Memoirs of the Brightside of the Moon

by Ginger Gilmour

  Sapporo hosted the 1972 Winter Olympics. Therefore, the band decided that they would love to have a go skiing down the slope. David wasn't much of a skier then, but was obviously fearless or perhaps stupid since he decided to have a go. I stayed at the bottom and watched him inch his way as he traversed the Olympic slope while keeping fingers crossed. Their long hair was blowing in the wind and snow, resembling the Beatles from afar. Luckily, they all made it down without injury. I do not believe their insurance company would have favored the lark. But, it was a good boyish laugh.

  When we got back to the UK, they still had to finish Obscured by Clouds, but continued working on Darkside of the Moon. Once the final recording was on vinyl, they took it on tour again.

  CHAPTER 8

  SUMMER IN LINDOS

  1973

  Every morning I awake with such inspiration to continue writing my memoirs. My heart is opening as the moments of Beauty and Love return to me. On this morning I was pondering the time we, most of the band, all went to Lindos, Rhodos, and Greece. David rented a pea green E-type and we set off from London driving across Europe. We stopped to visit his parents first who were having their summer holiday in Ramantuelle, a French village just outside of St. Tropez. I still remember the sounds of the swallows as they flew in between the stone buildings above me. "They never land on the ground,"David told me.

  We slept on a very narrow day bed in each other's arms in their living room. I had to dry my hair in the last of the winds of the mistral from the balcony. Its wind blew away the clouds and dust brought from England. As I sat on the porch, the day held in stillness by the blazing sun upon the countryside, forcing me to close my eyes from its brightness. In that moment, the sounds of civilization were far away, melting into the distance as the song of the cicadas called forth the evening, purging all the inner tensions, leaving room for Beauty and Peace to return. The day became the night allowing Provence to fulfil one's calling to dream within the fragrance of Lavender.

  It was hot and we went to the beach on our first day. We had arrived later than his parents who had saved us a couple of beds and an umbrella. I followed David, with my head hung low under the safety of my hat. I was nervous, as everything was so new to me, the language, the culture, the food, even nature. Then it happened, a very embarrassing moment that clutched at my throat as we walked on to the sand. There on the entire long, long beach almost everyone was naked in one form or another, i.e., topless or even totally without clothes both men and women. I didn't know where to put my eyes.

  My American upbringing about nudity was quite different to this. My mother never even slept without her nightie and I am not sure if my stepfather ever saw her naked either in the light of day. She was Catholic and had very strong views about the sacredness of the body and intimacy. They were so in love, but very private. Fortunately, David kept his swimsuit on, which made it easier to adapt. Europe was beginning to be quite different. Well, at least Saint Tropez was.

  We traveled towards our destination through the mountains of Switzerland. The car was a convertible and with the wind in our hair, we laughed in the sunshine as we drove along. I loved looking at David, his hair, his eyes. Was this really happening? It was as though we had been in Love before, through Life times of togetherness. The landscape was so majestic. It took my breath away. We stopped for little bites of cheese and bread and a glass of wine along the way. I had never had such wonderful wine in my life as I did on this journey.

  We drove onto Brindisi, Italy, where we took a boat to Patras, Greece. I felt a little seasick in our room below from the fumes and the loud churning sound of the engine. Consequently, I had to spend most of the journey up on deck. We left the car in Patras and flew to Rhodes. We arrived in the early evening. The Sun was setting as we walked down the stairs of the airplane. The air was full of the scent of orange blossom mixed with sage, rosemary and thyme traveling on the warmth of the Mediterranean breeze as it tousled our hair.

  I stopped for a moment upon the stairs to allow it to enter and refresh my soul. That night was to be the first journey of many that we were to take down the island of Rhodes to Lindos for we eventually bought a house, actually two. One is in Lindos and the other was further down the island in Pefkas, Lindos, which became home away from home for many years. It was a place where we could relax and safely raise our children on holiday. We taught them how to swim and be free. Now, after nearly forty years, we have become part of the community growing old together.

