costs.

Massacres and tribal dissent

We aimed for positive coverage in carefully selected UK national and regional newspapers and travel magazines. Their journalists had accepted my invitation to look at Syria’s tourism potential as guests of the Al-Assad ruling regime. It was the first press trip of its kind to the country, so I was determined it would be a success.

We had negotiated a PR and marketing contract in London to assist the Syrians in beefing up their tourism market. Getting a solid media appraisal was an essential first step. There had been rumours in London about thousands of citizens of Hama, near Syria’s northern border with Turkey, being massacred. International media reported sectarian dissent around the country. But the Syrian Government officials attending our meetings in London suggested that things were much better now and the country was safe for tourists.

Long-range jumbo jets to expand airline

Our trip came at a pivotal time for Syria and the Middle East. The Western media had problems getting into Syria in earlier troubled years because of regular regional unrest, including the Yom Kippur War in 1973. But by now, the Syrians had expanded Damascus International Airport and updated the SyrianAir operations to pitch for an improved media image and dollar-earning tourism…

I explained all of this to media contacts. I put together a press party of national, regional, and travel trade journalists and tour operators to see for themselves what Syria had to offer to international tourists…

As the leader of this official familiarisation visit, I was on the flight deck at Heathrow Airport when the pilot programmed the 747’s onboard navigation computer to Damascus. On the way to our take-off position, we trundled past a disgorging Concorde, soared skywards and headed east to Arabia.

I had heard that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia had paid for the brand-new, long-range Boeing 747-SP that transported us from London. It was the first of two, due to be operated jointly by Syrian Arab Airlines and Alia Royal Jordanian Airline, to boost long-haul business for both countries. The 747-SPs could fly directly to New York from either Amman or Damascus, the first transatlantic route operated by an Arab airline. However, as is often the case in the Middle East, the two countries fell out. I don’t think they actually operated their joint flight agreement.

We landed in Damascus to a barrage of local media interest. In an interview, I told Syrian State TV how much we looked forward to seeing the many touristic and cultural delights and informing the British about what was on offer in this glorious country.

Uncertainties on the political front

A fairly bland statement that reflected unvoiced uncertainties on the political front about President Hafez al-Assad and his Baathist regime. This was my first visit, so I kept the word count down. I had done my research with the help of SyrianAir officials in London, but there were no complicated questions to answer.

The senior and most important journalist in our party was Dilys Powell, the renowned film critic and travel writer for the Sunday Times.

Dilys might have lobbied the travel editor for the chance of getting to Syria because she later suggested I try to include a visit to Palmyra. She had probably heard about Queen Zenobia from her first husband, Humfrey Payne. He was a leading archaeologist, and Dilys spent many years with him in Greece after he was appointed director of the British School of Archaeology in Athens.

Following my pressure at the Syrian Ministry of Information, she was delighted when I told her and the rest of the party we were heading for Palmyra, the hometown of the desert warrior queen. Nobody mentioned camels.

For the evening before our departure, our party was invited to a formal banquet at a ritzy casino in Damascus to meet Syrian Government officials and tourism chiefs. Many locals came in army uniforms, mainly those of generals and other high-rankers. Many wives wore Fifties-style evening dresses and much gold jewellery.

Our printed menus promised a main course of spit-roasted lamb. It arrived in lamb-sized pieces on huge silver salvers, which chefs placed on the long refectory table. The carcass of each lamb had been placed, pyre-like, on a deep bed of fluffy rice…

The chefs withdrew and the waiters placed a heated dinner plate in front of each guest but made no effort to serve anyone.

What’s happening? What is the protocol here? A general indicated I should help myself from the huge pile of food in front of me. Not ladies first then, not ministers or generals in order of seniority. Was I some guest of honour because of my TV news coverage when we arrived at Damascus Airport?

No serving spoons were within grasp, but a Syrian guest sitting next to me mimed how I should use my right hand to grab rice and meat and return portions to my plate. I was up and running, quickly followed by a flurry of self-serving hands around the table as the party got stuck into the spit-roasted lambs.

Camo-painted Russian-built Yak

However, I was to be up and running after this generous serving of botulism… Damascus Dash’s (DD) symptoms – a local variant of Montezuma’s Revenge or Delhi Belly – were a constant travelling companion for the rest of the year.

Breakfast the next day was a missed event for me and a couple of the journalists. Happily, we managed to be at the front door of Le Méridien Hotel (now Dedeman Hotel) as the Mercs rolled up to take us to… Damascus airport.

We were whisked through to the tarmac via the VIP route. Dilys Powell, dressed for the desert, looked like a leading lady from an Indiana Jones movie. She was alongside me as we were led to our transport. I spotted our plane – “Oh my God.” But Dilys didn’t bat an eyelid. We were to fly in a camo-painted Russian-built Yak, a military aircraft customarily used to carry troops into war zones.

Would we be sitting on the floor with our backs to a webbed fuselage as depicted in WW2 newsreels… With a parachute pack on our laps? Would we need to be strapped to fuselage webbing bouncing around as we landed on a dusty desert landing strip?

