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| 3 Sep 2025 | |
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BY DAVID BALLANCE (FORMER TEACHER)
In the OC Mitre of 2024, a short entry promised an article celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of the Greek Trip of 1974. At the time, I had not acquired all the material that I needed, but I can now re-start the project on the web-site. If my counting is fight, this was the fifth of eight such expeditions, and veterans of others began to make contributions, so I thought that I would provide some basic details of those. I had taken part in three earlier ones, but I needed to assemble material for the others. I now have enough to give a general picture. But the 1974 journey was not simply in the use of the School minibus (which was repeated in 1980), but as the only occasion when Chigwell might have fought the Turks in the only war between two members of NATO. I have been able to add some illustrations from five years, largely from my own collections.
The first Greek trip took place just before I arrived at Chigwell in September 1959. It was run by Peter Croft, a Classics master, and travel was by train, presumably through Italy. I know nothing else about it, except that Tim Stevens (who eventually became Bishop of Leicester) was on it. I knew Peter Croft well; he was at Chigwell from Lent 1957 to Michaelmas 1961. This trip must have been in the summer of 1958 or 1959, and I think Tim must then have been in Removes; later trips did not recruit below LVs until 1982.
So, fast forward to 1966.
But first, a little background: for the School, for the United Kingdom, and for the Greeks whom we were visiting. I say "the Greeks" deliberately: King Paul, who had died in 1964, was by title King that of the Hellenes— is, of all Greeks, whether they lived in Greece, or in Alexandria, or Albania, or (most importantly) in Cyprus, which in 1960 had ceased to be a British Crown Colony (which it had been since 1878), and had become a Republic, in which over two-thirds of the population was Greek, and longed to be united with Greece by 'enosis'. The constitution of the new country contained various measures protecting minorities, but the Turkish population was then widely dispersed and was seldom regarded by the Greeks as more than second- class citizens. In the event, King Paul was the only Greek monarch who managed to live out his whole reign in his kingdom without a period of exile, to die of natural causes in his capital, and to be succeeded by his son as Constantine II.
The new King was only twenty-three, a handsome Olympic sailing victor, married to a Danish Princess. In George Papandreou he had a recently elected and able Prime Minister, but of a leftish slant. At the time of the 1966 Chigwell trip, there was a complicated series of political events, leading to a string of temporary ministries in Athens, and an attempt by the famously devious Archbishop Makarios in Cyprus to revoke the 1960 constitution, but the average tourist, unable to read the newspapers, would not have noticed anything disturbing. At home, while the 1966 trip was being planned, Wilson increased a slender Labour majority in the March elections; it was the third year of Beatle mania; Youth Rebellion accelerated and would soon be fed by events in France and the USA; hair grew out of control; oil was being tapped in the North Sea; and England won the World Cup. At Chigwell, the post-War intellectual surge produced by the Essex free-place system had been weakening by the year since the last such entry in 1961; most members of the Greek party had benefited from that system, and four would win Oxbridge awards.
In describing personnel, I shall use familiar initials for three staff members: CDH for David Horton; MJB for Michael Brandon; and DKB for myself. Other adults, some of whom were staff members, will be given initials after they have been introduced. Pupils will be given their first names, though boys in the 1960s did not then always use them to each other!
The Expedition (as I shall now call the party, most of whom were about to enter Unknown Territory) left Chigwell on 4 August in three cars, large ones belonging to CDH and MJB, and a smaller one belonging to Ivor Chapman (IPC), a schoolmaster Old Bancroftian friend of MJB and DKB. There should have been four vehicles, but DKB had been recovering from illness, and came out by air to Thessaloniki, where he hired a car. Camping equipment was carried, but hotels were pre-booked in cities. The passengers, in descending order of age, were Edward Hall, Huw Thomas, John Battersby, Michael Fitzgerald, David Bowers, Adrian Hart, John Madden, Christopher Aubrey, Robert Huston, David Parish, and Edward Hooper.
The outward route was by Ostend, Salzburg and Belgrade to Thessaloniki; thence eastward to Kavalla and Thasos; back via Tempe to Athens, then to Delphi and down into the Peloponnese to Pylos and Sparta; back up the west coast to Patras and Nemea (perhaps after imbibing the excellent red wine). DKB then left to return his car at Athens and fly back home; the rest went to Corfu, where they played cricket against the Local 3rd XI (match drawn; rain stopped play). The return was via Brindisi to Calais.
