The Prologue
Cyprus is the place to holiday just now and ardent sun worshipers lie on its beaches every summer wondering how they could live permanently on this apparently idyllic island.
But what was it like to emigrate from England to 'Aphrodite’s birthplace' not so long ago, before Cyprus joined the European Union? This is the true story of one family’s emigration.
The father had been to Cyprus before, as a soldier and tourist, and the story tells how the prospect of a new job in Limassol rekindled his twenty-year love affair with the Mediterranean. After much wrangling, the father eventually accepted the job and set off alone to establish a new home for his family. Meanwhile, his family said longer goodbyes to cherished family, friends and possessions back in England.
After the father’s first month-long business trip to Egypt, Tunisia and sanctions-hit Libya, the family was reunited in Cyprus to start their new lives together in the sun. However, difficulties over money and housing soon made the realities of their new circumstances all too apparent and, like all passionate love affairs, periods of intense agony and ecstasy ensued. Seven months after starting his new job, redundancy ended the love affair abruptly and forced the family to return home.
Shocked and stunned by a massive sense of loss and failure, the family - and the father in particular - tried to rebuild their shattered confidence and dignity. Free to think unconventionally for the first time since their marriage, the father and mother decided to swap roles. She became the breadwinner, whilst he stayed at home to look after the family, and do the kind of work that ‘women do’.
The story tells of how the father and others reacted to the role change. It also tells how he coped with his first taste of long term unemployment, one that coincided with a major economic recession in Britain.
Seven months into their latest circumstances, the mother is presented with an opportunity to further her own career in Cyprus, entailing a second emigration.
Should they risk another catastrophic failure, or take the safer option and stay in England?
But what was it like to emigrate from England to 'Aphrodite’s birthplace' not so long ago, before Cyprus joined the European Union? This is the true story of one family’s emigration.
The father had been to Cyprus before, as a soldier and tourist, and the story tells how the prospect of a new job in Limassol rekindled his twenty-year love affair with the Mediterranean. After much wrangling, the father eventually accepted the job and set off alone to establish a new home for his family. Meanwhile, his family said longer goodbyes to cherished family, friends and possessions back in England.
After the father’s first month-long business trip to Egypt, Tunisia and sanctions-hit Libya, the family was reunited in Cyprus to start their new lives together in the sun. However, difficulties over money and housing soon made the realities of their new circumstances all too apparent and, like all passionate love affairs, periods of intense agony and ecstasy ensued. Seven months after starting his new job, redundancy ended the love affair abruptly and forced the family to return home.
Shocked and stunned by a massive sense of loss and failure, the family - and the father in particular - tried to rebuild their shattered confidence and dignity. Free to think unconventionally for the first time since their marriage, the father and mother decided to swap roles. She became the breadwinner, whilst he stayed at home to look after the family, and do the kind of work that ‘women do’.
The story tells of how the father and others reacted to the role change. It also tells how he coped with his first taste of long term unemployment, one that coincided with a major economic recession in Britain.
Seven months into their latest circumstances, the mother is presented with an opportunity to further her own career in Cyprus, entailing a second emigration.
Should they risk another catastrophic failure, or take the safer option and stay in England?
posted by Hawkeye at 7:07 am
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