Janelle Warhurst —‘Conversations are a first draft’

After the richness of an afternoon spent in the company of an argumentation of historians debating the Life and Myth of Charmian Clift we were surprised to meet Nicholas. We had walked down the cobbled streets dodging cars and gushing rainwater to buy cheese and tea. Nicholas greeted us in the freezer section of the supermarket where his beautiful only daughter works. He was known to us as the sheltering gelato-seller at the port.

During the years when sponge diving was at its peak the family of Nicholas were recovering from a shocking tragedy which impacted many Kalymnians.

It was 1953.

Nicholas’s father and uncle differed in age by 27 years. It was not expected that young 18-year-old Nicholas (uncle of the gelato seller) would begin his sponge diving career so young. In the tradition of Kalymnian sponge divers Nicholas begged his brother to allow him to accompany the men on the next expedition to Libya with him. Despite the heartbreaking protests of their mother that her baby son, her youngest child, should not be permitted to risk his life on the imminent journey, the boat left for Libya with both brothers on it.

Nicholas the uncle never returned. The returning brother (Nicolas’s father) remained persecuted by the memory of loss, the family who never forgave him, and paralysis which plagued him for the rest of his life. Local Kalymnian priests searched for the grave of Nicholas the uncle so that he could be returned to his family.