We mounted the short boarding steps to be greeted by the head stewardess of the Boeing 747-SP that had carried us from London. A couple of her uniformed team held trays of refreshments and welcomed us aboard with knowing smiles.

Desert trail with real-life camels

None of that “squaddie squatting” was necessary because the plane now had rows of seats. They had been removed from the Boeing 747-SP and fitted in the Yak for our 243 km desert journey. And, hopefully, a safe return to Damascus. Russian-made planes had a nasty habit of coming down unexpectedly in all the wrong places.

The twin-prop Yak lumbered down the runway and rose slowly to about 6,000 feet on a north-easterly heading. Our pilot followed a clearly defined camel trail across the desert, regularly punctuated by real-life camel trains. That isn’t easy to get into your head in an age of intercontinental travel and scientists working in the international space station circling the globe.

Our Yak got us to Palmyra just ahead of the nearest line of camels. We came in low (very low) over acres of Grecian and Roman pillars, temple ruins, and then the modern-day town of small, flat-roofed houses. We were now so low I wondered if we were putting down in the main street. Our landing gear just about cleared the last house in town. With the infamous Tadmor Prison on the left-hand side of the plane, we flopped onto the runway.

There was no obvious terminal building. So our party just walked off the sun-baked runway back into the town, where we were led into a small museum crammed with impressive artifacts. Luckily, there was a sort of public loo because I was now feeling the full ill effects of the “Damascus Dash”. It probably did result from the finger buffet lamb of the previous evening! They eat dates in desert parts, don’t they?

Buried under shifting sand for 1,000 years

We were shown more amazing artifacts in the museum. Then, there was a guided tour of temples and monuments among the acres of ruins of the ancient kingdom of Palmyra, which is described in the Bible as being founded by King Solomon. The main Roman street with its colonnades was one mile long. The searing sun was beating down on our party as we moved along it, simply gasping at the sheer scale of the place. Some members of our party suggested Palmyra’s antiquities rivalled those of Athens and Rome.

The desert air and sands preserved everything, but many of the ancient buildings lay on the ground where they had collapsed in an earthquake. This resulted in the town being buried under the desert sands for 1,000 years. This helped with the preservation of structures and artifacts.

Nearby, there were tombs in the sky – tall towers built to show off the wealth and power of local dynasties. There were niches for the dead on all four sides. A fabulous Arabian Nights hilltop castle, Qula’at ibn Maan overlooks the town.

But we were the only tourists in Palmyra that day. We wandered into the shade of a large oasis. Our guide introduced us to a French engineer who was busy tapping an underground aquifer. It would fill the swimming pool of a Méridien Hotel under construction.  If they ever arrived at this stunning place, future visitors would appreciate a cool dip. Today’s desert heat was unbearable for some of our party. One exception was Dilys Powell, who was accustomed to these temperatures from her years of “digging” in Greece.

Palmyra had been a forgotten place, buried under desert sands, until 50 years earlier when foreign archaeologists rediscovered it. Because of the constant upheavals in the region, there have been few tourists since. Syria has another 20 outstanding archaeological sites, including Damascus and Aleppo, each continuously inhabited for 5,000 years.

Crossroads town of the Silk Road

One previous tourist arrival in Syria was that of Mark Twain. In his 1869 book Innocents Abroad, he wrote: “Go back as far as you will into the vague past; there was always a Damascus.” She has looked upon the dry bones of a thousand empires and you will see the tombs of a thousand more before she dies.”

Even earlier visitors to Palmyra included Hadrian (of Wall fame). He was so impressed that he gave tax concessions. These were very useful for a town at the crossroads of the Silk Road. In 255 AD, Septimus Odaenathus was appointed governor of Syria Phoenicia, based in Palmyra. Five years later, he was made Governor of the entire East. In 266 AD, Odaenathus and his eldest son were assassinated, and his wife, Zenobia, became the effective ruler. Some believe the Palmyra warrior queen hired the assassin.

Zenobia captured and taken to Rome

The ambitious and attractive Zenobia was half-Greek and half-Arab, or possibly half-Jewish. There are several variants of her actual ancestry. She claimed to be descended from Egypt’s Queen Cleopatra. Zenobia was an exceptionally intelligent and eloquent speaker in Palmyrian, Aramaic, Greek, Latin and Egyptian. In her court were scholars, theologians and philosophers. She dressed as an emperor, not an empress, and claimed she could outdrink any man (and win at arm wrestling?).

Queen Zenobia was a successful ruler, and by 270 AD, her armies had conquered most of Anatolia (Asia Minor). This earned her the title of The Warrior Queen. Palmyra declared independence from Rome but fell into decline after Zenobia was captured three years later. The warrior queen was taken to Rome in gold chains.

Our Press party was captivated by this fantastic pink and ochre palm-fringed place in the middle of the desert. Dilys Powell was reluctant to get back on the Yak for the return journey to Damascus. She’d had a field day to remember in Palmyra, marvelling at the Greco-Roman artifacts on-site and in the adjacent museum.

For my part, I had to split my time between ancient artifacts and ancient plumbing in the museum and elsewhere. My DD was still causing chaos… The desert heat didn’t help, but everyone in our party managed to stay well-hydrated and attentive.