I should perhaps add that this was my own seventh visit to Greece since the first in 1957, when I passed through Macedonia and Thrace by rail on my way to Turkey. This was followed by three birdwatching trips with Cambridge friends, one by rail and two car. During these I had watched the slow improvement from of the road Belgrade to the Greek border. A further car visit was in 1963 (see below), and in 1965 MJB and I made a rather hurried April visit by train and ship. In 1957, and still in 1959, tarmac was being laid by apparently cheerful gangs of student labourers, in replacement of a rough gravel track. In 1960, with three drivers in a Riley, we came off the overnight ferry early on 15 August and entered Greece on the 19th, which was very good going. In 1963, however, when much more tarmac had been made, I followed the same route with Richard Bailey (Head of Biology, 1962-65) and we had to wait several hours before we could cross a flash-flooded stream on a gravel section near Titov Veles! We had, incidentally, just climbed Olympus, and walked around monastic Athos.
Readers of this might wonder what I was doing in the world of Classics; wasn’t my business rather with Eng. Lang. & Lit., and (at a push) French? True enough. But at school I had been a "Full Classic", with "A" Levels in Latin, Greek and Ancient History. In the old pattern, I had started Latin at nine and Greek at ten, and I never attended a single scientific lesson in my schooldays. Also, my elder brother was a Byzantine archaeologist and an expert on Roman roads. So, if pressed, I can still decline mensa, and recite a Kennedy gender rhyme, a few epigrams, an Ode or two, and a single speech from Sophocles. I can even read a "No Parking" notice, which is a useful accomplishmnent. So much for that.
P1/1
Platamon Camp-site, 1966:
L to R: IDP, MJB, C. Aubrey,
R. Huston (behind), J. Battersby
P1/2
Cape Sunium, 1966:
J. Madden, presumably
after a risk assessment
In the two years that followed our 1966 Greek politics again descended into chaos, which culminated in a military coup on 21 April 1967, when a group of younger officers took charge, alleging that they were destroying a Communist plot in the north. The King was unable to deal with this, and in December was forced into exile in Rome. one of the Colonels, George Papadopoulos, became a virtual military dictator, though he appointed a nominal Regent; by 1972, he had himself taken that title. The Greeks finally rejected the monarchy by a plebiscite in 1975, and by 1977 a fully constitutional democracy had been restored.
At home in 1974, Labour came to power and was eager to abolish the grammar schools; ironically, their success in this would in the end benefit the independent system, but that time had not yet arrived, and the period from 1966 to 1973 was a difficult time at Chigwell: boarding was shrinking and the old pillars of the system-- Chapel, the CCF, the Classics, boarding—were weakening, and the old virtues were under attack. The staff was ageing. The entry at 11 was very variable: in some years, the scholars we had selected came to us, in others, we lost them to our rivals. There was no general decline in classroom behaviour, and a largely day school did not suffer the near-revolutionary behaviour that affected some of the great foundations. 1 was form-master of IIIA for many years and there were real problems in teaching a group of widely different abilities.
Among older boys, there was not much enthusiasm to spend most of the summer holidays in the company of adults at the relics of antiquity at the other end of Europe. still, a three-car party was formed for a 1968 expedition, with CDH, MJB and DKB as drivers, and six passengers, none of whom was still at school: Derick Mallett (DJM), Head of Biology (who did not drive); Andrew Shadrack, who had left in 1967 and would eventually have a political career in British Columbia; Chris Aubrey, who had left in March 1968, and was about to go up to Oxford; and three others who had just left school in July and would go to university in October: Robert Tinsley, Philip Scales and Jeremy Lockett. If this event had taken place eighteen months later, it would have been an all-adults party; everybody was over 18.
We left on 8 August, and travelled via Ostend. We went out through Hungary, thus avoiding Alpine passes; we paused to admire the Danube, and camped at Szeged, near the Yugoslav border, where we ate an enormous meal very cheaply in a plush restaurant with a gypsy band. In Greece, we started at Delphi, where we climbed Parnassus after a night in a mountain hut. We circled the Peloponnese, visited several remote sites up roughish roads (including Bassac), and after a short visit to Athens made our way to the north-west to consult the oracle at Dodona. On 5 September we took the ferry from Igoumenitsa to Brindisi; presumably we returned through France, but even my passport stamps arc silent on the matter.
P2/1
Group in Theatre at Dodona (less CDH, DKB):
L to R: DJM; R. Tinsley; MJB; P. Scales, J. Lockett, C. Aubrey, A. Shadrack
P2/2
Isthmia
C. Aubrey
P2/3A
Gravia Pass,
between Amphissa & Brallos
A. Shadrack
By 1970, the Colonels' grip on power had tightened, and their leader, Papadopoulos, had become virtually a military dictator; he had gained support abroad, especially from the USA. The countryside was still dotted with national flags and tatty phoenixes, symbolic of a renewed state, and opponents had fled or been imprisoned. At home, the Conservatives returned unexpectedly to power in June.
