Cyprus Today

Like all of my talks, this is nominally forty-five minutes long but, naturally, can be expanded or contracted by altering the amount of detail included. It is as much a "sing" as a talk including a number of songs I have written about life among the expat community in Kuzey Kibris.

In 2007 I visited North Cyprus for the first time. It was a revelation.

Like most British of my era I remembered the troubles of the 1950's and had a general notion that the island was divided into Greek and Turkish communities. I had visited "The South" in 1996 for a week's holiday and found people in and around Paphos very kind and friendly.

However, on a visit to Nicosia saw another side to the island. We went to a viewing point of the "Green Line", the dividing line between the two halves of Cyprus where friends were told to "Keep down, or they will shoot you!"

I don't think we believed that the Turkish Cypriots would take pot-shots across nomansland but it certainly did not put them at the top of our "favoured nations" list.

For that 2001 visit to "The North" we flew into Larnaca and were picked up by Tim and Helen and crossed the border at Pile. It was late in the evening and I can remember looking out of the car at the Turkish villagers and imagining what a cut-throat lot they must be.

The reality turned out to be entirely different and since then I have been doing my best to paint a different picture of the Turkish Republic of North North Cyprus (TRNC) as the worl knows it, Kusey Kibris to those of us who love the country and the people.