That evening, we visited the impressive Damascus Museum. Its recent extension housed more of the seemingly unlimited artifacts of Syria. These included the world’s first alphabet, probably the most important exhibit. There was plenty of evidence to suggest that Zenobia ruled over a vast empire, albeit in agreement with Rome. Her seizure of Egypt sparked her eventual downfall (watch video).

All our party was jaw-dropped by the breadth and quality of the collection, especially Dilys Powell. She displayed a deep knowledge of Grecian and Roman jewellery. Everyone enjoyed the pioneering visit, all of which went smoothly. The visit to Palmyra with its warrior queen was an important event to share with their readers and feature in upcoming their ancestral stories?

UPDATE

The entangled ancestry of Queen Zenobia, the Palmyra Warrior Queen, remains unclear in the aftermath of the media visit. She may have been raised as the daughter of her brother, who had married the widow of her father, who was the brother of them both.

Ancestry updated 23 January 2025 by Jone Johnson Lewis: Zenobia generally agreed to have been of Semitic (Aramean) descent. She claimed Queen Cleopatra VII of Egypt as an ancestor and, thus, Seleucid ancestry. This may be a confusion with Cleopatra Thea (the “other Cleopatra”). Arab writers have also claimed that she was of Arab ancestry. Another ancestor was Drusilla of Mauretania, the granddaughter of Cleopatra Selene, the daughter of Cleopatra VII and Marc Antony. Drusilla also claimed descent from a sister of Hannibal and from a brother of Queen Dido of Carthage. Drusilla’s grandfather was King Juba II of Mauretania. Zenobia’s paternal ancestry can be traced back six generations. It includes Gaius Julius Bassianus, father of Julia Domna, who married the emperor Septimus Severus.

Zenobia’s languages likely included Aramaic, Arabic, Greek, and Latin. The warrior queen’s mother may have been Egyptian; Zenobia was also said to be familiar with the ancient Egyptian language. To add to her mystery, Zenobia was known as Bat Zabbai, Septimia Zenobia, Znwbyā Bat Zabbai. The image (10 above) is Queen Zenobia’s Last Look upon Palmyra by Herbert Gustave Schmalz (aka Herbert Carmichael) in 1888. She was taken in chains from Palmyra to Rome, as depicted.

Syria’s Boeing 747-SP was never flown to New York. However, the second 747-SP, delivered to Alia in 1977, was used on the Amman-New York route. This was the first transatlantic route operated by an Arab airline. The 747-SP is no longer (2024) shown in the official SyrianAir fleet.

Four years after our Press visit, UNESCO made Palmyra a World Heritage site. It was described well: “The art and architecture of Palmyra stands at the crossroads of several civilizations. It marries Graeco-Roman techniques with local traditions and Persian influences.”

Tourism grew steadily, centred on Damascus, beach resorts and Palmyra, but didn’t reach its full potential. It peaked in 1981 before declining again, and in 2010 virtually ceased with the outbreak of civil war. Subsequent trade embargos against the Al-Hassad regime were invoked. This meant no Cocoa Cola or other products of American and European companies were officially available in Syria.

On 23 July 2012, as the rebellion against President Bashar Al-Assad continued, the EU imposed more sanctions on Syria. SyrianAir could not make flights to the EU or buy any new aircraft or parts made in the EU. SyrianAir was forced to suspend all affected operations in the EU.

In the Civil War of 2010-2020, Government troops occupied ancient Palmyra and took potshots at any locals who moved. ISIS rebels later destroyed some of its finest artifacts. The desert town was added to a list of endangered world heritage sites.

Dilys Powell, film critic and latter-day desert warrior, died in St Charles Hospital, London, on 03 June 1995, aged 93. Her Greek Odyssey book, An Affair of the Heart (1958), is a rare gem in travel writing. It has been described as “an unforgettable evocation of a country and its people on intimate knowledge and lasting affection”. Hailed as a classic when it was first published more than fifty years ago. It is still regarded as one of the most outstanding books on Greece ever written. It was reprinted and published by Souvenir Press in 2011.

“For decades, the mere mention of Tadmor Prison was enough to send chills down a Syrian’s spine. The notorious facility was where thousands of dissidents were held. It was reported they were beaten, humiliated and systematically tortured for opposing the Assad rule. It was demolished by the Islamic State group, which took over the site in Palmyra. Many Syrians wanted it to remain standing so future generations would know its horrors.” – News report from Associated Press.

The Al-Assad Ba’athist regime was overthrown in just two weeks in December 2024 by opposition forces. The offensive was spearheaded by Tahrir al-Sham and supported mainly by the Turkish-backed Syrian National Army. This marked the end of the ongoing Syrian civil war that began in 2011. President Bashar al-Assad and his family fled to Moscow, where they were given asylum. Source: Wikipedia.

Read more about Queen Zenobia and Palmyra

Fossil hunters head for Britain’s terror bird beach

Fossil hunters from around the world, armed with buckets and spades, are heading for Britain’s terror bird beach, where a local amateur collector discovered the skeleton of a flesh-eating bird. The metre-tall raptor ate its last meal 54 million years ago.