At Chigwell, we knew that DHT would retire in 1971. Staff morale was low; the intake into IIIA in 1969 had been ominously troublesome. However, the 1970 entry (some of whom we shall meet below) proved talented and enthusiastic. And, thanks mainly to a profitable sponsored walk in 1968, a splendid new 15-seater minibus appeared, and a garage was built to protect it, and some apprehensive staff were persuaded to take the wheel and try it out on a gentle circuit round Debden. BYN 708H was soon familiar to us. It was soon accompanying two Scout camps a year as a regular workhorse; the only serious trouble it ever gave was in its first visit to Scotland, where a clutch problem was detected and instantly put right with a screw-driver by a canny fitter in the Angus Glens. But it did not at first attempt a Channel-crossing.
A 1970 Greek expedition was advertised, but enthusiasm was muted. MJB was in India for a year, so a two-car CDH/DKB trip was proposed. DJM (who had returned from a disappointing post in Malaysia, but not to a Chigwell post) wanted to come, and we found three other passengers; Graham Hobbs (who had left in 1969), Peter Bowers in LVI, and a third, whose identity has somehow escaped all our memories-- PERHAPS, GENTLE READER, YOU CAN PROVIDE IT?). 1 can remember very little about this journey, apart from a drive out through Hungary, though this time by a trafficless short cut on a Sunday, avoiding the capital, through little steppe villages and black-clothed peasants and vast white hordes of geese. We did break new ground by taking the cars to Crete and Cephalonia, and we again returned via Brindisi. In France, on the last day, a broken windscreen was due to a supersonic bang from a passing Mirage. There was also the fine sight of bloated artic-drivers in a Relais des Routiers. who had despatched the plat du jour and were facing a row of empty bottles and turning to their patient camions.
P3/2
Lord Byron's Ivy on
earthquaked ruin of his house
at Metaxarta,
Cephalonia
1970
P3/3
Lonely car at lunchtime
Aghios Nikolaos
Crete.
1970
Four years now elapsed. Decimal coinage came in; there were miners' strikes and fuel shortages and a three-day week; Ulster was seriously troubled; and in March 1974 Heath conceded defeat, though he had been successful in joining the EEC. At school, the headmastership passed in 1971 to Brian Wilson, and two years later the pattern of the New Chigwell had become clear: a separate Junior School; older boarders to Grange Court, and the youngest ones to Hainault; four separate senior houses with their own bases; the oldest cohort of masters departing, and new blood everywhere; a few girls entering at Lower Sixth level. Such drastic reforms are seldom popular with the pupil body: only the catering arrangements (the first of all the novelties) found a universal support. Yet, numbers quickly rose, so that three streams became normal. It was against this background that the 1974 Greek Expedition was planned. Recruitment was extended to the LV year; the use of the minibus would bring down costs; it had already served four Scout Camps in the North of Scotland, and at Easter 1974 it cautiously moved to the other side both of the Channel and the road to invade the French and Swiss Jura.
When Greece was proposed, volunteers soon appeared, in just the right numbers to justify the use of the bus and a single car (MJB's): there would be three staff (CDH, MJB and DKB) all of whom were insured to drive either vehicle, and two outsider adults (our old friend IPC, and Dr Robin Betts, a Liverpool Education Lecturer), who could occasionally drive the car. So the bus would always carry a reserve driver. Such numbers would allow the removal for the trip of the rear row of seats, thus creating a space for overnight bags, hike tents, and basic cooking equipment, so the reserve clothing and kit could stay on the roof rack for the long journeys. There were nine younger members (in descending order of age): Paul Sillis, who had left school in April and would go to Cambridge in October; Michael Prince, Graeme Inch and Jonathan Marks; Jonathan Birchall, Andrew Thompson, Clive Griffin, Tim Emmett, Adrian Dand, and Chris Ellingham The last five were from the LV; I knew four of them very well, since they were long-service Scouts, and experienced campers; in that summer, they had already spent eight or nine nights under canvas in the Lake District. On their return from Greece, JB, AT and CE found that they had won the County Marathon Hike Contest—first out of 83 !
I am the last survivor among the staff As far as I know, the other members are all still with us, except Clive Griffin, who died in 2004 after a long battle with leukaemia.
