Pictures from a past ....... no. 1 the Greek island

It is a sobering thought that the young boy who happened to being walking down the flight of stairs in 1981 will now be well into middle age.

It was my first time in Greece; and everything was bright, fresh and different with everyday a promise of a new experience.

Never underestimate the impact of a foreign country on a lad from south east London, the extent of whose horizons were bounded by Manchester in the north and Brighton in the south.*

It began when the door to the plane opened at the airport and you were hit by that wall of heat, intense sunlight and unfamiliar sounds, carried on with the ferry hoping journey from the Piraeus across the Aegean and ended on a tiny island burnt brown by the summer sun.

I can’t now remember where I was when I took the picture, and for over thirty-five years this image along with countless others sat half forgotten in our cellar.

Location; Poros

Pictures; on the stairs, Poros, 1981 from the collection of Andrew Simpson

*This precludes a long weekend in Paris the year before, or the cruise holiday to Istanbul, Athens and Naples in 1969 paid for the parents of my by then girlfriend.  Neither count as they spoil the story.