The previously unknown flightless bird has been named Danielsi Raptor phorusrhacidae in tribute to local palaeontologist Mike Daniels and is the 21st type of terror bird recorded. They were the apex predators due to their hunting pace, killer claws and beaks. Their fossils and bones have been discovered in South America, Texas, Florida and Mongolia. And now England, at the fossil beach at Walton on the Naze, North Essex.

Mike Daniels also recovered 50 other unknown species of birds from the sub-tropical Eocene period, which marked many important evolutionary events for many bird avian species. Fossil hunters and beachcombers are keen to make similar discoveries at the Naze Fossil Beach as word spreads about the discoveries.

He single-handedly dug out and carried 15 tons of London Clay from the unique fossil-strewn Naze beach; during his 640 separate “digs”, he recovered the terror bird and the 54 million-year-old skeletons of 700 birds, 50 of which were unknown to experts. That represents a lifetime of work for an amateur bone hunter.

The finds are currently being investigated by palaeontologists at Museums Scotland and other visiting scientists who are keen to inspect the finds and plan their digs at Naze Beach. 

Dedication family heritage

As fellow palaeologists from around the world begin to study his discoveries in detail, the first scientific reports reveal previously unknown species – the first find studied related to “terror birds”, the apex species in South America and named Danielsi Raptor phorusrhacidae in a posthumous tribute to its discoverer who died in 2021, age 90. He lived in Holland on Sea, a few miles from the Naze fossils beach.

The 50 “unknowns” in the Daniels collection will likely have the prefix “Nosi” (Naze) or be classified in a new family-level taxon, “Waltonortygidae“, as a tribute to the amazing dedication of Mike Daniels’ resultant family heritage.

London Clay is from the Palaeogene period that ended 23 million years ago and is found beneath Greater London and Essex County. It is one of the two sedimentary rock types formed in deep, warm seas during the Cretaceous and Palaeogene Periods when tropical seas dominated this part of England. 

Although born in Whitstable, Kent, in 1931, Mike’s parents soon moved to Essex. He lived in Loughton for many years, working as a cabinet maker, before retiring and moving with his wife Pam to Dulwich Road, Holland-on-Sea, in 1985. He could pursue his passion for collecting fossil birds from the London Clay of The Naze. 

Mike was a lifelong collector. Early on, he formed an impressive collection. Certainly, by the 1960s, he was collecting and finely preparing 80 million-year-old Upper Chalk sea urchins from the Grays, Purfleet and West Thurrock areas of south-west Essex. Mike also collected from the world-famous Jurassic Coast of Dorset and Oxfordshire quarries.

Collected fine specimens

He was a founding member of the Tertiary Research Group formed in 1969 by enthusiastic researchers working on Palaeogene deposits of the London and Hampshire Basins. Mike researched and collected from numerous coastal exposures of lower Eocene London Clay of the Isle of Sheppey, Kent, and of Essex at Wrabness, Harwich, Walton-on-the-Naze, Burnham-on-Crouch and inland pits at High Ongar and Aveley. 

Mike was particularly adept at collecting London Clay fossils, which are notoriously scarce and often difficult to find. He was granted, in 1969, privileged access to deep road and reservoir excavations near Redbridge Station, Charlie Brown’s Roundabout and Waterworks Corner in northeast London and collected many fine specimens.

In the early 1970s, the M11 motorway was constructed from London to Cambridge. This passed quite close to Loughton, Essex, where Mike then lived. 

… Story continues after IMAGE GALLERY

Mike assembled an impressive collection of London Clay fossils, including shells, crabs and lobsters, from the M11 near Chigwell, Debden and further north on the Hertfordshire border at Birchanger near Bishops Stortford. The southerly dip of the strata progressively exposed older London Clay towards the north. At Birchanger, several fossil bird bones were found in 1974, and Mike soon realised lower London Clay of the same age was exposed in the former South Ockendon Clay Plant and at Walton-on-the-Naze. Careful searching of the foreshore at the Naze soon proved this to be the case.

Rapidly eroding cliffs

On retirement in 1985, Mike moved to Holland-on-Sea and began systematically collecting at nearby Walton, using the same sieving processes employed earlier at Birchanger. He discovered large numbers of important smaller finds, including birds, turtles and snakes. 

He also collected microtektites formed when a meteorite hits the Earth. Sediment and rock are often melted and ejected into the air. As this melted rock falls, it quickly cools and forms into a glassy rock called a tektite. Mike collected from Walton, Frinton, Holland-on-Sea, Clacton and Jaywick, all in North Essex.

At Walton, Mike would scour the London Clay exposed and rapidly eroding by the sea at the lower part of the cliff, on the beach and foreshore. When he noticed patches of woody fragments, he carefully excavated the clay and removed it for processing at home. The “woody pockets” were formed some 55 million years ago by a floating mass of drifted waterlogged material sinking to the seabed and acting as a trap for material moving along the bottom of the sea. This concentrated the fossils, which are normally quite scarce.