Departure was fixed for 29 July. However, in April a dispute had arisen between Greece and Turkey about claims for the ownership of the Aegean sea-bed. Nothing could be settled, and the Colonels, desperate for public support for their failing government, planned a spectacular coup, which involved the assassination of Makarios and the immediate proclamation of "enosis" (union of Cyprus with Greece). The new Cypriot President would be a dubious Cypriot journalist and pardoned murderer called Nicos Sampson. On 15 July the plot misfired, Makarios escaped to a British base, and on the 20th a Turkish force invaded North Cyprus. Greece ordered mobilization, but by the 24th the government wisely backed off, and summoned the exiled Karamanlis (who had been the last monarchs' Prime Minister for eight years) to take charge of a caretaker government. This new apparent stability seemed to allow our Expedition to start, while the three Contracting Powers of the 1960 Cypriot Constitution (Britain, Greece and Turkey) hammered out a peaceful solution in Geneva. So we set off. The itinerary was carefully recorded by IPC (who, after all, was a geographer). Most of the places mentioned are the overnight camping sites (and a few hotels), but intervening visits are also mentioned. Here, thew is the outward journey; * = places not identified in Times Atlas; probably village camp sites.
July
29: Chigwell; Ramsgate; hovercraft to Calais; Eupen (German-speaking Belgium!).
30: Eifel Valley; Greding (Germany, but approaching Linz).
31: Graz; Bruck-an-der Mur (Austria).
P4/l
A late picnic lunch
Belgian Ardennes
Aug.
1: Maribor (Slovenia); Zagreb; Spacva* (then Yugoslavia, now Croatia).
2: Belgrade; Predeljane (now Serbia).
3: Skopje and Titov Veles (now North Macedonia); Pella (Greek Macedonia, but a bird-
watchers' group paid a visit to Lake Koroneia, near Thessaloniki); Platamon (Castle Camping).
4: Thermopylae; Marathon; Athens.
5: In Athens: Acropolis.
6: In and out from Athens: Archaeological Museum; Cape Sunium.
P4/2
Looking over Athens:
MJB/RB/P.Si11is/A. Thompson
7: Eleusis; Corinth Canal; Tolon.
8: Epidaurus; Nafplion.
P4/3
Recital at Epidaurus
9: Tripolis; Mistra; Sparta.
10/11: Monemvasia.
P4/4
C. Ellingham contemplating Monemvasia
P4/5
Near Sparta
The Diners' Club: G.lnch, M. Prince, J. Marks, J. Birchall
12: Areopolis.
13: Mani; Methoni
P4/6
Donkeys at Oitylo
P4/7
A Meeting of Motors in the Mani
P4/8
Voidokoilia Beach, Pylos
P4/9
Furthest South
Venetian Fortlet, Methoni
14. Koroni; Methoni.
But here, we heard that the talks at Geneva had broken down, and the Turks were advancing further into Cyprus, eventually to occupy 40% of the island. We phoned the Embassy in Athens and were advised to go to Patras immediately and clear out by sea to Italy. We decided to clear out, but, imagining the chaos that could be building up at Patras, we thought we could safely exclude Olympia from our targets, escape by land in three days via Delphi and Kastofia into Yugoslavia, and then make our way up the Adriatic coast to Venice. CDH and I had actually followed that route by sea in 1969.
15. So, after a tyre replacement for MJB, we crossed the Rhion Ferry and climbed the hairpins up to Delphi.
P4/10
The Stadium, Delphi
16. Kastoria
P4/11
Adjustments to the Roof-rack at Kastoria: C. Ellingham
P4/13
Inal re-packing at Kastoria
P4/14
Kastoria: the last breakfast
L to R: CDH (part of), C. Griffin, C. Ellingham, IPC, RB
On R, a customer reads his paper. The headline reads: “50 MIRAGES FOR GREECE”
France had promised to boost the Greek Air Force!
17/18: Lake Ohrid (Yugoslavia; now North Macedonia)
19: Pec (Kosovo)
20: Petrovac (Montenegro)
21: Kotor (Montenegro); Dubrovnik; Zetrovac* (Croatia)
P4/15 Dubrovnik: the Land Walls
P4/16 Split: Diocletian’s Palace
22: Basko Polje*; Split (Croatia – one would now also pass through a sliver of Bosnia)
23: Zadar; Ostro* (Croatia & briefly through Slovenia)
24/25: Venice
P4/17 The Doges’ Palace, Venice
The last three pictures were taken in 1969, by DKB.
26: Brenner Pass; near Innsbruck
27: Wieskirche (SW of Innsbruck); Herrenalb (near Baden-Baden)
28: Laon
29: Peronne; Calais; hovercraft to Ramsgate; Chigwell.
So we came home. Not a shot had been fired, but the assembled parents in Front Quad were deeply relieved. In fact, if I remember rightly, a cheer was raised, Our faithful BYN deserved a pat on her bonnet; she was due for a service, after carrying us all for the best part of 5,000 miles.
After a vain attempt to enmesh the memories of the captains and the crew in a single account, I decided that I would publish the three most substantial contributions as they stood, with only a little editing. Chris Ellingham’s took the formn of detached impressions; John Birchall’s was a series of very vivid incidents; Jon Marks’ was a finished article.
I received a few photos, but they were on the whole disappointing, largely because Kodachrome prints of the time were of poorish quality, either dim or glaring. I was using 120 Agfa film in an old Zeiss camera, and taking slides. A few years ago, I had a selection of them printed and assembled in albums, including examples from all the four Chigwell Greek Expeditions of which I was a member. The quality remains respectable and it is from that collection that most pictures have been drawn.
The Temple of Poseidon at Sunium: my most powerful memory of the entire trip—the beauty of classical Greek architecture against a background of an intense blue sea.
DKB declaiming 'Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more in the theatre at Epidaurus.[1]
A number of us lining up in the starting marks in the stadium at Delphi
My discovery of real yoghurt in Athens. I had only previously tasted the ersatz fruit-flavoured ones in plastic pots.
Sitting at a table in an outdoor cafe [at Methoni, presumably] I with what seemed the entire male population of the village focused on a single black-and-white TV. The Cyprus troubles had again reached crisis point. DKB was using a telephone inside the cafe to contact the British Consulate for advice; he then very apologetically walked between the audience and the TV as quickly as he could.
To my disappointment, I can't picture the towns of Dubrovnik and Split, though we visited both. It would be good to remember what they were like before the shelling of 1991.[2]
[1]
[2]
I have supplied below photos of both these places, taken in 1969, when CDH and I were returning by seafront Piraeus to Venice.
An old farmer standing in his field and brandishing his fist at us as he cursed the perfidies of Albion (which, of course, had refused enosis to the Cypriots); fading signs from the Colonels ("Long Live the National Army") outside towns and villages; discovering at Platamon that the sea could actually be warm; an old lady on the main street of Monemvasia offering pieces of cake to everyone in a small cafe (as part of a mourning ceremony); a newspaper headline on 10 August proclaiming the resignation of Nixon after " Watergate" ; sleeping in campsites under the stars and chatting up a local girl (in Kalamata, perhaps) who was sharing photographs of student protests and military repression that I was completely unaware of; the incredible horseshoe beach near Pylos, where Nestor might have pulled up his ships; a lot of singing in the bus, mostly Simon and Garfunkel songs, or hymns; driving super-fast in MJB 's Cortina; some illicit drunken evenings fuelled by retsina (which, incidentally, has now all but vanished from Greek wine lists -- perhaps no bad thing) or local brandy, with Marks holding forth on the joys of Bach s Mass in B Minor DKB 's recitation at Epidaurus; and the drive from Pec around the edge of Albania into Montenegro, where we bought wild strawberries in twists of newspaper by local kids (who were probably Roma).
[Jon went back to Greece as soon as he left school in 1977 , as a solo traveller by cheap buses. Alone among the party, he has revisited post-War Kosovo.]
It was impossible to know then, but it is easier to understand some fifty years later, that at the age of seventeen the trip established or consolidated a series of interests, perceptions, and patterns of living that have influenced the course of my life since. This is a bold statement, but not without substance, so thank you, Messrs Ballance, Brandon and Horton, your friends and mine who were there. Masters and boys, we all got on so well because of a high level of tolerance -- each person or group being quietly allowed to do their own thing -- and respect for the group. So here are five episodes with side-ramblings that emerged from my personal bank of memories and perceptions.
The Feel of an Athens Spring in Summer
After a very long drive, passing the wreckage of car upon car in the roadside fields (in the vain hope of deterring reckless driving along the Zagreb-Belgrade Autoput), and with a final stop on a glorious beach at Platamon in Greek Macedonia, we arrived on what seemed to be a run-down modem city, soon after the Colonels regime had been overthrown. The Junta had fallen in tumultuous circumstances on 24 July, following the Turkish invasion of Cyprus a fortnight before, and after long months of protest, notably around the Polytechnic, where twenty students had been killed in November 1973. Those radicalised students that had remained made an impression on those of us keen to grow our hair long that summer. Indeed, for this young traveller, the revolting students ' take on democracy made a greater impression than the Acropolis-wonderful though the Parthenon was --even if we understood so little of what was going on. I have kept one souvenir: a black-and-white poster with the name and image of Konstantinos Karamanlis, the conservative, but democratic Prime Minister who had returned from exile in Paris to lead the Third Hellenic Republic that replaced the Junta . Left-wing or other merchandise was less easily purchased in those days. Unlike Tunis or Tahrir Square in 2011 there were no revolutionary fridge-magnets to be had. Indeed, in retrospect there were no fridge magnets on sale at all: nor were there many tourists apparent in the streets of Central Athens, whereas now, to judge from my latest visit, they clog them up . It may be over-stating the case, but in 1974 the Acropolis was far closer to an orientalist image by David Roberts than to today 's exercise in the control of an instagram-happy crowd.
