I went to the same school of Ano Syros. In the first year of Primary School, we had a special space on the floor, and it had sand in it. And it also had pebbles and we made different designs. When the teacher was teaching the First or Second grade. There were three grades together.…
When we were young, we did not have nice homes. They had no stairs, they were low. There were house that were very old, with reeds and wood. We had houses like that too.
I will tell you a story from my childhood. Once, when I was young, 9 years old. There were no large shops at the time, grocery stores and things like that. And here in Axos, there is an area called Axos, the 5th School is there. They used to hold a market there. All the…
-What do you have? -Α kitten that is so small. Fat like this. I am kidding. -Good. We also had a cat when I was young, your age. And listen to this funny story. We had a cat called Zaza. -Zaza? -Zaza. And we had a canary in a cage which…
-He had spoken to me about his childhood. He had spoken to me about his teacher called Kastrinos. Mr. Kastrinos with the violin. He had told me that others used to say that he was a very naughty boy. And my grandmother, because she had five sons and one daughter, in order to get the…
– Here on my mother’s side… – They made a boat. – They made boats at the shipyard. On my father’s side they made ports, bridges, roads… And on my mother’s side they made wooden boats.
This is one of the first pictures I have. All neighbours would come and help, and then our folks would go to the other farms. The called it “loans”. One family helped the other. Here they are sowing. My father was like yours, he worked in public works. I mean, they are building a port…
-Is this a cow in the back? (A child points to another picture) -Yes, because I grew up in a farm with cows, calves, a donkey, many hens. And I continue to live in this farm, we have no cows, we have sheep. Which we use as grass mowers, they eat the grass and clean…
-I have brought you something else to see. What do you use to write in your school? What? -I have brought you something else to see. What do you use to write in your school? What? -Pencil and pen… -Pencil? Do you know the old ink pens? The pens. And this…
Also, here in Syros in the past, they cooked many dishes of European cuisine, and they made a very nice dessert. They took chestnuts, which as you know are for Christmas. They come out at that time. So they took chestnuts, boiled them and puréed them. They used to have the food mill and now…
We had celebrations here then during the holidays, Christmas, Easter and other holidays. On St. Paraskevi’s day, St. John’s day… We would all go there, practically the entire village, like a pilgrimage, take our food with us, load it up on the donkeys, take nice rugs, the ladies would ride and we would go to…
– What was Glossa like in the past? – Glossa was a rich village. It produced wines, almonds, olives, prunes. Each house had its garden, with tomatoes, zucchini, beans… It was a very rich village. They knew about the vineyards, they knew the olives, and now we are left only with the olives. Glossa…
We had no radio or television back then. We had the town crier then. Do you know what that is? Traders would come here. They would sell pots and pitchers… And he would come out and cry: “Down in Loutraki, a boat came and brought pitchers and pots”.
– Did you have the World Cup? – World Cup? My dear, we had nothing here. A couple of times they had races, children like you, and they swam across. We had no World Cup. We had no television, we had no radio, we had no telephone. Where would we know about it? Now, when…
My father was the first potter in Skopelos. He made everything. My father would make the braziers. There were no heaters or stoves. They burned wood. And the brazier was made out of clay. And they would put coal in it, light it up and the children would sit around it. We were seven children,…
– Was there football? – I played, but I went to work when I was 10 years old. I dropped out of school… Are you in Third grade? I dropped out of Third grade and I went to work. I kneaded three bags of flour with my own hands. I made 100 kilos of…
– How did you fish? – They had no nylon, nylon lines. What do you call it? Don’t you call it nylon? The nylon line came to Skopelos in 1952, as it did in Athens. We fished with string. Longline, with fishing nets. Made of kapok. They called the ropes ‘manila’. They called it…
– What was the road like back then? – The road had no cars, it was narrow. There were a few roads where you could walk comfortably. – I mean, were they made of cement? Or sand? – Of dirt! And in some parts they would lay stones for the rain. They…
– What was the first day in school like? – The first day in school was very nice, when I was in school. I remember everything, why wouldn’t I? But when I went to school I had no shoes. I was barefoot. There was a lot of poverty. We were all the children, out…
– What did you do if you were sick? – There were some doctors. There was a doctor here, a general practitioner. One or two, no more. There were no doctors, nor would any helicopters come. – Were there nurses? – No. When a woman was expecting, and it was time to…
Do you know what they did with the dry bread? Let me tell you about some dishes. In the evenings- sometimes there were some foods which they don’t cook today. I mean, the dry, stale bread, they boiled water in a pot, put in oil, salt and after the water boiled they put in the…
We had a movie theatre here. My father owned the movie theatre. The “Orpheus”. Me and my friends from school and all these children, once the Carnival period started, we would organise gatherings. My father always had the accordion. And we would go and dance at the movie theatre, we dressed up in our nice…
Back then in Skopelos, they all stayed in the huts, because there were the vineyards, the grapes… Once the schools were out, they loaded everything up on the donkey, on the mule, whatever they had, chickens, children, their clothes and went to the huts. Because everyone had huts on their fields. They took them there.…
– If you wanted to go fishing, what did you fish with? – There were very few fishing boats then to go fishing. Very few. And with the oars, you needed to pull the oars, you know what that is like. When you are in the boat, you hold one from each side and…
– What if something caught on fire? -They did it manually. There were no airplanes to throw water, as they would come now. If there was a fire, the whole island would go and put it out with the hoes, with the axe. But the forests were clean then. They were clean because the resin…
It was the so-called midwife who delivered the babies. If the birth was difficult, or if she was dying or if there was time, she went to Volos. I was born here, at the countryside. And there was no one to cut the umbilical cord
-The cheese pie of Skopelos? -We always made the cheese pie. Not in the modern way they make it now. But it was always made rolled up.
– Did you build the fishing boats in the Shipyard? -Yes. There were two shipyards here, right over here. Next to the pier, there were two large shipyards. They built large fishing boats. Now they have abandoned everything. They all had wood, the entire beach was full of wood, many people were working, manually. With…
– Did you also use oxen to plough? – Yes. Horses and oxen. – And did you use donkeys for transportation? – Yes. In order to go to the hut, which was far, I had four children, young like you, and would load the things on the donkey and they would get…
– How did you cook the food, if you didn’t have an oven? – There was no oven, it was outside. They also had an oven inside the houses, and they lit it with fire and made coal. And they put the food inside, if they wanted to cook good food, let’s say meat.
– If someone lived far away, how did they get to school? – Most of the times myself, in September when the schools opened, until November, we stayed at the hut, further out. It was one hour on foot. And I would come on foot. And at noon back again. On foot. There were…
– How did you build houses? – The houses were in here, in the village. There were no houses further out, there were no cars. And they carried the materials with the mules. Sand, gravel, cement… They carried it with mules.
There was this old man back then, he was blind. But he could walk. So he went up to the square, up there at the cypress tree and call: “Tomorrow morning, the boat will come by at 7 o’clock. And he made his hands like this, like a megaphone. And that is how we learned…
We had no television. Someone would come here and play Karagiozo. We went to see the Karagiozo. And if we didn’t have money, we would go and gather almonds, crack them and give them the nuts. As a ticket to watch Karagiozo. He would come here with a fishing boat, and set up a sheet,…
If you look at an old photograph, you may see a post card. These fishing boats would come – because we didn’t have the big ferry boats then. The small fishing boats would come, the wooden ones, what we called ‘pazar kaik’. Pazar (bazaar), meaning that they were used for trading. And they would come…
Because Skopelos here has plenty of pine trees, they cut the wood, they brought it here at the shipyards, here where the kiosk is today. This was a shipyard, where they built the fish boats. So they worked and came here, cut up the wood, and they started building wooden boats with this wood. And…
I was born in Skiathos and I will tell you what school was like then. We were in Bourtzi. We went when it was cold, it was windy, we had no water, phones, nothing. No tablets to talk on. No sweets to eat. We had no kiosks to get chocolate. There was nothing there. First…
At the end of the school year, let’s say a kid finished Second grade, and we knew it, we ran before he finished the year so he would give us his books. Whoever got there first. Because every kid had cousins, had friends… The rich people ordered them from outside, not from Skiathos. They ordered…
On the shoulder with the jugs. We carried the water for washing, with the jugs. We had no running water. I didn’t have water when I got married. I carried the water, to wash the children. I carried it on my shoulder, from down there, where the high school is. There was a cistern there,…
Most men from Skiathos would become sailors on the ships, to make money. And the women were alone on the island. They would wait a month or two, to get a letter.
They used to give us rations then. Every morning they would give us rations so we had something to eat. But we had these little cloth bags with an egg, a little bit of bread and cheese, and we hung them on our desk; when we went out at recess, all the children would gather…
– How did they use to take pictures? -Oh! People had cameras! Like the grandmother has here. They had the cameras and they took pictures. But not everyone had them. There was a photographer, two? You called the photographer. But then more people bought them.
Papadiamanti street in the past and where the school was, water, where they took a bath, where they washed the clothes -And Papadiamanti Street, like you see it now, with the stores, it wasn’t like this. When you grow up, you will learn many more things. Papadiamanti Street was a stream, where all the waste…
-Skiathos, my children, didn’t have many men back then. After the war, people didn’t have a lot of money. We didn’t have tourism, like we do today. Everyone was a sailor. They left on ships. They travelled all over the world. America, Russia, Poland… Where else? Europe, Japan, everywhere. And they brought us many things.
– What tools did they have back then? – They had the looms they used for weaving. And now they embroider. The other tools, these were the same. Back in those years they had more things at Papadiamanti Street, there were stores that made tools, they made combs… They used a loom to weave the…
There were no inflatables, no life savers. They took two pumpkins, tied them with a rope and tied them around their waist to swim. Because they would help you float. Two flasks, one on each side, and you could swim at the surface of the sea. They don’t sink. You have your inflatable lifesavers? We…
We would fill a tub with hot water and they would give us a bath with the soap of Skiathos. There were no bubble baths. The soap of Skiathos was made of oil. Not the good oil. The oil that was left at the bottom. The murky oil. And they made soap. That’s the soap…
– Did you have a sewing machine or did you use a needle? – Seamstresses had sewing machines. Because you didn’t go to a store back then, to buy a finished dress. We bought the fabric, our parents would buy the fabric and take us to the seamstress, she would sew it, we had a…
What were the ships like on the inside back then? -We didn’t have ships back in those times. We would travel on fishing boats. And when the weather was bad, the boats could not sail out. And all the goods brought to the grocery stores, they would bring them on the boats. The ships came…
I will talk to you about a favourite pastime. We would gather together in the evenings, there was no television, or radio, or cinema. Coffee shops were only for men. And they would gather at the homes, in front of the fireplace and have the so-called ‘veggera’. That is where they would tell their stories,…
-Where are you from? -From Syneti. A village behind that hill. -As you look from your school at the church across, and then at the mountain, behind it there is a village called Syneti. -What was your house like? – Our house was very old, in Syneti. Made out of stone. The roof on top…
How did you take baths? – Do you know how we would bathe? (laughing) We would wear these little dresses and a shirt on top. We wouldn’t bathe naked. -At home? -Oh! At home! We had these tin tubs, metal ones. Our mother would heat up water on the fire and put us in the…
School those years was both in the mornings and evenings. We would go in the morning and go back in the evening. The only day we didn’t go to school in the evenings was Saturday. All the other days we would go both mornings and evenings. -How was the classroom inside? – The classroom? It…
-What were the ships like? – What were the ships like, dear… Back then, honey, these big ships would come on Sunday, from the port here. There weren’t any ferry boats like there are now. – Didn’t you have the Blue Star Ferries? – Here, at the port, we had ships. They weren’t super ferries.…
-What jobs did your mother and father do? -I’ll tell you. My mother was a housewife at home because she had five children. My father had a small fishing boat. He would load it up, go to Porto Rafti and load up food and bring it back to Andros. We didn’t have a lot of…
-How did you go from one place to the other? We were in Niborio, have you heard of Niborio? Do you know the spring, where you walk up and find the stream? That is exactly where we lived, in the part behind. We went to school on foot. -Didn’t you have cars then? -Dear god!…
I was the fifth child of my parents. When my father had to give his mother’s name, Smaragda, his sister called Haido had died. And he called my sister before me Haido. When I was born 5 years later, the fifth child, he told the priest “We will name her Smaragda”. But the priest said…
-How did you bathe then; Ν.Κ.: -In the sea or at home? -At home. Ν.Κ. -It was a big deal taking a bath in our house! (laughing). We had this tub, we would get in the tub and wash up there. There were no bathtubs or showers… There was no such thing back then. We…
-I had no doll. Do you know what I had for a doll? My grandmother had sewn a long thing out of rags. She had stuck two arms, also made of rags, and on the head she had sewn the face, lips and eyes, and on the top of the head had made hair with…
Oh, what games did we play? We called them marbles. Marbles. ‘Gyalenia’ as we called them. There were coloured ones too. Some red, some green. Did you have a schoolbag? I don’t remember if I had one when I was very young. After the German occupation, my father sewed one out of tarp. A…
The school I went to had lots of children. We were 50 kids and we lived in the Livadia village. Well, do you know what game I played, other than the hide-and-seek or tag that we used to play… Our teacher would hang up a string with candy and lollipops. They would put us in…
V.A.: They would tell us when we got together, our mother or grandmother… Mainly our grandmother. At night when we would all gather round or when we went to bed. It was very nice to hear a fairy tale, which they would tell us so we would go to sleep. O.H.: These fairy tales in…