  That evening we took a taxi from the airport. There was no air conditioning in the cars then, so we opened the windows to feel the breeze. There always seems to be a light orange dust that comes in the windows on our way across the island. The earth is rich in Iron oxide that creates that color. The dust blew across the fields in between the Orange and Lemon Trees, their trunks painted white to keep the bugs at bay.

  It takes just about an hour going through little villages with their taverns. One after another full of lights and bouzouki music with lilos and various printed beach towels hanging from the entrances. Cement houses unfinished with steel rods protruding on the roof tops line the road beckoning the day that the architectural rules change allowing another floor.

  Many tourists come to Rhodes and we did not have an inkling that our holiday would be spent walking through crowds on the way to the beach or to the shops. Lindos is quite a historical village and much of their income is dependent on the tourists now. The village gives over to the tourists after Easter until October. There is a knight's castle and an acropolis on the top of the mountain, an amphitheater and the village is around its perimeter at the bottom. Years later, we would often count the number of tour buses as we were driving to Rhodes to buy what we could not get in the village. Once we counted 45 tour buses coming into Lindos just in the first half hour of the morning.

  We had no idea what adventure lay before us on our first holiday there. Food was scarce and there were very few luxury items. Butter was often rancid and the baker would withhold the bread from the tourists. This primarily was because after World War II there were shortages. The village had not gotten back on their feet so the baker was the guardian of the bread for the locals. In fact, I never knew there was even a butcher until one early morning many years later.

  ***

  I was walking and bouncing one of our babies in my arms at 6:00 a.m. so as not to wake everyone in the house. She just wouldn't settle. As I walked into the center of the village, nearwhat now is Yanni's bar, there was a queue of Greek women in black with scarves on their heads. They were waiting at a little doorway in the corner near the church gate. When I approached, they closed their lines blocking my view. It was a butcher selling meat just inside the doorway, which until now remained closed. Finally, one woman motioned for me to get into the queue. I said, "Thank you, but I have not brought any money with me today." Fresh fish was scarce, as well, but for a different reason. Just after the war the fishermen had taken the easy way out to catch fish, they thought. They decided to use the left overhand grenades. Unfortunately, hand grenades do not discern between young or old. They just kill everything and as a result, when we snorkelled there was not much about worth catching. It took years to restore the ecological balance. So if we wanted fish we had to go to the market in Rhodes, along with the restaurant owners. The same was for any meat, fresh vegetables and fruit except for locally grown produce such as tomatoes, cucumber and lemons. There certainly was not any lettuce for years. Things have gradually changed as they have refrigeration in the grocers and restaurants. Even Coca- Cola and ice cubes have made it.

  As one rounds the last corner just before you get to Lindos from Rhodes, the view still takes my breath away especially at night. The village twinkles with the streetlights through the orange trees and the boats in the bay light up the harbor like Christmas. In the distance, you can hear the cicadas and the rustling of the leaves. Night flowering Jasmine, Orange and Lemon trees create a floating fragrance. The stillness takes one
into another reality of time. Storybooks are written upon such magical beauty, set off by the stars in the sky. The Knights Castle's silhouette is revealed each night by the light of the rising orange moon. And there we were in Love, holding hands, held captive in a timeless moment.

  ***

  A villager and his trusty wheelbarrow sat waiting when we arrived in the square. He was there to take our bags to the house. He was short. His back hunched over from carrying too many heavy loads. His body wrinkled with age, but he still smiled, revealing the loss of his front teeth. "Ela, Ela,"waving his arms, he motioned for us to follow him into the village through the cobbled walkways.

  Greetings in this personal fashion have long gone. A Zundap, a little Greek open back van does the fetching of bags. Lindos had developed such a lucrative tourist business that they just had to find another way. A fleet of zundaps took over. As a result, the streets are no longer cobblestones and are replaced by slabs of stone in places, concrete in others. Walking down the street or making deliveries throughout the village one now has to dodge them.