A vivid memory is of a large, dusty, probably 19th-century restaurant , with high ceilings marble floors and formica tables . Chicken and rice was on the menu , while outside on Omonia Square deliciously-smoked octopus could be eaten from souvlaki stands. Eight years later, memories of that cafe and the nearby university with its posters and slogans flooded back as I discovered the Brasserie de Fac in central Algiers,with its poulet au riz making the Place Audin almost an old friend, though without Jon Birchall, Graeme Inch and David Prince to eat with and sneak in an ouzo .Greek politics was in flux, as we would find out later in the trip . A few of us visited Graeme Inch 's sister Dilys, who was working as an au pair for a Greek family headed (if I remember rightly) by the Head of Customs in Piraeus. He was Admiral Manouakis, a muscular (what I might now call 'alpha') fellow in an impeccably ironed white short-sleeved shirt , who gave us some time and told us how Greece was forged 'by the power of the sea'. Leaving Atheens for the Peloponnese, the crossing of the Corinth Ship Canal added to that impression of maritime power.
Meanwhile, we were gaining an inkling (but, at least for the boys, no more than that) that while the Greeks were sorting out their new political dispensation, their national power was being challenged by Turkey; the focus was Cyprus , which had long been in the national news as a ' trouble spot '.
A Power Cut in Sparta
The news that Turkey was taking Northern Cyprus and might have its sights on Greece itself (now deprived of its Colonels) was not creating any panic, but had certainly affected our calculations on timings and routes. We would now engage more deeply with the historic Ottoman (and Venetian) world of the Balkans. For the boys, this was an adventure to take in our stride. Some of us might even have had our fill of Greek ruins…
One memorable evening was spent overlooking the sea, which as night fell filled with boats illumined by lights on their decks. Was this the expected Turkish invasion? No; it was a very large local fleet takng to the Aegean in search of fish.
These lights were ade more dramatic by the relative lack of ambient light in the Peloponnese (and later, further north, in Macedonia). Nowehre was this more dramatically on view than in Sparta, a dull modern town with some unimpressive ruins – a legacy with echoes of Leonidas. Years later it led me to a comparison with the hardscrabble towns of northern Tunisia that incubated the 2011-12 risings in North Africa.
In Sparta, with the fall of night, a pwer cut overtook the Peloponnese. With ambient light extinguished, the sky was a mass of stars, with more pinpoints of light apparent than the black of the night, and all interspersed with meteor showers. Space was arrayed as never before; years later, that enduring image took me regularly into the Algerian Sahara and its extravagantly starry nights, eventually to do doctoral studies around hardaia and the Pentapolis of the Mzab, and always searching after that image of a night blacked out in Sparta.
Haircuts in Kastoria
We left Greece abruptly, but not in panic, amid the apparent threat of conflict tin the Eastern Mediterranean. A late stop ws at Mesolonghi, where Lord Byron died in 1824; you could imagine how its uninspiring beach could have been glanjked by malarial marshes.
Another strong image was of the border town of Kastoria, where we passed barbers’ shops where the hair of young Greek men was being shaved, presumably as a prelude to call-up. Again, this image has endured: it recurred when I had my head shaved by a Reguibat barber in Tarfaya, the last stop before going into the disputed Western Sahara with the Moroccan army – that was in 1985, only eleven years after these events.
A Beating as Tito’s Greeting
Potential war and international conflict may have loomed over us, but the good spirit engendered by our travels around Greece continued as we travelled around Hoxha’s hermetically sealed Albania into Yugoslavia. Swimming in Loch Ochrid, you could imagine heading out to the Albanian border, even though these mysterious mountains were miles away. [The SW third of the lake is actually in Albania.]
In Ohrid, to save money I dined only on “Serbian Salad”, which, it transpired, was raw onions in oil, garnished with dried herbs. Going north, an elite basketball match in Zadar reminded us that Yugoslavia was a local sporting power house (and we could judge, spectating a sport in which Chigwell excelled!). But we were having a ball until, once more, harsh reality impinged.
Somewhere along the coast, with David, Jon, Graeme and Adrian (and perhaps others?) we thought we would repeat our Greek habit of taking towels down to the beach for a midnight swim. This very innocent fun was interrupted by two tall men: one, hugging the shadows, was wearing a police uniform; the other was in a white, short-sleeved shirt and slacks. The latter barked out a question, in Serbo-Croat presumably: “What are you doing here?”. We explained that we were there for a swim. Suddenly I noticed Shirt-and-Slacks opening what I thought was a folding notebook. But very quickly we found he wasn’t taking notes; it was a handy cosh, and he started out. Several got a whack, but Adrian took the brunt; of course, Chigwellians of our generation knew how to take a beating.
