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THE
LOTUS EATERS
a series for television
devised by
Michael J. Bird
--Producer: Anthony Read
---
FORMAT AND WRITERS’ NOTES
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“All hands aboard, come clear the beach
And no-one taste the Lotus, or
You lose your hope of home.’
Homer, ‘The Odyssey’.
‘Hateful is the dark blue sky,
Vaulted o’er the dark blue sea.
Death is the end of life; Ah, why
Should life all labour be.
Let as alone. Time driveth onward fast,
And in a little while our lips are dumb.
Let us alone. What is that will last?
All things are taken from us, and become
Portions and parcels of the dreadful past.
Let us alone. What pleasure can we have
To war with evil? Is there any peace
In ever climbing up the climbing wave?
All things have rest, and ripen toward the grave
In silence - ripen, fall and cease;
Give us long rest or death, dark death, or dreamful ease.
Tennyson, ‘The Lotus Eaters’.
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THE LOTUS EATERS
THE LOTUS EATERS is a thirteen part series. The setting is the island of Crete,
principally in and around the small town of Aghios Nikolaos.
Time: the present.
The series is concerned with the lives of a number of people from widely differing
backgrounds but with one thing in common they are all expatriates. Each of them, for
one reason or another has ‘escaped’ to the island. Who are they? Why are they there?
What are they running away from? What new horizon did they run toward? What is
their relationship to their island refuge and to one another? Just how much is their
present shadowed by their past? This is what the series is all about.
Each week THE LOTUS EATERS will tell the story of one or more of these people.
In this way every episode will be complete and self-contained and have all the
elements of a single play but, in addition, the series as a whole, while in no way
designed as a serial, will tell a continuing and developing story - that of ERIK and
ANN SHEPHERD.
The scope of the series is unlimited - drama, comedy, high adventure or tragedy.
However, the stories must always be credible and present a true reflection of the
world and time in which we live. They should be stimulating, thought provoking,
entertaining and, as far as the SHEPHERDS are concerned, they should contain an
element of mystery.
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THE THEME
Escape is the common theme of THE LOTUS EATERS; escape from twentieth
century society and technology, from responsibility, from family, wife, husband or
lover; from taxation, from the law from oneself.
Escape. can be to anywhere so long as it is far enough away. The dream, the universal
symbol of escape, is an island; an island bound by warm blue sea where life is simple
and uncomplicated, where one can start again, find a new beginning and shape a new
course. The dream is to renounce the world and all it’s ills; to throw off convention;
become a painter, a writer or simply to run for cover and find a sun soaked refuge.
These are THE LOTUS EATERS.
BUT FOR MOST THE ISLAND IS AN ILLUSION. THERE IS NO ESCAPE FOR
YOU ARE WHAT YOU ARE AND, RUN AS HARD AND AS FAR AS YOU
CAN, IT’S YOUR SHADOW WHICH RUNS WITH YOU.
Just the same, on almost every island you find them - THE LOTUS EATERS or
others very much like them. They arrive grimly determined to go it alone, to shun like
and kind. But inevitably all but a few are drawn into a group. The group is made up
of many different types, they may not even share a common language but one thing
they do share is a variation of the same dream.
Drop three Englishmen into the middle of the Sahara and pretty soon they’ll form a
club. Thin on the ground and beset by natives they’ll even admit to membership the
odd Frenchman, German or American who stumbles into the oasis.
For aliens in a foreign land the club or group becomes very important, the focal point
of their new lives. The group may seem loosely knit, it demands no entry fee, no
annual subscription but through it and within it it’s membership establishes a new set
of conventions, a new set of rules, a new society. Examine this society closely and it
doesn’t look much different from the one they ran away from or rejected.
THE LOTUS EATERS are a microcosm of the world from which, at times, we all
dream of escaping.
THE LOTUS EATERS are you and me.
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THE SHEPHERDS
The principal link with all the characters in THE LOTUS EATERS is the small, lake
front bar in Aghios Nikolaos run by ERIK and ANN SHEPHERD. This is the focal
point in the life of the expatriates. In the bar they meet on common ground, to drink,
to read the newspapers and magazines from home, to gossip, to bitch, to talk
business, to socialise, to seek favours or a shoulder to cry on.
ERIK and ANN have been on the island for seven years, longer than any of their
customers. They are established and totally accepted in Aghios Nikolaos. They both
speak the language and have influential Cretan friends and useful contacts throughout
the island. To the expatriates they represent a rock to cling to; familiar, friendly faces,
discreet confessors and an essential link with the local people and the authorities. If
you have troubles tell them to ERIK on ANN or both and listen well to their advice.
A bit of smuggling? A good doctor? A discreet arrival? A quick departure? A minor
legal infringement that must be squared? The best fish? A new passport? