When I was about eight years old, I won a competition with the Puffin Club in which we had to send in a story in which we wrote about an unusual or wacky family. My tale was a thinly veiled account of my own clan - pretty easy for me to write in many ways. Which leads me to this......
This is Matala, a pretty little fishing village in Crete. Photo taken circa 1967. Now, pan the lens round to the other side of the bay...
If you look carefully you can see some caves in the rock face. The caves date back to the neolithic era and were used, apparently, by the ancient Greeks to bury their dead. Let's zoom in a little...
In this photo, you can just see a couple of people sitting in front of a cave with a towel hanging up behind them. And if we zoom in even further...
...here we see a group of young people who inhabited these caves from 1967 for a couple of years. Some came for a few nights, others stayed months, charmed by the crystal waters and simple way of living. The girl standing at the top is my mother, and right below her, with the short hair is my aunt.
Now all this is amusing, but what makes it a far, far better story is that last weekend, almost 42 years after these young people stayed in the caves, they had a reunion back in Matala! Yep, my mother too. The Greek tourist board have gone to town promoting the reunion, calling it the 'hippie festival' and it was a long weekend of revelling, music and memories for 40 of the 'ex-hippies'. Click here to see some of the promotion for the festival.
Priceless. I can't wait to hear some of my mother's stories when she gets back. Now if this isn't novel material, then what is?
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