I have been considering writing to you for several months after reading some of the letters that you have published – mainly so as to apologise to the Cypriot people for the behaviour and mindset of the British.
However, after reading ‘Bad karma in Karmi’ (Tales from the coffeeshop, Sunday Mail, May 8), I feel that you have taken some of the wind out of my sails.
Over the last year I have read letters written by members of the British expat community complaining about the increase in the cost of living, the inconvenience of not having an airport just outside of every village, animal welfare and the rising rate of burglaries, the parking and the driving. Why are the British so dissatisfied with the island? The answer is simple – the British like everything that it is cheap. The Tourist Board has to ensure that holidays are cheap. The housing has to be cheap, the food has to be cheap – think of anything that the British desires – it will have to be cheap. Everything is based on cheapness – never on quality, and paying a fair price for something so that someone can earn a decent wage is never be considered.
So it’s no surprise to me that the British have invaded the north of the island in search of something cheap. If the British government has no scruples when it comes to dealing with Cyprus then why should its subjects have any sense of morals?
You are probably right in that you are dealing with people from what would have been a working class or lower middle class background (I feel that I can make these observations as I come from a working class background myself). They are not in Cyprus because they love the island’s people, culture, history, landscape or its food. They arrived on the island when, as compared to Britain, it was cheap. As with many places in the world, if the local populus has a low standard of living, low wages and a poor infrastructure then it will be a cheap place to live. Now that the island has joined the EU and its residents want an equal standard of living to the other member states they have made themselves unpopular with the Cheapies.
I am amazed at how tolerant the local community can be of the British immigrant. The immigrants that I have come across in Britain have been hard working, polite and respectful of the country that they have sought to make their home. The British immigrant appears to be the reverse, having an almost colonial attitude to the resident population.
I experienced a good example of this when I visited one of the island’s wineries at the end of last year. The owner was being kept very busy in his restaurant by a coach load of expats from the Paphos district. One told me “they do a really good meal here on a Sunday and as much wine as you can drink for nowt. They do it of course, because they’re expecting you to load up with their wine when you go but we just buy a bottle when we leave”. Meanwhile, our host had laid out a selection of wines for my wife and I to sample in the reception area.
Before we could get to sampling the Maratheftiko wine, one of the cardiganed yobs snatched the bottle from our table and headed for the toilets. “Hang on,” I said, “I haven’t had a chance to try that yet.” “Neither have I,” was his reply as he lurched down the corridor. I did retrieve the bottle but there was little point in making an issue about his behaviour because it was obvious that he and many of his friends had no idea of how to conduct themselves in public, let alone in another person’s country. Another member of the party took time to tell me of the rising crime in the area where he lived and how they were having to set up security programmes to protect themselves. I couldn’t help wondering whether the fact that they were all adorned with cheap gold chains, bracelets and rings (and that was just the men – pensioner bling?) that made them a target for thieves? We left the winery, with a case of good, affordable red wine and a box of equally good white, which was carried to the car for us by one of the friendly staff. Sadly, they couldn’t help us with the burden of shame that we had to carry with us because of being English.
Incidentally, our friends who now live in Spain, have noticed that there appears to be a correlation between the increase in crime in the area to the increased numbers of Brits moving in. Strange isn’t it?
To finish, I must stress to you that not all Brits are like the ones found in Karmi or Paphos. We have a house in the Republic of Cyprus and intend to divide our time between Cyprus and England. Our retired British neighbours in Cyprus are learning Greek (as are we) and some of our neighbours work on the island. We all use the local tavernas, shops and cafés and have a respect for the community and hopefully cause no ill feeling or displeasure to the local community.
