GLADYS PETO
[IMAGES COMING SOON]
I have just finished reading the Cyprus travel diary of an extraordinary English artisan known as Gladys Emma Peto. Her diary was published in 1926 and appears to be written specifically for British women who may be thinking of travelling to the island. Peto travelled to Cyprus in 1926 to accompany her husband Cuthbert Lindsay Emmerson who worked with the Royal Army Medical Corps. In the time spent apart from her husband Peto decided to document and write about her travels and experience throughout Cyprus. Here then, for your reading pleasure, are some of her main points and observations. Once again, let me stress that these are her words, not mine. Although you may not agree with her travel advice we should still be thankful (grateful even) that people like Peto existed and had the time and foresight to write about Cyprus. I personally found her book fascinating to read and I am glad I stumbled upon it in a local library. The illustrations that accompany this post were created by Peto and were scanned from her book.
THE CYPRIOT PEASANT
The Cypriot peasant can be frequently seen ploughing their fields with the most primitive kind of plough, usually drawn by oxen. In due time, they reap their crop, carrying up to eight sheaves of corn upon the backs of their donkeys. A sheaf is a bundle of cut grain stalks bound together by straw. The threshing that follows usually takes place upon a round stone or an earth beaten floor outside the village or in the corner of a field. The corn sheaves are spread flat upon the floor and then the peasant farmer directs two oxen (or donkeys or cows) to pull a flat raft with stones fastened underneath over the stalks, threshing them into bits. The farmer is often seen seated on a chair that is fixed to the wooden raft. Most peasant farmers cannot afford to use the sophisticated tractor for ploughing so therefore rely on ancient methods.
In the autumn the vineyards are full of brightly clad workers gathering the ripe grapes to sell at the markets or to turn into wine using primitive wine-presses. An oke (about 2.8 pounds) of grapes will cost around half a piaster (half penny).
Various articles printed at this time insisted that the peasant farmers of Cyprus were exceedingly lazy men and would spend most of their time at village cafes drinking brandy and playing cards (rummy). Groups of men gathered together with scarlet red handkerchiefs tied on the heads and wearing scarlet sashes around their waists resembled a band of pirates or bandits rather than farmers. It is often said that brandy and cards have become the curses of the island.
The smaller villages on the whole are not particularly picturesque apart from the church or mosque. The Mohammedan and the Greek often stay apart and keep to themselves even though their place of worship stand side by side. The village houses are small squalid little affairs with no garden. Perhaps a geranium planted in a whitewashed petrol tin may serve to decorate a barren yard. There are little outdoor ovens, scattered around the village like large beehives, used for baking bread. There are also hand wells where the handsome young peasant women, in their black frocks, coloured aprons and swinging plaits of hair can be seen turning a light wheel above her head and filling their stone ‘kouzes’ with clean, cold mountain water.
The peasants seem to be a hardworking people, laboring both very early until quite late in the day. They produce an admirable crop despite the harshness of the terrain and the often shallow and stony ground.
Weddings are a gay affair that provides the guests with an opportunity to wear the most splendid clothes with the women also appearing with numerous silver ornaments. The men might wear coats of the most brilliant green, plush with a sort of raised-flower pattern. Rose pink is another favourite colour. The men may also wear coloured stockings with stripes going around the leg and low shoes to replace their usual top boots.
Greek funerals, for those who can afford them are grand affairs. Artificial wreaths adore wooden caskets that are carried to the cemetery by horse-drawn, canopied wagons. In contrast, Mohammedians carry their dead to the grave on a wooden bier.
The Greek burial-grounds are the most sadly dilapidated-looking places in the world: overgrown with rank grass with rarely a head stone and never a flower.
Some peasant families in the lower hill villages make a living by collecting wood, small branches of trees and roots of bushes which they carry upon their donkeys to sell in the nearest towns. From English people they may get one and half shillings a load and from their own countrymen, much less. Dried throumbi, is also collected and is used to start fires and to heat the bread ovens.
The young village girls are often seen nursing, feeding and raising young lambs. When the pampered and cherished animal becomes a fine fat-tailed sheep it is promptly and heartlessly sold to the butcher.
There is a certain amount of insanity among the peasants in the village and it would appear the lunatic asylum is quite overcrowded. One English doctor was told to only send the really dangerous lunatics to this institution as they had started to discharge the calmer kind of lunatic.
CRIME
The Cypriot is extremely honest in many ways. Burglaries are non-existent. People can sleep with doors and windows open without any fear. Of course all Cypriots will try and sell you a sixpenny article for six shillings, which is a different kind of theft.
