by Angie Bowie Barnett January 2025

By 1964, I had spent every Easter vacation in England with wonderful friends we met in Cyprus. I adored Aunty Alice and Uncle Bob and my best friend was their daughter Susan. Uncle Bob was a teacher at the technical college in Lefka, the same technical school gifted to Cyprus by CMC. Their generous hospitality allowed me to experience the natural and suburban side of England. The Life we experienced at the hands of the British authorities in the colonies and overseas territories was totally different to Easter vacations in Epsom and getting to ride the train up to London for shopping in Oxford street. 

My father had a rule which he explained about trusting or relying on products or policies; he explained it one day at lunch when I was home for the holidays. My Mother and I called it George’s 15-year rule. George felt that one should give most inventions, new-fangled appliances, medicine, magazines, newspapers, politicians etc. the 15-year rule. If they lasted 15 years, they might be worth a second look. I took this to heart and was never that impressed by new inventions, fashions or trends until they had proved they could survive my Dad’s 15-year rule,

 The 1960s were tumultuous with new ideas, violence and social change. In 1963, November, President John F Kennedy was assassinated and Lyndon Johnson became president of the United States. 300 people were killed in riots in Lima, Peru at a soccer match; there were race riots in Harlem as a reaction to the enforcement of Civil Rights laws. In 1965 Malcolm X was shot and killed in New York City.

At the Tokyo Olympics, the Russians cleaned up with 41 Gold Medals to the US’s 37. Cassius Clay won the Heavyweight Boxing Championship against Sonny Liston and Jimmy Hoffa was found guilty of Jury Tampering and served eight years in prison. Martin Luther King won the Nobel Peace Prize and Harold Wilson became Prime Minister in England.

 The movies in 1964 included some of my favorites: Topkapi, Zorba the Greek, and Goldfinger. The television in England included all sorts of popular music shows featuring the hit tunes for that week and the news was filled with strikes and misadventures between Mods and Rockers but it was all balanced somehow. The British television shows did not include a lot of news about the colonies.

After Cyprus declared its independence in 1960, President Makarios was elected president and Dr Kutchuk, a Turkish Cypriot became vice president. UN peace-keeping forces took over the patrol of Cyprus. General Grivas was appointed Commander of the Greek Cypriot forces. Makarios did away with the peace treaty between Greece, Turkey and Cyprus. Greece rejected direct peace talks and the result of these actions was an attack on Cyprus by the Mainland Turkish forces.

In 1964, I went home to Cyprus in the summer and everything changed. The Turkish jets came from the North. Our house in Xeros, the village was Karavostassi faced North and with a gorgeous view of the Mediterranean. I was in the garden moving hoses for my mother. Her arm had been paralyzed by a nocturnal attack by the son of one of the overseas staff. I moved the hoses to the West side of the house where Helen had the most glorious 25-foot bed of purple irises, I was spraying them as they liked to be drenched in the morning while they were in the shade, it kept them cool for the heat of the day which came later.

I heard a droning behind me and as I looked up looked up, to see what was making that noise, I saw a plane and then another one. The planes flew up the side of the ridge where the overseas staff company houses were. I stood watching the planes fly south and then turn and screeching as they were so low and close to the ground, they turned and headed straight for the CMC jetty. My Mom had planted a rosemary bush outside the back gate and it was 6 feet tall. I hid inside the bush so I could watch the planes and to my horror they strafed the Cypriot U Boat and the sailors on it and killed at least 5 of the crew, (I didn’t know the number killed until the next few days). Then they dropped some bombs and that finished off the U Boat. I ran into the house, calling for my mother.

‘Mom, Mom, the Turks have bombed the jetty and strafed the U boat. Call Dad. People must be dead.’ As if finished the sentence my Dad walked through the door. My mother said; ‘MA was out moving the hoses and she saw it all.’

My Dad suddenly seemed gruffer than he usually was. He didn’t look pleased to start with.

‘OK Mary Angela, ell me exactly what you saw.’

I looked at him and I could see the truth in his face. Yes, they were Turkish planes from the Mainland. I told what I saw and he picked up the phone and called the hospital in Pendayia and his office at the mill. He told them to see to the jetty as there were casualties there. Then he said, ‘Well done. You watched, you observed, you took cover and you have reported what I needed to know. I am going back to the mill now. Stay inside and pack overnight bags as we will evacuate later today.’

He came back around 4.00 pm and we were ready and the convoy to Skouriotissa, left Xeros. We were going to the company guest house.  There was a dirt road through the mountains from Mavrovouni to Skouriotissa and we took that so we did not have to put our Turkish Cypriot neighbors in danger in case The Turkish army had already showed up in Lefka. They would have stopped our orderly convoy to Skouriotissa, we are only talking 20 or so miles away. The trip took us here hours with rain damage to the dirt road and all the while I was in the back of the green Hornet our Morris Minor F874 (our name for our car) and I had my Brownie box camera and I was taking photos of all the camouflaged hideouts that there were on the way to Skouriotissa.

It was tricky because I couldn’t let my Dad see what I was doing and so I had to sit right behind him and duck down when I wanted to take a picture. But I got some! We stayed in Skouriotissa for 3 days and then the all clear was sounded by the company and we went back to Xeros. This was just a taste of what the Turkish Army had in store for Cyprus in 1973. At that time, Turkey deployed full Army and Navy and Airforce and took the Northern third of the island and have not retreated to this day. 