The bird bones were often linked together and occasionally even articulated, and Mike would carefully extract these from the clay. He was still regularly collecting at Walton until 2005. 

———————————————————————————————————–
How to find bird fossils on Walton on the Naze beach
Between 1975 and 1998, Mike Daniels made about 640 field visits to Walton on the Naze, first from Loughton and later from Holland-on-Sea. He estimated he drove 27,000 miles – spending £3,500 on fuel; and conservatively walked 2,500 kilometres or miles. His Walton journeys would have taken him further than once around the world, and he would have walked the distance from, say, London to Istanbul. He took about 3,600 hours or 150 days to process about 15 tons of London Clay, producing some 700 fossil birds – 50 unknown to palaeontologists.
Beachcombing clue: Look harder at the base of the Naze cliffs, where recent falls have occurred. Search any woody deposits alongside London Clay. The bird skeletons are embedded in the clay and can be fully exposed by soaking and washing the clay at home.
———————————————————————————————————-

Mike achieved international recognition for his collecting and preparation of specimens and tremendous depth of knowledge of avian anatomy. He conversed on equal terms with world experts and earned a great and thoroughly deserved reputation. For many years, experts on fossil birds flocked to his house in Dulwich Road, Holland-on-Sea, to examine his specimens. Unfortunately, specimens may only be published in academic scientific publications if they are available for other researchers to explore in public institutions. Understandably, Mike was most reluctant to part with his cherished specimens while still studying them. 

Several people, concerned with ensuring his legacy and the safety of this incredibly important collection, tried to convince him of the necessity of depositing or at least bequeathing his priceless finds to a national museum. Fortunately, Mike had earlier made contact with Dr Andrew Kitchener at National Museums Scotland (NMS) in Edinburgh while visiting his daughter Caroline, who was then living in Scotland.   

Accordingly, in 2021, his internationally renowned collection of fossil birds and recent comparative material was bequeathed to NMS, where it is now safely housed. Gerald Mahyr, a German palaeontologist who is Curator of Ornithology at the Senckenberg Research Institute in Frankfurt am Main, Hesse and Dr Andrew Kitchener of NMS are now curating the collection and systematically writing and publishing very detailed articles about the specimens. 

Some of Mike’s other Essex fossils, prehistoric material, and related archives have been kindly donated to the Essex Field Club, where some are displayed. The rest of the collection is available for researchers.

Mike lived to the great age of 90 and, despite increasing infirmity and deafness, was able to correspond with his many friends, family and co-researchers until shortly before his death. He was always firing off emails or writing letters on topics of interest to him. I was fortunate to be friends with Mike from the 1960s when we often visited Walton-on-the-Naze and other sites searching for fossils. 

Sadly, Mike passed away following a fall in 2021, shortly after we had celebrated his 90^th birthday in his house and garden in Holland-on-Sea, Essex. Subsequently, his great works have been recognised by the terror bird species designation Danielsi Raptor phorusrhacidae and Waltonortygidae for the other 50 previously unknown finds.

: :  Author, William George is the President of the Essex Field Club, founded by William Cole in 1880. Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace were appointed first honorary members.

UPDATE

The Naze has fossils dating from 55 to 52 million years ago, from the London Clay. At this time, Essex was covered by 200 metres of sea, with the nearest land in the current English Midlands. The climate was then sub-tropical; vegetation would have been palm trees, mangroves, magnolias, etc. Most fossils are mainly marine but include animals and vegetation carried out to sea by river estuaries. SOURCE: Essex Wildlife Trust.

Nearly everyone visiting Walton on the Naze will be able to find sand shark teeth, fossilised wood and Red Crag shells all year round. Much rarer are mackerel shark teeth but the fossil everyone wants to find is a megalodon tooth. Only about six of these are found every year. Because of the constant erosion of the cliffs, newly exposed fossils appear all the time, but you can never tell from day to day what may turn up. Essex Wildlife Trust offers guided walks and fossil hunts so you can discover your hidden treasure.

Naze fossils include shark and ray teeth and vertebrae, fossilised wood, bird bones, lobster, crab, shells, turtles, snakes, crocodiles and a few mammals. Walton also benefits from another layer called the Red Crag, which is 3-2 million years old and stuffed with marine shells. This layer only exists in Essex and a few locations in Suffolk. An internationally rare shell found at Walton is Neptunea angulata, or the left-handed whelk, which is notable because it spirals the opposite way to all other shells. If you find a fossil, you can visit The Naze Nature Discovery Centre nearby, where a staff member will help you identify it. SOURCE: Essex Wildlife Trust.

Technical article on Walton on the Naze Eurocene Discoveries authored by Gerald Mayr and Andrew C Kitchener, Department of Natural Sciences, National Museums Scotland, where Michael Daniels’ collection is held for further study.

Browse more true family history heritage stories

It was just another question posed at the English village community centre quiz night: “How many presidents of the United States have been assassinated?” Then, as fingers around the team tables counted up the most likely answer, the quizmaster revealed a long-held family secret that shocked the quizzers. One of his ancestors had assassinated a US president.

The American-born quizmaster Ken Haske detailed a direct family connection: “A great-great uncle of mine shot President William McKinley.” 

