MR HARIS METTIS

Date of birth: 25 January 1934

Place of birth: Fylia, Morphou

Year of arrival in the UK: 1958

I was born in Fylia, east of Morphou on 25 January 1934.  In the village my early years were not happy ones.  Let me give you just one example.  When I went to enrol at the Pancyprian Gymnasium, I was not wearing any shoes.  The Archbishopric covered all my expenses and I thus managed to graduate with distinction.  In 1953, I won a scholarship and I proceeded to study at the Philosophical School of the University of Athens.  Before I even graduated, I was asked to go back to the Pancyprian Gymnasium, only this time as a teacher.  There was a simple explanation.  During the emergency of 1955-59, The British colonial administration released all the mainland Greek teachers who served at such schools.  The shortage was certainly a huge void.

I arrived in London in 1958 and married Stella Christophi.  Her mother was born in my village and her father in Dromolaxia.  Stella to me was like “blood is to the body”.  Then we had Anna our first child.  Although I postponed my postgraduate studies and worked at an evening centre for working people, I soon restarted my studies.  Luckily my father-in-law had a restaurant in Paddington and life was therefore much easier for us.  I also worked as a teacher in an English school near Kings Cross.  I was probably the first Greek Cypriot to teach Greek on a full-time basis.  Strangely enough I also taught Mathematics and Physics.

Racism was rampant here in England.  Listen to this.  Passing by a bookshop in Oxford Street, I noticed a small card which read: ‘Staff wanted’. I went inside, spoke to the receptionist who then informed her manager.  Someone said, “he is one of them’ i.e. a foreigner.  I was politely told that there was no job for me.  Work then was certainly not plentiful.  Our compatriots who had no knowledge of the language or who were not skilled in some capacity were left doing menial jobs such as washing plates and pans in restaurants.  Before opening his own place, my father-in-law was “in the same boat”. He washed and washed until his hands became “as white as wool” As late as the 1950s, all citizens were conditioned by the so-called ‘ration-coupon’ system.  For anything extra you had to be a good boy for your boss to give you an egg or some butter to take home.

My first contact with our community started with All Saints Church.  I was at the time also working at Selfridges and after ‘work’, at an English school.  At the time the present Archbishop was the priest-in-charge at All Saints.  We were earlier together at the Pancyprian Gymnasium and at the University of Athens.  Here at the church we taught Greek together.  On one side of the church pews I had around 50 children and on the right, the Archbishop also had as many.  We did not even have a blackboard.  Other schools were operating from different houses.  Such were the realities which prevailed at the time.  Many were the times when we were locked out, unintentionally of course, from different premises.  “We spat blood” in order to keep education within reach.  Nowadays things are much easier.  We even have a united forum for community education.

From the formation of such schools, church communities (parishes) were also set up.  For example in Camberwell Green SE5, the school there led to the establishment of St Mary’s Church.  I taught in many places – Camberwell, Hendon, the Angel, Wood Green and the West End.  The conditions, as I said above, were primitive.  In Hendon, where we had some 450 children, we even held classes in the church belfry.  Luckily, there were no fire regulations then.  In addition, parents could not afford even the fees and travelling was difficult.  There was a further danger.  English teachers used to tell the children that if they attended Greek classes on top of their ordinary lessons, their progress would be affected.

I then move to journalism.  I worked near Mornington Crescent with the late Doros Alastos.  The newspaper “Elliniki; was then published by his brother Ierotheos Kykkotis.  The ‘Parikiaki’ (not the one which is in circulation today) came to the scene and was published by Demetris Lorenzou.  I was then appointed its chief editor.
I worked for other newspapers and I was selected to be the resident correspondent of the prestigious Cyprus newspaper ‘Eleftheria’.  On a freelance basis, I also did some work for various English tabloids.  I was also the organising secretary of the Greek Cypriot Brotherhood.  Then in 1964, Archbishop Athinagoras II Kokkinakis, arrived in the UK from Canada.  I welcomed him at Waterloo Station.  He asked me about my line of work and then he invited me to take over at the Archdiocese as his principal secretary.  At the time the Archdiocese was in a poor state.  We did not even have a typewriter.  I telephoned Yiannis Hadjipateras and asked whether he had a spare one.  He said “yes”.  I went to his apartment, picked it up and carried it all the way to our new offices.  Since that time I have always been involved with the church in one capacity or another.  I soon took over the school in Hendon.  I was there for around twenty years.  We then formed the Central Education Council (KES) in order to coordinate the work done by all our schools.  We also helped to establish parish communities not only in London but in other towns as well.  Yes, that’s how we started this major effort to preserve and consolidate Hellenism in the UK. Yet there were those who opposed our efforts.  We kept going, knowing full well that constructive criticism ultimately leads to progress. 

