MY GREEK GENES

I sometimes amaze myself, not with the things I have done but with those I have waited such a long time to do. I have wanted to go to Greece to explore my Greek heritage ever since I can remember.

As a preamble to the second part of my 2024 Bucket List Blog, I wanted to explain why Greece has held the poll position on my Bucket List for so long.

I had a maternal Greek grandmother who I adored. Her name was Helenē. A name with French and Greek origins that means shining light. To me, my grandmother was the brightest star in the sky.

My grandpa called her Lenē, and I loved it when I was sent to stay with them as much as they loved having me. Even through a child's eyes, it was easy to see how much they cared about each other. Maybe my childhood perception of their loving relationship was because it was in such stark contrast to that of my parents.

Sadly, they both died when I was young. I had no conception that my grandmother was from Greece. By the time I was born, she was a well-established part of Yorkshire life. As a child, I have vague memories of seeing Christmas or Birthday cards from Greek relatives, which slowly petered out after my grandmother died.

In my teens, I wanted to know more about this remarkable woman who had left such a hole in my young life. My mother and aunt were irritatingly vague about their mother's roots, an itch I have constantly needed to scratch ever since her death.

So, I started piecing the jigsaw bits together, although I still have a long way to go. At the end of WWI, my grandfather was 25, and my grandmother was 15. Grandpa John Arthur Clapham was an ambulance driver in WWI, and I believe he was involved at Gallipoli.

Grandpa Jack met Helenē Mourides in Constantinople (it became Istanbul in 1930) 'sometime after' the First World War. When they met, Helenē was a translator for the British Embassy, where they married.

Helenē spoke at least five languages, which, sadly, is not one of her genes I have inherited. I have no idea what my grandfather was doing there at that time. Maybe, if he had served in the Dardanelles campaign, he decided to take a trip down memory lane and return to Constantinople in more harmonious times. Or, maybe he had met the Mourides family during the war. I will never know the answer to that.

Only when I travelled with my aunt sometime in the early 1990s, and we were both laughing about our passport photos, did I realise she was born in Constantinople in 1921. I'd had no idea. My mother was born eight years later, after their return to the UK, when my aunt was three.

Then, bring on Ancestry.com! After taking a DNA test a few years ago, I now have hundreds of cousins and, most importantly, several in Greece. My DNA origins tell me my grandma was from somewhere in West Anatolia & Aegean Islands.

After my grandfather returned to the UK with his bride, my grandmother never returned to the land of her birth. I may find that sad, but my grandparents lived through two world wars. A snippet learned from my aunt was that my grandmother's brother was killed during WWI after Greece united and joined the Allies in the summer of 1917. So maybe her whole family was wrenched apart or even perished

I have yet to contact all of them, but at least I know I have a Greek family out there. After my recent trip to Corfu, I felt an affinity for the people with whom I share genes, so there will be more Greek Bucket List trips.

Being in this beautiful country, I can breathe in and experience the islands where my grandmother grew up, and maybe, one day, I can find out exactly where Helenē Mourides was born. Unlike my few photographs of her, that itch to find out will never fade.