A gasp of surprise swept the hall at Frinton on Sea, North Essex, as the 20 teams strained to benefit from the clue and unsuspected local connection. The quizmaster revealed more details after the general knowledge round points had been totted up,

Ken Haske’s ancestor was the infamous anarchist Leon Frank Czolgosz (pron. Cholgoss), who shot President McKinley on 6 September 1901 in Buffalo, New York. The President died on 14 September after his wound became infected.

 

Two shots into his body

Armed with a fully loaded pistol, the assassin took a 20-minute, one-nickel ride on a street car to the Pan-American Exhibition in Buffalo. The President was greeting visitors when Polish-born Czolgosz, 28, fired two shots into his body. He was readying to fire again when bodyguards and other visitors pinned him down.

In his signed confession, he wrote: “ I shot once and then again. I did not think one shot was enough. As soon as I fired a second shot, I was knocked down and tramped on. The gun was taken away from me. The gun was fully loaded. All I have told you I have said of my own free will.

“I made my plans three or four days ago to shoot the President. When I shot him, I intended to kill him. The reason for my killing was that I did not believe in presidents over us. I was willing to sacrifice myself and the President for the benefit of the country.

“I felt I had more courage than the average man in killing the president and was willing to put my own life at stake in order to do it”.

An important part of history

Czolgosz was arrested on the spot and put on trial for first-degree murder. He was convicted and sentenced to death on 23 September 1901. His trial lasted 8 hours and 26 minutes, from jury selection to verdict. He went to the electric chair on 29 September, witnessed by his brother Waldeck. His last words were: “I killed the President because he was the enemy of the good people – the working people.”

His parents, Paul Czolgosz and Mary Nowak, were first-generation Polish immigrants. They arrived in the USA in 1872 after the birth of their third son.

Leon was born the fourth of his parents’ ten children, following three elder brothers, Waldek, Frank and Joseph. Four younger brothers named Walter, Jacob, John, Michael and two younger sisters called Celia and Victoria. Additionally, he had two half-siblings, Charles and Antoine, from his father’s second marriage.

That extended first-generation family would result in generations of descendants that century. Some of them were probably unaware of the infamy resulting from the shocking murder. 

Leon Czolgosz” ‘s descendant, Ken Haske, moved to Frinton on Sea on American Independence Day in 2023. He said: “I only discovered I had an assassin for an ancestor when I was compiling a family tree. It was a shock at that time. Now I realise the assassination was an important part of history – and no one can change that now.”

Quiz answer:

The four assassinated presidents of America were:

Abraham Lincoln (12 February 1809 – 15 April 1865)
Shot in the head by John Wilkes Booth.

James Garfield (19 November 1831 – 19 September 1881)
Shot twice in the back by Charles Guiteau.

William McKinley (4 March 1897 – 14 September 1901)
Shot twice in the stomach by Leon Frank Czolgolsz.

John F Kennedy (29 May 1917 – 22 November 1963)
Shot in the head by Lee Harvey Oswald. 

Leon Czolgosz, the anarchist who assassinated American President William McKinley, was born to first-generation Polish immigrant parents and brought up in poverty. He had only five years of formal education and started working in his mid-teens. However, he was an intelligent boy who read a lot outside school. He first became interested in socialism when, at the age of 19, he lost his job due to the prevailing depression. Very soon, he concluded that it was the state machinery which made the rich richer at the cost of the poor.

On September 6, 1901, the President was scheduled to meet the general public for ten minutes at 4 p.m. at the Temple of Music, an auditorium at the Pan-American Exhibition exposition ground. Seizing his chance, Czolgosz stood in the queue. HNe was carrying his revolver wrapped in a handkerchief, and reached the President at 4:07 p.m.

As the President extended his hand, Czolgosz slapped it away and shot him in the abdomen twice. The first bullet hit a coat button and ricocheted off. But the second hit his stomach, seriously wounding him. The President succumbed to his injury on 14 September 1901. SOURCE: The Famous People.

Leon Czolgosz is a central character in Stephen Sondheim’s musical Assassins. The musical number “The Ballad of Czolgosz” depicts his assassination of McKinley.

Here’s another true family secret revealed

The wartime journey began on the day Britain declared war against Hitler. From the Hebrides to the Cotswolds involved rowing a mile to the Isle of Mull, driving to the mailboat port and a three-hour sea crossing to Oban. Here, teenager Deborah Mitford and her travelling companions, a nanny goat, a whippet and a Labrador, “refreshed”. Then, endured three separate train journeys and a taxi ride to the family home and wartime sanctuary.

In the 1930s, my parents bought a small island off the coast of the Isle of Mull in the Inner Hebrides. Inch Kenneth lies about a mile out to sea from the tiny Mull village of Gribun. To the west, there is no land until you reach America. My mother bought a goat to solve a milk supply problem on our island. She found a British Saanen of uncertain ancestry and gave it to me. 

We called her Narny, a charming animal that everybody liked from the beginning. Narny was free to go wherever she wanted. She jumped on the retaining wall of a steep slope by the kitchen door to be milked—there never was fresher milk.

