The Old Rugged Cross

Pictured above, on top of our forty-five-year-old copy of Lawrence Durrell's "The Greek Islands", is my silver Greek Cross, purchased in 1979 from a small dockside jewellery shop on Milos, as we waited for the ferry to take us to Santorini. This imperfect, hand-finished, stamping of the simple cross of Hellas - the crux immissa quadrata - has been with me now since I was twenty-four years old. It has seen off numerous silver chains over the decades, and now resides on a simple, double string of fine paracord.

I fear it has lasted somewhat better than the island on which it was bought, however. Milos, when were we there all those years ago, was a pretty unremarkable, if pleasant and pretty Greek island, rather lumped together with others in its Cycladean orbit by Durrell in his book. Milos of course was the place where the Venus De Milo was discovered: in fact, while were there, a film was being made, "Milo-Milo", featuring Veruschka [Google her] centred around the statue and the island. My main memories of the island are of its sleepiness: I particularly remember one young French diver on the film's payroll, not much older than us, bemoaning constantly the fact that he was '...bored, so bored...'. That quietude was what attracted us to the Greek islands in the first place, and we just didn't quite get the guy's attitude: still don't, to be honest.

We were staying in a wonderful family hotel with a cosmopolitan bunch of other young people, mostly European, who we shared good conversation and evening drinks with, whilst the host harvested fresh oranges for us all for free from his garden. I've still got the name and number somewhere of a couple of the people there, one of whom was a journalist for Radio Free Berlin, this being a full decade before the Fall of The Wall. If I can locate the bits of paper with their names on - which I know I've still got - I'll post more at a later date on the subject.

As to the island itself, I'm afraid it has gone the way of all things mass-touristical, with concrete excrescences sprouting all over the place to accommodate ever more visitors. However, we did read recently that a stupidly overblown project to build a monstrosity of a hotel complex on its signature beach has been shelved, which can only be good news. I'd like to say we'll visit again, but I'm afraid the memories of the first trip would sadly be marred irrevocably in so doing. Not going to happen...