Page 28 - Chiron Autumn/Winter 2023

Sgt Trev Harvey, Ex RAVC, Greece
Chris Ham asked me to write another article for Chiron Calling, which was quite
surprising as I can’t remember writing one before, but apparently, I did, in around 1982/3. I did not want to appear a doddery older person that repeats himself and as I cannot remember writing it. I have decided to write a little about life after the army and tell you all how we came to live on the beautiful island of Zakynthos.
Having had a very enjoyable but quite an eventful tour in Cyprus 82/84, Bette and I always knew we retire in the sunshine. It was always our aim to retire early enough
to enjoy the autumn of our lives without the use of Zimmer frames and other medical aids. In realistic terms, we felt we were on track to achieve our aim by my 55th birthday.
However, by a stroke of luck and considerable hard work, together with two others we took over a
very successful Civil Enforcement Agency and Detective Agency, which went on to become the largest in Lancashire. Our company went on to merge with a similar company in the South of England and traded nationwide. As a director and shareholder, my share of the company then had sufficient value for us to bring our plans forward by 5 years.
I had also purchased an insolvent Auctioneering Company which I sold to Bette for £1. Bette traded the company out of its insolvency and went on to merge with another Auction House in the Preston area.
The question of whether to continue working for that further
5 years or bring our plans forward was an easy one for me to answer. A few years earlier I had contracted meningitis, Bette was away visiting our daughter here on Zakynthos, and I was home alone, what could possibly go wrong? My advice to everyone now is to grab every opportunity that comes along and live each day as if it is your last.
So, fortune favouring the bold,
I retired on my 50th birthday, we sold our shareholdings, our house, and our car and prepared ourselves for our next big adventure. We had flown out to Zakynthos a few weeks earlier and made arrangements to purchase a house. All there was left to do was get ourselves there.
In the Army, you condition yourself to travel light. Never really accumulating possessions that
you would inevitably have to pack up every 2 years to move to a new posting. No such restrictions exist when you leave the service and there is a tendency to accumulate possessions much like a child would sweets in a sweet shop. This was, of course, compounded in our case as Bette was a part owner of an auction house, hardly a sale day went by without one of us buying some little treasure (some not so little).
The thought of parting with all of our possessions and starting again in a foreign country was all too much. So, in the typical gung-ho style that had served us so well during the previous 27 years of marriage, we decided we would just have to take it all with us.
We purchased a short- wheelbase Land Rover Defender with a full-size roof
rack and an enormous four-wheel brake-back trailer the same width as the Land Rover and 19ft. long.
We loaded up the entire contents of our cottage (having marched out of many married quarters Bette insisted that she vacuum the carpets again before we left. You can take the girl out of the Army, but you can’t take the Army out of the girl). It was like a giant three-dimensional jigsaw puzzle. Try as we might there was just not room for Bette’s Dyson (I remain unforgiven).
The Land Rover contained camping equipment and changes
of clothes for the journey. With
all our worldly goods packed into something on wheels, I did not fancy the idea of leaving it in some hotel car park as we journeyed through Europe.
Cyprus had been a consideration for our retirement, but during
my tour there I had worked with
all 5 contingents of UNFICYP and with the UNFICYP Military Police. During this time, I had been privy to much of the dialogue in the “Locksmith” talks. It was obvious from this that there was always going to be political instability on the island during my lifetime. We did visit a couple of times over the years and each time were saddened by the seemingly uncontrolled development.
Why Zakynthos when there are 227 inhabited Greek islands? (Over 6,000 altogether). That’s simple our
26 / Chiron Calling