  During the day there is also serious donkey traffic taking tourists up the mountain to the Knights Castle and the Acropolis. We had to have a strategy to miss the crowds, the zundaps and the donkeys when we entered the village. You use the unworn pathways. You go in and get out. What I do love is greeting the shop owners sitting by their doorways with "Yasso. Kalimera,"as you pass by. Their eyes glisten with friendship and happiness that we have returned.

  Our first summer, we stayed with the Floyd Manager and his Family, (Steve and Linda O'Rourke and their two children Kate and Shanna). They had rented one of my favorite knight houses owned and restored by Sandro and Patrizia Somare. Sandro was an Italian painter from Milan, who worked closely with an Italian architect. Together they restored it from being a derelict donkey stable to its former glory as a knight's residence with an Italian flavor. Many of the older houses built centuries ago were for the knights. Sandro's was one of them. He had created such Beauty especially in his garden.

  To this day, I treasure sitting amongst his orange trees and seeing the powder blue Lobelia catching the last sun rays underneath. Sandro and Patrizia often invited us to dinner over the years. Sandro would sit in the courtyard smoking his pipe as he played his Yukelei. He did not speak English, but we became dear friends beyond language. David often played backgammon there with Christian Mouzon, who took care of Sandro's boat. We, too, became close friends united by the love of the sea, Lindos and Backgammon.

  Sandro's house had a traditional two story stonewall, which surrounded the property and gardens. We entered in through a huge wooden door in the middle to find a wooden dinner table in the courtyard all aglow with candles and a feast. Everyone was there that had arrived in town from England. Gosh, it was out of a fairytale. My only difficulty that night were my platforms. All the roads were narrow walkways on mini-inclines. Our escort with our bags was walking a fair pace. I stumbled on the cobblestones holding onto the walls fearing that I may twist my ankle. I had to find an alternative.

  The next day I bought a pair of the local sandals. With this decision a new self-image was forming. I had to face a model's fear of being too short. Instead of being 5ft 10, I had to live with being only 5ft 6in which was my true height. Back home, I needed the shoes to keep up the illusion that I was taller. This was not all I had to adjust to that was to compound the inner experience. I had no rollers with me either. My world was silently spinning with inner questions of "Who Am I? Will you love me? Will I love me?" Besides letting go of some of my glamour and facing Who I truly was born to be, my London Model agency had asked me not to get a suntan. I needed to stay lily white like a piece of china. Many still remember me in Victorian Lace sitting on the boat under a lace umbrella or in the shade of the trees. This was probably one of the first experiences when I had to accept my true self. David seemed patient with me. He had a silent warmth of understanding as he often held me softly in his embrace. He knew what it was to leave one's culture and enter another. And it wasn't just one. It was many FAST. Between the beauty of the newness and the unknown - my heart and mind were held. Nothing was familiar. Our love carried me. My soul knew the way.

  We had no luxuries like we had in our hotels or at home. Our little bedroom was in the back of the courtyard next to the kitchen. It was hot and stuffy. But it didn't seem to be a problem. Even the hardness of the straw mattress and pillows seemed not to matter, as I recall. In fact, I have stayed there on other occasions since then. I have grown to love the simplicity of Sandro's villa and the cold showers at the end of a day whatever the weather. Their dinky Italian kitchen was just big enough to cook pasta and a cup of espresso for we ate most nights in the square at Mavrikos.

  Some of their other friends had joined us during our holiday. Germaine Greer, David Hockney, Tony Howard and his wife, Nancy, but they stayed with Melissa North-Tchassey in number 24 down the road from us. Melissa had worked with Tony Howard and Steve for many years and is probably the person who inspired them to come there. Another friend, Tony Gorvitch, stayed with us for some of the time in Sandro's villa. He was another Rock 'n' Roll manager. I entered that summer, an entirely different world than Middle America. I listened. I observed. I went with the adventure. I smiled, I laughed, I cried. I trusted my life. I felt inside, the experiences were destined to be.