The police left us smarting. We were rightly outraged, and reported to masters next day. We sought retaliation: one battle-cry was “We’ll write to The Telegraph”, which raises a smile today. We fled northwards along the Dalmatian coast and its more welcoming Venetian cities. We enjoyed the elegant walls and campaniles of Dubrovnik and Split, and then we arrived with relief in Venice herself, where we camped for two nights on the Lido de Jesolo.
Back Through Europe
We climbed over the easy Brenner Pass, camped near Innsbruck, crossed Bavaria (including a visit to the strange baroque church of Die Wies), stopped the nights near Baden-Baden and at Laon, and then made for Peronne and Calais and Chigwell, after an extraordinary trip. I suspect it marked many of us for decades to come.
Jon Marks
6 January 2025
As Jon’s account makes clear he became addicted to visiting strange places, and that was true of other members of the expedition: four of them have spent long periods of their working life overseas. Among them, Jon Birchall gave me breakfast in New York in 2021, took me to a Unitarian church service, and has recently visited Kosovo.
I returned to Greece in the spring of 1975, when I enjoyed a sabbatical term. For transport, I took an easier option in both directions, by driving to and from Venice, and putting myself and the car on a ferry to Piraeus. I spend a whole month exploring Euboea, and enjoyed the spring, when the barren hills are covered in asphodel, the olive-yards are covered thick with scarlet anemones, and one could breakfast to a chorus of nightingales in the maquis. I have also been in midwinter, flying over a Yugoslavia blanketed in snow, and finding an Athens gull of Robins. And to that troubled island of Cyprus, where one lands among Greeks and has to display a passport before one can dine and sleep among Turks. Otherwise, I have only nibbled at Greece from the sea, from cargo ships or cruise liners. I shall not go again now. But Chris Aubrey assures me that Pylos, from which we fled in 1974, has hardly changed, and that the magnificent beach of Voidhokoilia, where Nestor must have drawn up his galleys and Telemachus landed in his search for news of his father, is exactly the same as it was in 1966.
To finish the tale, here are the brief outlines of later Chigwell Greek Expeditions, as I have receiveed from those who took part,
There could have been one in 1976 at the peak of inflation and in the hottest-ever British summer. But this was the year of the Great Chigwellian Changes, when the House System was brought in, the boarding houses
were switched round, staffs came and went, and nobody had time to visit a Greece which, though apparently stabilised was still in crisis: in May 1975, 18 members of the 1967 coup were brought to trial and three were actually sentenced to death, though they were immediately reprieved. By 1977 it seemed that a brighter future was opening for a country for which, as one historian puts it, had 'a habit of growing tired of stability".
So, in 1977, there was a Greek Expedition.
This was a four-car journey with no relief drivers . There were four adults: CDH, MJB, and two "outsiders” of the 1974 trip, IPC and RB. There were nine passengers: one was an QC already at Cambridge; seven had just finished their UV year; and one was two years younger, having just finished his Remove year. In descending order of age: Rob Edwards, Paul Quain, Richard Scrivener, Michael Pattenden, Tim Lawler, Clive Collins, Mark Pownall, Paul Cuthbert-Brown, and Robert Smith. Here, uniquely for these expeditions, we have an almost complete group photo. This was taken beside the house of Mr and Mrs Blatec, whom the 1974 party had met on the Ohrid camp-site; Mr Blatec spoke English and sometimes visited England for his work, and IPC had kept in touch, so they entertained the group on their way through Setbia. So here they are with their child. MJB or RB obviously took the photo, but one of them was absent for some reason.
P/1977/1
Behind : IPC, CDH. Middle Row: L to R: M . Pattenden, M . Pownall , R. Smith, P. Cuthbert-Brown, R. Scrivener, P. Quain, T. Lawler, R. Edwards. In front: our hosts ' family.
I do not have a detailed route, but the outwards journey went through Boppard, on the Rhine, to Vienna; thence through Hungary to Szeged and Yugoslavia; down to Athens and Nafplion and across to Olympia; and then up to the Meteora and over the Pindus (presumably) to Igoumenitsa; returning by sea to Brindisi and home through Italy and France.
I am grateful to Richard Scrivener for this information.
For a trip in 1980, the minibus was aga in brought into service , and must have been the only vehicle. This would have been our second Transit; I hope it had recovered from the dent received at summer camp from a careless Welsh cow. It was in the safe hands of CDH and MJB , with nine passengers of varying ages: again, in descending order of birth: Piers Jones (an OC, who had left in 1979) ; Michael Sicely and Graham Singleton; Paul Stevens, Chris Lord and Allan Clay ; Spencer Summerfield, Paul Mandel and John Charlton.
I have been able to recover only a very basic route: across the Rhine to the Danube; through Hungary and Yugoslavia; the usual round of main sites in the Peloponnese, south to Sparta and returning north to the Gulf of Corinth; and by sea from Patras (not now Igoumenitsa) to Brindisi, and then home apparently via Switzerland.
