She expressed herself so forcibly that we all had to nod our heads in agreement. Little did I know then, that some 13 years later the very man Tony Bailey a farmer who had saved Demerel’s life at the crash site just two miles from my future home, was to become a really close family friend and Bridge Partner!
At the time of my arrival there was a continual series of very agitated meetings taking place between a Mr Hazeldine representing the British Motor Corporation (BMC) who wanted Roget and his main BP oil partner Reggi Gallia to start to build an assembly plant financed with publically quoted stock, to produce vehicles rather than rely on imports. To start with Roget was frightened as he felt that they were dealers and not manufacturers, but Hazeldene was insistent and talked them both round and told them that BMC would provide all the organisational and technical expertise. Many of these discussions took place informally at Fathers house on the patio in the evening amid lots of whisky and raki. It was fascinating to hear all the interplay of the arguments for, and against, but eventually it was agreed to go ahead. And so shortly after I left, the factory was built to manufacture heavy trucks, landrovers and tractors, a venture which proved almost a licence to print money in the booming Turkish ecconomy. Whilst all these discussions were taking place Roget, with all his wealth was having increasing problems with his wife Flavia. She had been a very pretty girl and his love from his early teens, and he constantly reiterated that she had always brought him luck in business. Although a pretty, witty and lively girl in her youth, she came from a family that was well noted for mental instability. As she aged she became increasingly unstable sufferring from an acutely jealous and irrational sexual fears to the point of mania. Hours would be spent washing her hands and preening herself naked before a mirror. No invitation to a party was possible without her being two or three hours late whilst she would try on endless clothes only to change her mind once more. Inevitably there were the usual family strains. Fred was always trying to salvage the situation, to help his brother even dragging her once from the red light district in Athens where she was found quite by chance drunk in a gutter after a long search. Poor Roget, with all his wealth and business success, he could never invite a friend home. His only recreation was playing bridge at the Alliance Francaise until rudely summoned home by phone in case he was getting off with some lady, or once a week regularly he would come have a meal with Father. On both counts she then had little reason for her jealous fantasies of other women, and so he had a limited chance to relax especially with Father whom he treated like another having lost his own Father at a young age, and he was for ever appreciative of how he had helped him start in business when he was selling fruit off a barrow as a boy. As a matter of fact Roget was never the slightest bit interested in other women, and the fears she had were totally irrational and completely unfounded a product of an irrationally jealous mind. They had two children, Paula who was later to be married to a wealthy Parisian lawyer, Mark Giraud, and Petite Roget , a misnomer because he was so over stuffed with food by his mad Mother that he became grossly overweight and at the age of 13 was already some 18stone. He was taken for treatment and stomach tucks in Paris, all to no avail with the home life that he was forced to live in. The poor child was so overweight that he could not swim like the other boys who were like fishes in the warm Aegean sea. It was all so tragic. Roget the smartest businessman who could outflank anyone in trade and dealing, was like a babe and a frightened child in the presence of his mad screaming wife. She was the cross that he was forced to bear to the end of his early death 17 years hence.
Fred by contrast was struggling on the small salary that he earned as a tobacco buyer in Turkey and in Salonika. With the hindsight of his brother’s problems, he had vowed to be single and instead relieved his desires with every sort of prostitute and common girl, that he could find. He was continually boasting of all his exploits and was immediately trying to persuade me to join him on his escapades with his other Italian bachelor friends. He could not in any way comprehend that I had left my pretty young wife Jill at home on trust, and that it would have been a complete betrayal of her love and honesty and honour to have not behaved likewise. So we agreed to be different each with his own principles and I never ever regretted sticking by mine and maintaining my honour and loyalty , which after all once you have lost it, you feel and know that you are a permanent fraud for ever.
After a few days at Izmir, meeting all the family, Fathers friends , especially an Italian called Pennetti, an engineer who lived opposite and who had designed and built his Motor Cruiser Lanka, which we journeyed to Lidja near Cesme to join. Father had arranged for some time to take Grammatiki for a long holiday with her sisters’ family on the island of Samos. With the political tension between Greece and Turkey the Authorities were very nervous about any cross border traffic. Eventually Father gained his permit provided that he took aboard a qualified Turkish Captain with a masters ticket. He found an elderly retired ex-mariner who joined the boat at Cesme, in place of Gellal his normal boatman, where we also had aboard the Customs and passport controllers. Everyone was most courteous, hands were perpetually shaken, endless cups of tea drunk, and endless cigarettes passed round. Raki the local aniseed flavoured spirit, was drunk freely before again the final round of handshakes and we were finally off. We were cruising soon into the deep blue Aegean with the brown Turkish hills pock marked with the odd fig and olive trees on our port bow, a brisk force 5 wind with lively swell, and a clear blue sunny sky. The boat had two bunks one on either side, a toilet in the bow, a small kitchenette with a paraffin stove, an ice box, and a very large well deck with seats all round and a folding dining table. The wheel was on the port side above a high seat for good visibility. Below the well deck was the power for the vessel from twin Perkins diesel engines couple to a single propeller. The vessel was about 40 ft long, was built of pitch pine, had a deep draught and below the keel had about one ton of iron ballast which enabled it to ride out the heaviest of seas and quickly right itself, and it also gave a very solid feel to the dynamics of the vessel. Late that evening we finally cruised into the tiny harbour of Samos and moored alongside the wharf. We all four then disembarked to have a good meal at one of the many open Greek restaurants lining the harbour promenade. Father like Mother and Aunt Helen was fluent in Greek and translated for me. The contrast between the crumbling decaying walls of a typical Turkish village with their sleepy comatose polite population, and the clean white washed walls and vibrant argumentative Greeks could not have been more vivid. Next morning we started early, Father, myself and Grammatiki in a hired car which wound its way through steep valleys cultivated with small stone terraces. We passed groves of olives and through villages sheltering under the cool shade of tall plane trees with their neat white walls. There was an air of prosperity around, but all the people seemed old, and it was explained that most of the young had all emigrated to Australia and America sending now only remittances to their old folk at home. Finally in the middle of a vineyard the road petered out, and we hired donkeys to take us up the final stretch up to the sisters house which was perched on the side of a hill. It consisted of a lower ground floor where animals, goats and sheep were housed in the winter and an upstairs living area. We were all embraced and were first given strong black coffee followed by sweet white wine, and bread and goats cheese which was liberally spooned out from an inverted goat skin with the hairy side innermost. With the bread and cheese we were offered quite the most tasty and fruity morello cherry jam made from the surrounding trees that covered the high valley. It was a delightful day, with the brilliant sunshine the cool hill air, the tasty yet simple food and the generous welcome. We left Grammatiki and headed down hill, back to our waiting taxi and then back to the port where we sat that evening with the captain enjoying a cool scotch and a cigarette, as we quietly watched the passing scene.
