Sevgul Uludag
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Goksel Kemal, born in 1961 in Kyrenia was the youngest of the five kids in his family. His father Kemal Hasan was quite a well-known fisherman in the Kyrenia harbour, his mother was Asiye. They were one of the oldest Turkish Cypriot families from Kyrenia, their roots going back more than 200 years in Kyrenia…
Since Kemal was a fisherman and they lived one hundred meters close to the sea, little Goksel had learnt to swim at the age of five at `Karakiz`, a beach after the Kyrenia Castle. In those days the street leading to his house was called Lambros Katsonis… He loved the sea and fishing and spent his days at the harbour. Why was this area called `Karakiz`? According to legend, a dark girl had drowned here hence the name `Kara` (`Black`) `Kiz` (`Girl`)… When Goksel was a small child and wanted to go to the `Karakiz` beach his mother would frighten him saying `Maybe the `Karakiz` might take you away!` in order to keep him off the beach!
While Goksel was three years old in 1964, some Greek Cypriots would kidnap the fisherman's boat of his father outside the harbour and had burnt it, making Kemal lose his tool for winning his bread. He had become `unemployed` and would go here and there to find odd jobs to work. Goksel's elder brothers Moral, Hasan and Doghan would build a `periptero` from bamboos and would start selling sandwiches, cokes and kebap there in order to help their unemployed father. Goksel too, from a very early age would go to the beach behind the fort to sell sandwiches and coke to help his family. They continued doing this until 1967… Meanwhile Kemal had started working with a very kind hearted Greek Cypriot in the harbour called Charalambos, going fishing or renting boats. The first Greek words that Goksel would learn would be "Varga gia peripato!` meaning `boat trip` and little Goksel would shout this out loud in order to attract customers.
Having worked hard, the children had saved some money until 1967 and gave this to their father to get a small boat with a one and a half litre horsepower engine… People swimming could actually pass this boat but the family was happy that Kemal was slowly going back to his profession: being a fisherman… This is what he had loved to do…
In 1970, a Greek Cypriot called Sotiri from Karakoumi would build a bigger fishing boat for Kemal and Kemal would sell his small boat to a Greek Cypriot who had a bar at the Kyrenia Harbour. The bar owner would cut the boat in half and put it at his bar…
Goksel's life in the Kyrenia Harbour had begun in 1968… Because he was blond, they used to call him `Sari badadez` (`Yellow potato`) but one day when his father's boat was in front of the Corner Bar, Goksel had slipped and fell into the water – he had had an ice cream cone in his hand, when he came out of the water, the ice cream and the cone was intact so everyone in the harbour started calling him `Pagoto` (`Ice cream`).
I met Goksel Kemal through the Facebook and asked him to kindly write his childhood memories of Kyrenia… Since 1979 he has been living in London but he took Kyrenia in his heart with him, the town he was born in, the town he loves and it is clear from the way he wrote his memories, how much he misses Kyrenia…
Goksel Kemal wrote:
`The best days of my childhood were spent in the harbour, playing hide and seek with Greek Cypriot children, the day the Kyrenia Ship was excavated and brought to the surface, I had been there… Andrew who could not speak properly always had a bucket in his hand, going around the harbour. In the old days of festivities (panairi) I would sit on the stones by the old lantern, watching in excitement to see who would be able to pick up the flag from the masts covered with oil… The owner of the bar who had bought my father's small fishing boat had a son Tony and one day he would slap me without any reason, I would run crying to my father… Or while going home to `Karakiz`, collecting konnara on my way… Or the smell of the soil after the rain – I can still feel that smell…
While staying at `Karakiz`, I would hear the sound of the engine of my father's fishing boat and would run to the harbour to help him… All these things remain in my memory as though it had happened yesterday…
On the 15th of July 1974, my father had just returned from fishing – he was in the harbour and we were going to take the boat out and paint it.
My mother had told me and my brother Doghan that morning around 09.00-10.00 to go together `To help out your father`… And from `Karakiz` we had started walking slowly towards the back of the Kyrenia Castle. As soon as we passed the `Tavshan Tepesi` (`The Rabbit Hill') we heard shots and when we looked we saw a speedboat pulling out of the harbour and some people shooting at the boat from the Castle.
At that moment someone would shout at us:
`Goksel! Doghan! Go back home!`
When we looked at who was shouting we saw our brother Hasan, coming back home from near the hospital. We ran home and did not get out from our house until 19th of July Friday. That morning, my father sent me and my brother Doghan to Nicosia…
On the morning of the 19th of July while I was going to Nicosia with the bus of late uncle Djafer, Husnu Mustafa had got on the same bus wıth us and he had got off at the Boghazi to go up to St. Hilarion. When I would return some weeks later to Kyrenia, I would hear that he had been killed in the war there…
We came back to Kyrenia after two or three weeks.
When I came back to Kyrenia I felt a big emptiness. There were no people on the roads, everywhere was dead still. It was as though everyone had deserted Kyrenia… And when I went down to the harbour, it was the same… A few days after, I would hear from the elderly about who had lost their lives during the war, names of both Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots who had been killed in the war.
They had settled the Greek Cypriots of Kyrenia at the Dome Hotel and during weekends, they would take them out for a walk at the harbour in groups. I had seen the son of a Greek Cypriot called Fani and he had asked me whether I had seen his father Fani. I had heard that his father had been shot but I could not say this to him, I said, `No, I didn't see him…`
I think both Fani and Alex were shot…And I think they are `missing` but I am not hundred per cent sure…
There had been a Greek Cypriot woman called Eleni who had a small market on the way from the courts towards the hospital, on the left. Mrs. Eleni had been a good friend of my late mother Asiye. Fani and Alex were her son and her son-in-law. I am not sure if they are `missing` or not but when my mother had heard that they might be `missing` she would be crying for them…
All of these were like a dream, like an adventure, as though I would wake up suddenly… The harbour was quiet - The children I had played with had suddenly disappeared…
The best days of my childhood before 1974 were over now…
I saw two dead persons in Kyrenia. One of them next to the old 23 Nisan Elementary School and the other one, on the road to the stadium outside a house, buried in the sand…
I settled in England in 1979 and my heart always stayed in Kyrenia…`
14.2.2014
Photo: Goksel Kemal with his father at the Kyrenia harbour in his childhood days...
(*) Article published in POLITIS newspaper on the 23rd of February, 2014 Sunday.
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