Professional murderers on the other hand can be easily found and hired in Cyprus. Before the war (WW1) a murder could be done for as low as five shillings. The murders are undertaken to terminate feuds over land, water, vineyards, wine and women. When a murder has taken place and the villain captured, the entire village takes on a fair-like atmosphere. The witnesses are marched under an escort of zaptiehs while their friends and neighbours crowd and cheer along the pavements outside the law courts. Even the street vendors gather to sell toys to the young children and new handkerchiefs to the parents. The ice cream seller and the man with the tray of bread raise their voices in competition. The assassins if found guilty, would meet their fate at the end of a hangman’s noose.
MONEY MATTERS
Cyprus is so close to London. You can get there in less than a week and the journey costs little more than thirty pounds. In the summer months many wives and families of the officials spend their time amongst the pines of Mount Troodos, an hours drive from the capital. Even the coastal towns do not appear to be excessively hot during the summer with the temperature rarely higher than 100 degrees or so in the shade. However, the plains, particularly in the Larnaca and Limassol districts, are rather damp and unpleasant and there is still a good deal of malaria.
Living is still cheap. You can buy sixty eggs for a shilling, a turkey for ninepence and a partridge for two piasters. A bottle of whiskey is seven and sixpence. Thirty odd pounds a month will cover everything for a couple without children: rent, light and heat, wages, food, drink, cigarettes and laundry. Children, even a little one increases expenses for an English nurse is essential.
In Nicosia there are shops that sell to the visitor things that are peculiar to Cyprus. Here you can buy a dress length of hand-woven and hand-grown silk for about a pound. It comes in either biscuit striped with rose and blue and the palest green striped with royal blue. It is splendid for frocks and pajamas. You may buy linen for ninepence, and Cyprus muslin for about a shilling a yard. There is of course various kinds of Cyprus lace and embroidery.
If your household is large, the best arrangement is to hire a man-cook and a woman house-parlour-maid. You may also need a kitchen boy. The women servants are naturally Greek and the waiters are usually Turkish dressed in their magnificent Turkish clothes: full trousers, a fez, a wonderful sash and an embroidered waistcoat. Your Greek parlour-maid wears a black frock and a white apron and wears her hair tied up in a handkerchief with two long plaits dangling behind. With a little persuasion, she may coil up her hair and put on a cap and a collar and cuffs and looks very smart. The man cooks are very good indeed with their white coats and chef caps – they are the best in the Near East. They can cook quite elaborate and unusual dishes but for some reason, do not succeed with cakes. Most English women therefore make their own.
Cypriots servants have some annoying habits such as a preference to hang all the bedclothes from the front bedroom windows like flags at a festival. For some reason, Cypriot servants have a particular horror of window cleaning. Even when presented with the proper materials they insist on relying on the ancient method of breathing on the panel. Servants’ wages on the whole appear to be fairly high. A good man cook could expect to be paid about five pounds a month in Nicosia and about four pounds in the other towns. A woman cook earns about two pounds ten and a housemaid one pound ten. A really well-trained waiter who also does housework expects about four pounds a month while a kitchen boy gets about one pound a month. If you live in the country, you can get all your housework and cooking done by one boy for a pound a month.
The laundry, as in all places in the Near East is an inexpensive item. The women charge one and a half shilling per dozen garments, what ever they are, whether it is a tiny handkerchief of a silk evening shirt. Laundry costs can be reduced further if a servant can be convinced to wash the clothes at home. You can also find in some places, young girls who are hired to come once or twice a week to sew, wash and iron for seven and a half shillings a month. This girl can iron intricate pleats back into one’s frocks by using an enormous local iron filled with hot charcoal.
A typical monthly budget for a British household in Cyprus is as follows:
Rent – five pounds
Servants’ wages – 6 pounds
Electric Light – 10 shillings
Wood – two pounds
Fresh Food – 7 pounds
Groceries – 3 pounds
Laundry – 1 pound
Wine, Whiskey, Beer, etc. – 4 pounds
Cigarettes – 1 pound, 10 shillings
TOTAL: 30 pounds.
Imported tinned foods will increase your monthly food bill due to the duty tax on imported foodstuff. Biscuits are dear as are Californian peaches and so are jam and marmalade, although, money can be saved by asking the cook to make marmalade from oranges found in the garden. The local olives are bitter and the olive oil is unrefined so it is recommended to use import oil in the kitchen.
