The Slab of Kyrenia and Memories of My Friend Turan “Barzani”

By Eren Erdogan….

The Slab, Kyrenia and a Memory of My Friend Turan (nickname Barzani.)

Looking at these wonderful old photographs of The Slab in Kyrenia brought back a memory I haven’t thought about for a very long time.

Apparently The Slab was already a very popular swimming place around this period, and looking at these photographs one can understand why. It wasn’t really what we would call a beach today. Simply somewhere people went to swim, meet friends and spend those long Cyprus summer days.

My own memories of this place came a few years later, after the troubles of 1963 and 64.

For several years our world had become very small, and we were mostly confined around the Turkish areas of Nicosia. Eventually the checkpoints began to relax, and we were able to venture out again.

I must have been about 12 or 13 when I first came here without my parents. I remember paying one shilling return for the bus to Kyrenia. Funny the things that stay in your mind after all these years. We still had to pass through several checkpoints along the way.

And this was where I learnt to swim.

I came with my friend Turan/Barzani, who lived in my street and was about the same age as me. He told me he knew how to swim and that if I was drowning, he would save me. And of course I believed him. Why wouldn’t I? So off we went into the water.

Little did I know, he couldn’t really swim either!

Somehow we managed not to drown and eventually I learnt to swim.

Looking back now, what makes me smile is the innocence of it all. The way we believed one another and trusted each other without even questioning it. I suppose that’s what being a child was all about.

Sadly, Turan passed away only about a month ago. So when I look at these photographs now, there is a little sadness mixed in with some very sweet memories.

Looking at those young people in the photographs, smiling in their canoes and enjoying the water, I wonder what their stories were too, and where life eventually took them.

Funny where an old photograph can take you. For me, this one took me straight back to being a 12- or 13-year-old boy, a one-shilling return bus ride to Kyrenia, and an old friend from my street called Turan/Barzani

How many of our Frozen Cypriots remember The Slab? And does anyone else remember catching the bus to Kyrenia for a day at the sea?

Eren’s Photographs: The Slab, Kyrenia, late 1950s and early 1960s. Kyrenia photographic archive, Athena Repository, Cyprus University of Technology.

To see more photos of Cyprus past, click here

To read more reviews and Readers Mail click here