The American 6^th fleet was in the Mediterranean and did nothing to help Cyprus and we all figured it was because the US and NATO had just signed a deal with Turkey for airbases. So, the Turks took liberties because they knew they could get away with it! My father was disgusted that the US did not protect the new Republic of Cyprus and did not protect American Mining interests and all the overseas staff and the Greek Cypriots who were neighbors with the Turkish Cypriot village/town of Lefka that housed the CMC built Technical College. Lefka was the de facto operating base for the Turkish mainland army. I asked my Dad, ‘Does the 15-year rule apply in this situation?’ My father responded, ‘If the State Department had anything to do with it you can be assured the 15-year rule was now the 4- or 5-year rule.’ My father had little respect for the State Department as they made hundreds of thousands of soldiers and overseas allies wait for their rewards after the war. Those included medals, pay, pensions, educational grants such as the GI bill.  My dad had experienced it himself and spent months in Cyprus writing to the various government and military departments to ensure that the Filipino men with whom he served received their due for the hardships they faced.

I went back to St George’s and studied and took 4 A levels. And CEEB exams which later played into my being able to go to Connecticut College for Women way before any British university would give me the time of day. The British educational system was far more responsible than the American University system who had no qualms whatsoever about allowing a very young person to participate in their social and educational brouhaha. I was used to Miss Coombes and Miss Bamford providing structure and organization to our lives. College life in New Haven Connecticut was a breeding ground for disaster and I was lucky to escape after 3 months of thinking I had entered a fiasco called college! What a joke! 

I told Helen and George College in America was not a good idea but as my Dad explained to me, he did not have time to supervise me in Cyprus and my Mom was still unwell from being attacked in our house in Cyprus, and I was too young to go to college in the UK.

St George’s faded into a fond memory. Connecticut College was a nightmare although I enjoyed going to New York with my room-mate Peggy. The other girls and creatures I met wanted to feed me drugs or alcohol and I had no interest whatsoever in their crap and bullshit. I hated the food; I couldn’t sleep and I waited for it to be over. I liked the music. I had Dylan and Donovan albums; Frank Zappa and Tim Buckley and we went to the Village in New York to see The Fugs and I enjoyed their take on the Lord’s Prayer. I was totally over Catholicism and was ready never to have to listen to some moron try and tell me what to think. Their version of the Lord’s Prayer pleased me immensely. 

My Dad and Mom’s three yearly trip back to the US was coming up and so we had an outstanding time going to Florence, where my Mom took me shopping and bought the most beautiful pair of pale pink straw slingback shoes with a very low heel which was the fashion at the time. I was hot on art and visiting all the sights after the experience I had at the Lausanne International exhibition which was tied into the Impressionist exhibition. It was at this exhibition where I played Barberine in 8 performances of the stage play of the same name, by Alfred De Musset. We performed at the 100-seater, ‘Teatre de poche,’ which was built to accommodate many performances, musical and dramatic, by all the schools in the area. We had a midday slot and so that was my first show from school and public acting gig. 

I think I have already spoken of returning to London with my Mom In April 1967 and staying at the serviced apartments at the White House in Regents Park. Kingston Polytechnic had offered me a spot for a two-year marketing course and I accepted. My father was not pleased with my failure at Connecticut College for Women but my Mother as always was able to talk him into seeing my point of view and how stretched I was by the liberal arts course.

The time I spent at Kingston Polytechnic was the exact opposite of my horrible three months I spent at Connecticut College for Women. The first couple of months were difficult as I still was not at ease in large lecture arenas. St George’s had instilled the need in me, to be one on one with learning. It took a while to consider the reading and learning time as my tutorials and the lectures in a public place were presentation for future debates, power point initiatives – way before computers but still a necessary part of broadcasting a plan, a campaign or any other marketing function shared amongst fellow students, teachers, lecturers or the employees of the companies for whom we would work to distribute and market goods and services.

There were theatre opportunities and there were extracurricular activities and there was the business of student unions and the politics that were occurring in The UK and universities all over Europe. The president of our Student Union was a brilliant guy called Gary Morton. I volunteered to help at the Student Union when the occupation of LSE (the London School of Economics) reached out to all the newly established red-brick universities to help sculpt a way for student grants to enable more and more folks to attend Labour’s initiative into expanding Higher Learning all over England and the British Isles. Harold Wilson was Prime Minister from 1964-1970 and 1974-1976 and contributed so much to the changes in England. The South Bank appeared out of the rubble rebuilt and redesigned by post WWII politicians and the soldiers and civilians who had unanimously supported the war effort to be rewarded with a national health service and lower income housing to replace the devastated areas destroyed by the enemy bombs. All these efforts were symbolically spearheaded by ARTISTS: Musicians-The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and Theater that lit up the concepts of ‘Everyman’ having the right to freedom and education, employment and equality.

Think about this carefully as we roll into the Fascist Times of 2025. Martin Luther King was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Lyndon B. Johnson was re-elected and the tragic and divisive war in Vietnam raged on along with Southern racism in the United States. Apartheid in South Africa was one of our main bones of contention at the time. We knew it was wrong and we supported every opportunity to voice our displeasure toward anyone who officially acknowledged the racist government in Sout Africa. 20 years after the end of WWII the world was examining who and where they wanted to be while trying like crazy to not cause a future World War.

My adult life was just beginning I was 18 in September 1967. I will tell you all about in BLOG5.

Thank you for your interest!