London

When Foteini Georganta first visited London as a teenager, she was met with blank expressions when she asked people, ‘Where’s your country house?’ ‘In Athens, even families with the lowest income have a country house because, until the 1930s, they were shepherds in villages,’ explains the 27-year-old. ‘Everything shuts down in Athens in August. We all go back to the countryside to escape the heat. But when I asked that here, people thought I was very posh,’ she laughs.

Today, she lives (all year round) in Knightsbridge and works as a playwright (after an Edinburgh debut in 2005 she is developing her second play), and writer for Greek glossy magazine Deluxe.

Georganta follows in a long line of Greeks who have migrated to London since the first 100 or so arrived in 1670, fleeing the Ottoman Empire and its persecution of the Greek Orthodox Church.
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The first Greek church in Britain was founded in Soho – hence Greek Street – and over the next 250 years, there was a steady influx of Greek families into Britain. Today there are around 150-180,000 Greek speakers in London, 85 per cent of them Greek-Cypriots.

Many migrants from mainland Greece, ranging from university students to shipping magnates, live around the Bayswater area near the Greek Orthodox Cathedral of St Sophia, which was built on Moscow Road in 1877. Greek-Cypriots settled first in Hackney, Haringey and Enfield, moving out to Palmers Green and Wood Green as the community prospered.

Georganta retains strong links to Greece; whenever she visits home she returns with a ten-kilo tank of olive oil from her family’s olive grove. Her suitcases also bulge with Malmsey wine, Monemvasia wild tea and honey from the Peloponnese islands. Some of these goods can also be found at the Greek delis around Bayswater, such as the Athenian Grocery, though perhaps not as cheaply.

London does have other compensations. ‘Every time I get off the plane, I feel glad to be back in London. Greece is a very small society. You are not expected to have anything private. You belong to your family and then you belong to yourself. Here in the UK you have a tremendous notion of personal space.’

However some things remain the same: the Greek Orthodox Church is very much a part of Greek life here, just as it is in Greece. ‘Our Orthodox churches are very mystical, traditional, beautiful. Services are held in Medieval Greek. I love them because they are noisy and boisterous. People talk and gossip; you see your neighbours,’ she says.