Aged 19, I was on Inch Kenneth when war was declared in September 1939 and I had to return to our home in Oxfordshire. Naturally, I could not leave my goat behind. So, together with a whippet and a labrador, we set out on a journey which, at that time, took 24 hours.

Story continues after the IMAGE GALLERY

Stuck for 24 hours

We left the island at 6:30 am in the dark. At low tide, there was a long walk over seaweed-covered rocks. Reaching the boat without stepping into a pool or slipping over was impossible. Then, there was another hazardous walk over the rocks on the coast of Mull to the tin hut where we kept the car. Sometimes, the vehicle was agonisingly stubborn about starting. There were no other means of transport and it was 11 miles across Mull to Salen, where the mailboat called only once a day to sail to Oban.

So one could be stuck for 24 hours if the car did not cooperate. The goat travelled in the rickety old luggage trailer covered by a tarpaulin against the driving rain.

The mailboat was well-equipped for such passengers as my animals. At that time, it was the only means of transport for all farm livestock and humans. One could safely give anything from a bull to a book of stamps to the crew, and it would be delivered miraculously to the right person at the other end. It took three hours to get to Oban, with two stops on the way, through some of the most beautiful scenery in Scotland.

First Class milking

It was a long day in Oban as the London train did not leave until the evening. After a few weeks on the island, it was always exciting to see the shops again. The goat and the dogs dutifully followed me around. A greengrocer and a butcher provided their meals for the day.

It was dark again when the time came to go to the station at the other end of the harbour. Goat in the guard’s van, dogs in the carriage, we settled down to one of those endless wartime journeys with a dim light and crowded train. In the middle of the night, we arrived in Stirling, where we had to change. We waited for an hour for the London train.

I milked the goat in the First Class waiting room, which I should not have done as I only had a Third Class ticket. Luckily, no one noticed. The dogs were delighted with their unexpected midnight drink of new milk. Relieved and refreshed, we boarded the London train. 

Queue for taxis

There was a long queue for taxis at Euston, and I was apprehensive that the driver might not be willing to take on such a curious assortment of passengers. Luckily, he was one of those cheerful Cockneys who would not be put out by anything. The four of us arrived at my sister Nancy’s house in perfect order – just 9d extra on the clock.

She lived in a house on Blomfield Road, Little Venice, which had quite a big garden where Narny feasted on Nancy’s roses. Enough pruning was done in two hours to last a long time – as all goat and garden owners will understand.

Paddington Station was within walking distance, but the hurrying London crowds did not notice the dishevelled girl, goat and dogs party. Narny lived for a long time, produced twins every year and an enormous amount of milk. But I shall always remember her for her perfect behaviour on the journey from the Hebrides to Oxfordshire.

Nanny State thwarts repeat of the great goat journey

Hebrides to Cotswolds required two boat journeys of 33 miles, four ports of call, three train journeys and three road journeys. Plus, walkabouts in Oban and London. 500 miles in 24 hours saw the party reach London, with subsequent onward travel to Burford, Oxfordshire. 

Deborah Devonshire’s wartime journey would be impossible in today’s woke “Nanny State” and its battery of Animal Health Regulations, Animal Welfare (Transportation) Laws and the post-Brexit retention of EU Council Regulation (EC) No 1/2005 of 22 December 2004 on the protection of animals during transport and related operations and amending Directives 64/432/EEC and 93/119/EC and Regulation (EC) No 1255/97. 

A person requires a competence certificate to accompany animals on journeys over 65 km. A BTECH Certification course is available. A nanny goat on a train would likely offend National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers (RMT) members. Perhaps leading to a ballot and all-out strike? London cabbies, known to refuse travel to assistance dogs, would turn up their noses at the prospect of a goatly passenger. However, Uber’s Pets Service would throw down a welcome mat – to protect against goat “accidents”. 

UPDATE

Deborah Devonshire (1920-2014) was the youngest and last surviving of the six Mitford sisters who scandalised British society in the 1930s and 1940s. Two years after the goat journey, she married the aristocrat who became the 11th Duke of Devonshire and, in 1950, moved into Chatsworth House. She helped transform it into one of England’s finest stately homes, mainly due to a 10-year conservation and restoration programme costing £32 million.

Over her 60 years at Chatsworth House, the Duchess of Devonshire became one of Britain’s leading experts in conservation and preservation — “suddenly a hero for keeping the roof on,” as she said.

Deborah Devonshire met Hitler two years before the goat journey when she was invited for tea in Munich. At the time of the goat journey, her sister, Unity, tried to commit suicide in Munich, where it was rumoured she was Adolf Hitler’s girlfriend. The bullet lodged in her brain, causing severe vertigo, brain damage and partial paralysis. The gun was given to her by Hitler.

Deborah Devonshire’s next incredible wartime journey was to collect her sister, Unity, from a hospital in neutral Bern, Switzerland. She had been sent get-well messages and flowers by Hitler, Ribbentrop, Goebbels and leading gauleiters. Back home, surgeons at Radcliffe Infirmary, Oxford, agreed it was not possible to remove the bullet. They gave Unity 10 years to live. She died in Oban just two weeks short of that.

