ruled in Greek social life. Uniforms and formal evening wear were the approved dress at stiff, joyless receptions. Press freedom was restricted and censorship of books was taken to absurd lengths. The junta’s efforts to rewrite history for prescribed books in schools were another aspect of this major upheaval.
Although the country was gripped by uncertainty, the junta’s regime did not initially cause any major ripples in business activities, except for the tourist industry. According to George Lanaras, the junta were well aware that they could not run the country without a successful business sector. So, in spite of the strictest of regulations imposed elsewhere, surprising liberties were sometimes allowed in the all-important business world.
In the midst of these dramatic events a new excitement entered Elita’s young life. George Lanaras had become increasingly involved in shipping. He rapidly made a name for himself in this dynamic industry and was elected President of the Shipowners Association. This was an environment in which names like Aristotle Onassis, John Latsis, Costas Lemos and Stavros Niarchos had come to dominate world shipping and amassed fabulous fortunes.
George also played a significant role and Elita recalls with pride how she launched one of his ships, breaking the traditional bottle of champagne on the stern as the vessel slid into the water.
This new direction in George’s life brought about a reunion with his old schoolfriend Minos Colocotronis, who at the time was in control of one of the biggest shipping lines in the industry. A new ship was due to be launched in Portugal and the Lanaras family were also invited to the ceremony. Nitsa and fifteen-year-old Elita attended a lavish celebration where she was introduced to the 22-year-old Anthony Georgiadis, a student at Oxford.
Vassos Georgiadis, Tony’s father, had died when he was seven years old. His mother Clio, a sister of Minos Colocotronis, subsequently married Sir Frederick Crawford, former British governor of Uganda, who was working at that time for Anglo American in Zimbabwe. Lady Crawford had homes in Europe as well as Salisbury, now Harare, and was well known and popular in international social circles.
Nitsa and Lady Crawford had met before, but whether they liked each other is a matter of doubt. They were too different. Clio was a powerful personality, outspoken and flamboyant, while Nitsa was much more reserved and decorous. Both were later to deny emphatically that the idea of a possible romance between Tony and Elita had occurred to them at that first meeting.
Elita did however succumb to a severe case of calf love. This Georgiadis was not like her friends in Athens. In fact, she had never met anyone like him, so self-assured and sophisticated — and he would also soon have an important place in his uncle’s shipping line.
For the time being her youthful passion for Tony would remain her secret. She was unaware that he had noticed her. In fact, he already had a plan, but much water would have to flow under the bridge before that plan could be acted upon.
A few months after their meeting, Elita was sent to the Eastbourne Business College in England for a course in business administration. There she and a friend broke out again. Dressed up in extravagant outfits and heavily made up, they went to a restaurant and coolly stole a bottle of wine as they walked out.
This escapade amused neither the college authorities nor Elita’s parents. George and Nitsa flew to London immediately, summoned Elita, cross-examined and scolded her and then took her to see the musical Man of La Mancha, based on the adventures of Don Quixote. When Elita heard the song “The Impossible Dream” sung on stage, something crystallised for her. At the age of sixteen, she felt that she at last had an idea of what life should be about, reaching for an impossible dream. In later years she would go again and again to see performances of Man of La Mancha.
Meanwhile her dreams would continue to revolve around a life with the attractive, mysterious, worldly-wise Tony Georgiadis. Dreams of a life full of adventure, in which she would do surprising and wonderful things; dreams in which her uncertainly about herself would vanish. And dreams of escaping from her mother’s oppressive world.
Seven: A man of mystery
Tony Georgiadis was born of Greek parents but grew up as an Englishman. That was part of his attraction, and also one of the things that made him different to the young men in Elita’s circle. “He’s mysterious. You can’t get the measure of him,” Elita told her bosom friend Maria – and Myrto — and her other girlfriends. He was her Heathcliff from Wuthering Heights.
It soon became clear to one and all that Elita was madly in love, but Tony, who had graduated from Oxford and gone to Columbia University, USA, to continue his studies, was in no hurry to press his suit. He had, however, shown a photograph of sixteen-year-old Elita to his American university friend Larry Pressler and said, “See this girl? I’m going to marry her one day.”
Elita had just turned seventeen when she accepted an invitation to a cousin’s party, to the surprise of her friends, who knew her extreme shyness and dislike of parties. But Elita had a secret plan: she knew that Tony Georgiadis had also been invited. He was there and openly gave Elita his exclusive attention. But he was not to be allowed even the smallest kiss; the protocol of their upbringing was too strict for that.
Courtship was slow and painfully correct, as Greek courtships had to be. Tony had first to win the favour of both George and Nitsa, proceeding step by step through a series of formal visits and dinners to the point where he could ask for Elita’s hand in marriage. Nitsa was quick to give her tacit approval, but George hesitated, perhaps because he knew that marriage to Tony would mean that his daughter must leave Athens and live in London.
Tony went to great lengths to impress his future in-laws. He invited them to accompany him to the Poseidon festival, a spectacular and extremely popular event, held biannually on the Sounion coast to honour the sea god of the ancient Greeks. While George and Nitsa were thoroughly aware of the feelings the two youngsters had for each other, it was never discussed openly – conversations were always about every subject under the sun except Tony and Elita!
A short while later, Tony was once again in Athens and because Elita’s parents were travelling in Afghanistan, she, with her secret delight in rebellion, went out alone with him – definitely not the sort of thing a well-brought-up girl would do in Athens at that time. George and Nitsa had scarcely arrived home, in December 1971, when Tony came calling with a formal invitation to invite the Lanaras family to spend five days at the ski resort of Zermatt with his mother, Lady Clio Crawford, and his older brother Alexander and his wife Katingo. The invitation was ostensibly from Lady Crawford.
An almost comically formal set of arrangements was drawn up for this family get-together. As official hostess, Lady Crawford entertained her guests in her usual ultra-lavish style. Later she would delight in hinting that it was she who, during that skiing holiday, had persuaded George to give his blessing to Tony and Elita’s engagement.
At the beginning of the holiday, in between skiing runs, Tony was able to make an appointment with Elita for dinner in the restaurant. There he proposed to her and after dinner he went to see George and Nitsa and formally asked for their consent. For Tony and Elita the whole complicated ritual was a ridiculous charade, but the two families, after pretending to be suitably astonished, celebrated the engagement with real enthusiasm.
Then began the intensive preparations demanded by a Greek wedding. Arrangements for guests and menus and protocol — and more arrangements, because such a wedding must be planned minute by minute with almost military precision. Just nineteen, Elita would be married in the grand tradition necessary for a daughter of Kolonaki.
First, though, there would have to be a British civil ceremony because they would be going to live in England. This was to take place in May at London’s Caxton Hall, but first Elita had to go through what was – for her – an exhausting marathon of shopping for her trousseau with her enthusiastic mother. There were flying visits to Paris, Milan, London and Geneva for endless purchases.
As is to be expected before a wedding, mother and daughter fought and made up, fought and made up, before reaching a final weary agreement on clothes, colours, accessories and jewels.
The days flew and before long Elita found