By Margaret Sheard …
The Friends of the TRNC Emergency Services (112) held their monthly Afternoon Tea Talk at the Black Olive Cafe in Alsancak on Wednesday 11th April and there were the usual familiar faces present, together with some people I had not seen in quite a while. It is always nice to make contact again and be able to catch up.
We all settled down to our sandwiches and cakes with tea and coffee coming at regular intervals. Thank you Vicki for all your work in making this such a pleasant afternoon tea.
The speaker that afternoon was Willy Lindh, the Chairman of The Foreign Residents in the TRNC (TFR) who told us about his experiences when he was the Swedish Platoon Commander with the UN Forces in Cyprus in 1964. A lot of his time was spent in the Erenkoy area and he told us about the 5 villages in the area which came under constant bombardment. Many of the villagers were evacuated and the remaining people went to 
Erenkoy where they lived in caves and partly demolished buildings. This continued for the next 10 years until 1974, when Turkey intervened, and the village of Erenkoy was then totally abandoned. Willy told us about the 500 students who came to Erenkoy to try and help, some of who lost their lives and eventually those who survived returned to their homeland to continue their university studies.
It is a sad story of the past. I have visited Erenkoy on 2 occasions and found it to be a very emotional experience. For those who were not able to attend the talk perhaps you would like to see the cyprusscene article written back in 2014 which includes a video of Willy’s story, produced by Chris Elliott. Click here
Following the talk there was the raffle and Mike’s quirky gifts to various people. The amount raised this month was a nice 470TL. Before the tea started Mike had informed those present that there was now an amount of 10,000TL available for equipment for the local hospital which will be advising what is needed in due course.