British Saanen is a white goat developed in the UK and influenced mainly by imported Swiss Saanen goats. The coat is short and delicate. They have longer legs than the original Saanen and are heavier. Generally, they have calm natures with high milk yields. SOURCE: British Goat Society.

Acknowledgements: Reproduced courtesy of The British Goat Society. This story was first published in the British Goat Society Yearbook 1972. It was included in Counting My Chickens by Deborah Devonshire, published in 2001 by Long Barn Books. “The book is a song to old-fashioned reliance and a reproach to this era of dependence”, says Tom Stoppard’s foreword.

Browse another onset of World War II true story

More on the lives of scandalous Mitford Sisters

Farm rioters banished, flogged and treadmilled

In 1831, riots, hayrick burning and vandalism erupted in the English countryside. Impoverished law-breakers, like farm labourer William Acres, age 22, were hunted down, dragged from their families and transported by convict ships 12,000 miles to penal colonies in Australia and Tasmania. As convicts, they suffered floggings, days on treadmills, and chain gang labour. Life for agricultural workers was always a hard struggle, but now things got even worse.

Following a series of cold winters and poor harvests, farming was in the doldrums in Eastern Counties like Essex. Landowners and farmers had ended annual labour contracts. Labourers were employed daily or worked on a piecework basis. Their skills included ploughing, sowing seeds, reaping, and threshing. They could not work in bad weather and if they didn’t work, they didn’t earn a penny.

Traditional winter work for farm workers included threshing in the barns. However, the new machines had taken over the work traditionally performed by manpower. Farms in Essex were among the first to use threshing machines for harvesting. From 1830, they were widely used in the fields of North Essex. 

Due to the efficient threshing machines, there was little winter work available. Many workers were unable to earn enough to support their families and pay their bills. Public disorder and violent riots broke out. Many local farm labourers like William Acres had been arrested and convicted of ”feloniously breaking a threshing machine” on the farms in North Essex. He, Robert Davey, 32, both from Kirby Le Soken and Peter Eade, 42, from nearby Little Holland, were sentenced to be transported to Van Diemen’s Land (Tasmania) penal colony for seven or 14 years.

They were among the 112 prisoners aboard the convict ship Proteus when she set sail on April 12 1831, arriving in VDL on August 3 1831

Three brothers from Kirby Le Soken, who had been convicted of destroying a threshing machine on a nearby farm, had already been transported to VDL on the convict ship Eliza, having arrived there on 29 May 1831. James Grant, age 31 and Thomas, 28, were each sentenced to 14 years, while John, 23, received seven years at the penal colony. The records show that despite the hardships, they all survived to complete their sentences.

The six-foot-tall William Acres had lived in the village of Kirby Le Soken with his parents, William and Elizabeth, and younger sisters, Susan and Martha. He settled into the harsh routine of the penal colony. He was forced to labour 12-14 hours a day, six days a week, helping to provide roads and buildings for the expanding British colony.

Repeated neglect of duties

By November of 1831, William Acres was in deep trouble with the overseer. He had been found drunk and was ordered to spend 10 days on the colony treadmill that was used to grind grain and punish prisoners. Each grim day was spent treading for 40 minutes, with 20-minute rest periods in between. 

He survived the punishment but then went “absent without leave,” an offence that resulted in a further 10 days on the treadmill, ending on December 8. But William Acres’s behaviour deteriorated and the following month he was sentenced to a public flogging with a “cat o’nine tails” for repeated neglect of duties. He received 50 lashes, witnessed by the convicts and staff. Salt would have been rubbed into his wounds to minimise infection. 

Flogged men often became embittered, and the punishment brutalised both the victim and the fellow convict carrying it out. For William Acres, it became a turning point. It seems he became a model prisoner, being “peaceable, loyal, and industrious.” He earned a free pardon in February 1836. Was he reunited with his family and friends, or did he decide to remain in Tasmania or the more advanced Australia, a land of opportunity for an “industrious fellow”? 

Records for 1830-1831, compiled by the British Home Office and Australian authorities, indicate that 2,097 agricultural workers were tried, convicted, and transported to New South Wales or Van Diemen’s Land (renamed Tasmania in 1856). A few served their sentences in England, some died during the 13-16 week journeys or on arrival.

Court sentences were generally of seven years or 14 years in a penal colony, but from 1836, free pardons could be granted for good behaviour and most of the convicts stayed on to make a new life in a developing and prospering new British colony.

242 farm labourers were found guilty of breaking or destroying farm machinery, 159 of riotous conduct, and eight of making threats. There were 352 murderers transported in convict ships, but records do not indicate any directly related to the agricultural unrest. Surprisingly, 429 men and women were transported for stealing handkerchiefs.

Family history researchers who suspect an ancestor may have been a penal convict in Australia or Tasmania can make a quick, free check at the revised database at Claim a Convict. The website allows users to browse by surname or by convict ship. Users can contact other researchers investigating the same convict ancestor and share information.

Convict lists from Research Data Australia to share.

Kidnap, torture and smuggler murders… Read now.