One Last Visit: A Photographer’s Farewell to Cyprus

One Last Visit: A Photographer’s Farewell to Cyprus

By Eren Erdogan….

A few days ago I was going through some old photographs in the Cyprus Mail archives when I came across the photograph of this little Cypriot girl, taken by Colin Matthews sometime in the late 1950s.

I don’t know why, but I kept looking at her. Those eyes, I suppose.

So I put her photograph on Frozen Cypriots and asked if anybody knew who she was. I finished by saying: “Wouldn’t it be wonderful if somebody simply said, ‘I know her.’”

Well, something happened that I certainly wasn’t expecting. Colin’s daughter Karen Matthews Johnson found our post.

She wrote to me from Canada and told me that sadly her Dad has now passed away. But Cyprus never really left him. He always told Karen that Cypriots were some of the kindest people he had ever met.

Then Karen told me something wonderful.

Apparently Colin came back to Cyprus sometime in the 1990s and brought some of his old photographs with him. He went back to the village where this little girl’s photograph had been taken, showed it around, and somebody actually recognised her.

So my question had already been answered all those years ago!

But there was more.

Last April, in 2025, Karen came to Cyprus for the first time, travelling all the way from Canada with her Dad.

Sadly, it would be Colin’s last visit.He was in a wheelchair by then and had chronic kidney failure. In fact, six days of their fourteen days in Cyprus were spent at the hospital in Limassol so he could have dialysis.

But Karen said something about her Dad which I loved:

“This man was unstoppable.” And obviously he was.

They still got into the car and travelled through the Troodos Mountains, looking for some of those villages Colin had photographed nearly 70 years before. At one little village café they showed the lady another of Colin’s old photographs.

She recognised her uncle as a little boy. Just think about that for a minute.

Nearly 70 years had passed, and this photograph had come back to the village where it was taken. The lady called other family members over to see it. And before Colin and Karen left, she gave them a jar of jam.

Now this little part of Karen’s story really made me smile.

Karen wasn’t sure what kind of jam it was or where it had come from. But knowing our old Cypriot village ways, I wouldn’t mind betting that lady had made it herself.

Because that’s what I remember about Cyprus.

If you had grapes, you gave some away. When you made jam, you gave somebody a jar. If you grew something in your garden, your visitor wasn’t going to leave without some of it.

It was just our way.

More Cyprus Memories

I remember once in the Troodos Mountains admiring a man’s garden. He had these beautiful Verigo grapes growing there. I was only looking at them and telling him how beautiful they were.

Next thing I knew, he was climbing up and cutting bunches for me! I practically walked away with an armful.

The man didn’t know me from Adam. I hadn’t asked him for anything. But that’s what people did.

So when Karen told me about that jar of jam, I knew exactly what she meant. Her Dad had been telling her all her life about the kindness of Cypriot people.

One last Cyprus visit

And on his last journey back to the island he loved, Karen finally got to experience a little bit of that Cyprus herself. And by the way, whatever was in that jar must have been pretty good.

Karen tells me they polished off the lot when they got back to Canada. ❤️

It’s funny, really.

I started all this with a photograph of a little Cypriot girl whose name I didn’t know.  And look where she took us.

To Colin. To his daughter Karen. Back into the Troodos Mountains. To an uncle recognised as a little boy. And even to a jar of homemade Cypriot jam.

All because of one old photograph.

Thank you, Karen, for finding us, and especially for allowing me to share your Dad’s story with Frozen Cypriots.

I think he would probably be rather pleased that, nearly 70 years later, people are still looking at his photographs and talking about the Cyprus he loved. ❤️

Photographs by Colin Matthews, Cyprus, late 1950s. With thanks to his daughter Karen for sharing these memories with us.

Colin’s photographs and story were also featured in the Cyprus Mail.

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