At the Archdiocese I took over what we call ‘community education’.  For Hellenism to survive, away from its traditional roots, we need the Church and the various schools to function in unison.  A gigantic effort is needed to preserve and consolidate what we already have.  One thing is certain. The so-called ‘Saturday’ and ‘one evening’ schools cannot preserve or safeguard our identity. The greatest responsibility rests with the family.  I will give just one example which concerns my wife.  On the eve of World War II, Stella arrived in London as an 18-month old child.  Yet, in all respects she is a fully-fledged Greek.  She is a wonderful person and a very good cook. During the London bombings, Stella and her family, who then resided in Waterloo, were evacuated to an area out of the metropolis.  But, how did she receive her Greek education?  From Waterloo and, carrying her on his shoulders, my late father-in-law used to take her to one of the Brotherhood’s schools in Charlotte Street.  A small passage and an even smaller room constituted the school. Iason Loucianos, who had a factory there, acted as the ‘caretaker’. That’s how things were at the time.  Mind you, my in-laws always insisted that only Greek should be spoken at home.  Stella was always asking questions. She speaks fluent Greek and she can even complete a crossword which, I have to admit, often “beats” me.  Stella also trained as a dress designer and until “we found our feet”, she worked in order to supplement our meagre income.

In one of my books, ‘The Roots of the Greek Community of Great Britain’, I record such experiences, such expectations.  I interviewed many prominent individuals and I have recorded their life, the difficulties which they faced and how some came to excel in business and in the professions.  Some, like Sir Reo Stakis, Leonidas Panayides, Iason Loucianos, Polycarpos Saladas and my father-in-law, all came to the UK before World War II.  Stakis for example, arrived as a 14-year old and was selling the famous ‘lefkaritika’ lace for days on end, eating a few slices of bread and a tomato in order to survive.  When he died he practically received state honours. That’s how important he had become especially in Scotland.  Panayides explained to me that the 1930s were not happy years for anyone.  The ‘revolt’ of 1931 in Cyprus poisoned relations between our compatriots and the locals.

Another interesting personality was Ektoras K Tembros, the first secretary of the Brotherhood who lived through those very difficult times.  He spoke at length about the criminality that engulfed our compatriots.  The case of a lady, a top fraudster, deserves to be recorded.  Many Cypriots at the time, came to London but with the intention of emigrating to America.  They were called ‘transit passengers’.  This particular lady asked for their passports.  She changed the photo and sometimes the name and they were on their way.  Passports at the time resembled ordinary passes.  Although, she was caught, she made thousands.  We also had two hangings and a murder in the same decade. Angelos Zemenides, who ‘formed’ the first Greek Cypriot Brotherhood in 1927, plotted and plotted.  He was, as some people attested “playing a treble game”.  He went around looking for young Cypriots and then told them that he would find young and rich ladies for them.  For his services he only wanted £12.  Many took the bait but there were no rich ladies.  Zemenides was then killed and one named Theodosiou, was tried for his murder.  He was in the end acquitted.  The court was provided with a strong recommendation from a Turkish Cypriot judge, who appeared to have connections with high-profile people in London.  In the 1930s, contagious and fatal diseases, such as VD and TB were also major problems.  The records found at St Sophia Church, clearly show that a high number of those that died were young persons.

After 1945 more and more Cypriots, war veterans and others, came to settle in the UK.  Many schools were set up by the church and the Greek Parents Association which at the time was led by Tefkros Anthias with whom we cop-operated on many issues.  With his associates, the first Greek school was set up in Camden.  Anthias was a sincere individual and a great scholar.  He was a poet and in order to survive, he used to sell his ‘Collections’ by going round houses and shops.  He also came to my father-in-law’s restaurant. I really felt for him and as some would say, “it takes one intellectual to recognise another”. And don’t forget that racialism was on the ascendancy.  For Anthias , who openly propagated leftist views, it was worse.

I have two children: Anna and Kyriacos.  My wish was to see both do well at school and at university.  With all the money I received from various employments, I managed to send them to the City of London, a private school.  Luckily,  for food and shelter we fell back on my father-in-law.  We also purchased our house 46 years ago.  We are still here.  My dreams and wishes for the future: to preserve our ‘Greekness’, to see a truly ‘free’ Cyprus and to see my grandchildren and, other children of course, grow up to become honest citizens safeguarding, therefore, our family values and traditions.