  Numbers identified most of the village houses then. We spent a lot of time with Melissa at number 24. She became one of my closest and dearest friends along with her sister Mary and Tchaik, her husband. We shared our pregnancies and early motherhood as we often would meet at their London flat in Paddington when we got home. Their parties opened another world of the English culture for me. When we got pregnant, I was first. So by the time Melissa was carrying, I could share my new found knowledge regarding childbearing. Our children grew up together. We were like family. Alice and Dixie were like cousins. Then there came more. As they grew older, taking them all to Lindos was like rent a crowd.

  That summer was just full of new things to adapt to. On my first visit to number 24, I was caught again by surprise for everyone was sunbathing topless. What was even more difficult as I said before was when some of the lads were starkers. David seemed to be used to this and never participated. Nevertheless, it took me some years to feel comfortable. I must admit it was a good way to lose the white sunbathing lines.

  Lindos had many artists staying there either renting or owned houses they were restoring. In the early days before tourism took over the village women were known for throwing rocks from on top of the cliff onto nude sunbathers below in Saint Paul's bay. I didn't realize how disrespectful and difficult that must have been for them at the time. I was in my own process of adjusting to this behavior and my sensitivity for another culture did not develop for a while.

  What was interesting was many of the local Greek women were frightened to enter the water. This was considered a bad omen. But things have changed now because on Sunday the Greek families go down to the beach, picnic and all. Our western habits have taken over. All the beaches covered with umbrellas and topless women are no longer felt sacrilegious. Water skiing, banana rides and horns announcing the boat trips break the silence of the mountains reflection upon the water shimmering in the sun. Tourism has become their principle livelihood.

  Many other Italian families besides the Somares came before us Brits. They have such grace in the way they restored the homes they bought. Honoring the past, the villagers brought in the wonderful beauty for creating gardens that their culture is renowned. Their plants, their choice of local crockery and fabrics, using the community craftsmen, melting two cultures in harmony is a noticeable quality. One from which I drew inspiration when we were restoring our homes. Most of all, it was their simplicity that awakened a passion that would later lead me to discover the deeper purpose of life and the role that Beauty plays.

  During our first visit to Lindos, we went water skiing in Saint Paul's bay with Toralis who wa
s the first to have a speedboat and gave skiing lessons. I will never forget my first lesson. David and Steve instructed me how to sit in the water, arms straight and let the boat pull you up. OMG! I got up but as we went around the Bay, I lost it. In fact, I almost lost my bathing suit. I had bought my first bikini from Biba's in London. It was chocolate brown cotton, skimpy and easy to lose it seems. I held on tight bouncing on the waves.

  Toralis drove the boat faster and faster around the edge of the bay. He loved to show off for the girls in his speedboat, but, unfortunately, I fell. I held onto the rope for dear life, not realizing that I should let go for I was concentrating more somewhere else. I could feel my bikini bottom coming down my legs. I was so shy and panicked, especially as there were lots of men in the boat watching. I kept widening my legs for fear of losing them. I looked up barely seeing through my wet hair that kept splashing into my eyes to notice that all eyes were on me. I could barely understand why they were waving their arms when I finally heard them. David and Steve were shouting, "Let go of the rope! Let go of the rope!" So I let go of the rope. Ahh, that helped. The drama was nearly over. There I was treading water in the middle of the bay trying to regain my composure holding onto my bikini bottom. My rescuers arrived smiling. Really, I think they had quite a chuckle. Climbing up the ladder was quite a challenge. How does one get up the ladder holding onto my rather stretched bikini as the elastic had stretched, swish one's hair into an acceptable model's image, while the boat was bobbing up and down? PHEW! I did it with modesty and pride intact. What a day upon the water.

  Most of the time we ate at Mavrikos, our favorite restaurant in the square. Demetri and Michaelis ran the restaurant more and more as their dad, Basili, entered his eldership, who held the helm in the corner. They had fresh fish and other traditional Greek delights. The local wine has improved, but drinking it then gave us horrible headaches. Primarily because it was made from chemicals and not aged like a good French wine. Champagne was the only thing we could tolerate to drink. Some preferred drinking the Retzina or the Ouzo but for me it was like drinking petrol.