The meat supply in Cyprus is a problem except in Nicosia. The beef, the veal and the mutton are not good as a rule. The lamb however is excellent and will cost half a crown an oke (nearly two and three-quarter pounds). Turkeys and chickens should be delivered to your door alive. Turkeys cost about five to seven shillings each. If you are a soft-hearted and sentimental person you must avoid the Cyprus doves, even though the locals would be insulted if you refused a meal of them.
Milk is difficult to find in the provinces. Nicosia gets its milk supply from the Government farm at Athalassia. You can choose between condensed milk, which the Greeks call ‘box milk’, and sheep’s milk. Most of the Cypriot cows you see are busy pulling carts or ploughs. The farm also supplies butter although the imported Australian butter is well recommended.
Ice outside of Nicosia is dear and hard to come by.
All kinds of wine and spirits are cheaper and easier to come by than England. The English my part with a shilling for a bottle of the local wine while the inhabitants will most likely pass less. The Cyprus brandy and the Commanderia, the port of Cyprus are perhaps for acquired tastes or are likely to be appreciated by those who have not acquired a taste. The cigarettes that are made on the island are both cheap and good. A box of thirty ‘Virginian’ costs about eightpence and twenty-five very good Turkish cigarettes can be obtained for tenpence.
ADVICE FOR TRAVELERS
Many children of school age come to visit their parents in Cyprus during the summer holidays. There are special boats to bring them in late July and return them to England in late September. The return fares and expenses come to around 25 pounds for each child. Children do very well on the island, but require more attention, care and thought than one gives to them back home. A continual war is waged against the flies and of course the midday sun must be avoided. The milk should be boiled and perhaps even the water before it is cooled and given to the child to drink. Children get a splendid holiday upon Troodos, all picnics and ponies and bathing in waterfalls.
Nicosia of course is a dashing metropolis with quite a large English society and all kinds of gaieties. In each district you will find an English judge, generally an English doctor, occasionally a chaplain, probably a Customs officer, perhaps an engineer of the Public Works department and possibly a British police officer. There are also of course Greek and Turkish judges and other officials of both races and generally some Syrians, all of whom speak English. There are also a few settlers who farm and grow tobacco or who have simply retired to spend their days in the sunshine. The copper-mines of Skouriotissa and the asbestos-mines of Amiandos both have a number of English engineers and therefore live here with their wives and families. Then there are of course the scattered forest officers.
The homes that are rented by the visitor to Cyprus are extraordinarily charming. Most are surrounded by trees and creepers and furnished like English country cottages. You may even find an old farmhouse with a great living room like the best kind of studio. One English family actually lived for a time in the less dilapidated portions of the castle of Kolossi. Do not expect a hot bath, though. There is no plumbing and many things are extremely primitive. The hot water will arrive in petrol tins to fill a flat tin bath upon your bedroom floor. There is no gas on the island but there is however, electric light almost everywhere in the larger towns. The electric light is not available until the municipality considers it to be dark enough, so candlelight is used to start the evening.
The wood fires are very pleasant and are needed for at least four months of the year. They are best lighted with the dried scented herb throumbi. Be warned however as some servants may try to light the fire using paraffin.
Wallpapers are never seen in Cyprus but most houses have balconies where many find a new pleasure in life as the sit and watch the sunsets, sipping a long or short drink and doing nothing at all.
The winter in Cyprus takes a long time to arrive and many visitors have celebrated Christmas Day out of doors, but January, February and March are both cold and wet. April in the plains is very much like an English summer.
OTHER OBSERVATIONS
The Cypriots owe their educational facilities to the British. Before the occupation few of them could read or write.
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Little is known about Gladys Emma Peto other than she was born in Maidenhead, England in 1890 and became a well-known artist, illustrator, fashion designer and writer during the 1920s and 30s. In 1926, she travelled to Cyprus with her husband Cuthbert Lindsay Emmerson who worked with the Royal Army Medical Corps. They went on to live in India in the 1930s before settling in Northern Ireland where she died in 1977. It is not known whether Gladys and Cuthbert had any children, nor if they have any living relatives remaining. To the best of my knowledge, there is no archive of her original artwork, which is extraordinary given the vast amount of illustrations she produced. Elusive, enigmatic, an artisan of extraordinary originality and talent, it’s difficult to understand why an illustrator and writer as accomplished and pioneering as Gladys Peto was during the 1920s and 30s is not recognised today as one of the greatest artists of her time.