Touching Greece

I am an Englishman in Greece. What brought me here originally was a sense of challenge, to travel alone at the sort of age when most of my countrymen are toasting their slippers in front of a fire - or pruning their roses. I cannot say why I chose Greece. Perhaps it was a sense of solidarity in the face of Crisis, a vague idea that if I was going to spend my English pension anywhere then it might as well be in a country that needed it! But above all there is I think in the hearts of many Englishmen a feeling of affinity with Greece. Ancient Greece was part of our education, but there is also a sort of Byronic impulse towards this country.

As time went by I came to love the country. I started to write about my experiences. I began to record just a little of how I felt, and feel, about this land and its wonderful people. I tried to capture the strengths and exasperating little weaknesses with humour and with empathy. The result is a catholic collection of stories and articles. Some are serious, a few are satirical, others are self-deprecating, whilst yet others are just stories, usually based on fact. 

In the articles and short stories I have carefully avoided getting serious over the devastating politico-economic issues that have beset Greece and her people over the past few years. The poems provide some punctuation. Three are sonnets, a form I find stimulating in that the restrictions of rhyme and metre add formality to the expression of ideas and emotions. 

I would like to thank, wholeheartedly, the many Greek people who have been so kind to me and from whom I have 'stolen' the ideas for these stories. Their courage, optimism, and sense of enjoyment has been infectious, and I hope I have captured just a little of that in this anthology