'Salamis Road'
Prologue
“If I address my
letters ‘To my Mother’
Where will they go?
If I write ‘Cyprus’
but where?
I go round and round
and return from each address
In an envelope with a
burnt edge.”
(Mehmet Yashin)
A Letter home
" Dear Granny and Grandad,
They were
fighting because they want the Island. And they fight on Salamis Road. And lots
of Greeks and Turks went to see the fighting and there came back. And Military
police ordinary went down there. And they said to the Turks go in the Old City
and they took their luggage. And some
police
had tin hats. And the military police caught some Greeks and Turks had chains
around their necks. The ambulance and fire engines and lots more fire engines
came put fires out. We want the Greeks and Turks to stop the Greeks and Turks
fighting.
Love from Sasha, Salamis Road,
Famagusta, Cyprus aged eight years old. Dated 1958. "