Chris Lord has kindly supplied the details.
The 1982 expedition was, I believe, the last "Greek Trip". In Yugoslavia, Tito had died in 1980, and there were soon signs that the state he had created might disintegrate. HOwever, at home we were celebrating the reconquest of the Falklands, and there had even been a Chigwellian Removes Soccer Invasion of Athens -- two teams by air, no less. But Jonathan Perkins has told me the story of a two-car trip by CDH and MJB, with five boys abord: from the LVs, Peter Jefcoate and himself; and form the REmoves, Christopher FItz-Gibbon, Nilay Patel, and Matthew Smith. CF-G is also puzzling, since, according to The Chigwell Register, he spend only one year at CHigwell, from 1980 to 1981.
The route taken was again through Hungary; in Greece, it covered Athens and the major sites of the Northern Peloponnese, but it did not extend to Sparta or Pylos. Return was again by sea from Patras, but this time to Ancona; thereafter to Venice, across to Aosta, and either over the Great St Bernard or through the CHamonix tunnel into France; the last night was spend (and a giant mal enjoyed) near Rouen. A long journey with no relief drivers!
So here is a last phot, taken by C. Fitz-Gibbon.
P/1982
CDH, P. Jefcoate, MJB, J. Perkins, Matthew Smith... N. Patel
And so, to sign off: a flash-back, and some reflexions.
In August 1962, I was on a bird-watching trip with two friends, in Mesolonghi. This is where Byron died, on 19 April 1824. He had brouught money to the rebels, and was ready to die with them in the fight with the besieging Turks; but he caught a fever before that was possible. His heart was buried under the mound that bears his statue, and there is a little white memorial on an offshore island. There wasn't a lot for us to see, and we were walking back to the car. A young man heard us talking, and accosted us in fluent English. He turned out to be, of all things, a glider-pilot instructor; he was not a local, but he was visiting his father, who lived in a little house at the edge of the town. "He'd like to meet you", said our new friend. So we went with him. The old man spoke no English. He and hsi wife gave us drinks, and we stayed to lunch. FInally, he said that Greeks and Englishmen shared one passion: for ELEFTHERIA (FREEDOM). Of course, Byron had died for Greece; three years later, when the war of independence was going badly for the Greeks, a combined Turco-Egyptian fleet of 82 warshps was anchored in the great bay of Pylos (then called Navarino) waiting to support Ibrahim Pasha in his murderous campaign in the Northern Peloponnese. On 20 October, an Anglo/French/Russian fleet, of 26 sail, holding a watching brief, under the overall command of a British Admiral, Sir Edward Codrington, entered the Bay. A Turkish shop foolishly fired on a small British vessel, and provoked a general engagement. By next day, the Turks had lost a third of their fleet, and 6,000 men. Their opponents lost no ships, and had fewer than 1,000 casualties. This battle (which the allies had not sought, and which was described at Westminster as an "untoward incident") insured the freedom of southern Greece.
Ninety years later, we were again fighting in the Aegean, facing the Bulgarians in Macedonia, in a campaign notable for its winter cold and its summer mosquitos; we were back in 1941, in an all-conceived campaign to block the German drive southward. But on 15 October 1944, a huge armada of largely British shops crept carefully behind its minesweeping screen into Phaleron Bay (after our commandos had cleared the German artillery from Aegina). Some of the first soldiers ashore were carried shoulder-high by the welcoming inhabitants. One of their earlier targets was to rescue Princess Alice, widow of Prince Andrew of Greece, the mother of Philip Mountbatten, who was nearly starving. And then, a final task: to help sort our the Greeks themselves, in a civil war against the communist rebels, which ended only in 1949.
Two Chigwellians died for Greece in these last conflicts:
Howard Charles Bufton, 2nd Lt, London Rifle Brigade, seconded to RFC, died at Salonica, 8 July 1918.
Richard Thomas Calvert, Lt, Royal Marines; wounded and captured in Crete; died in hospital in Athens, 4 September 1941.
So there we are. I shall not go to Greece again, but you may be amused to know that I move constantly in its presence in this large Minehead flat, which has been my sole base since 1996. Its long corridor and high rooms are the first-floor front of a small country house, built in 1911 and commanding a view as far as the south Quantocks and across Bridgwater Bay to Hinkley Point. The walls give space to 38 framed photos of my own, including 14 of Greece, of which five were taken on the 1966 and 1974 trips. One of these (included in my selection above) is of the last Greek breakfast at Kastoria, and by chance includes all those who are no longer with us.
This account is dedicated to their memory.
BY JOE FYLES (FORMER TEACHER) More...
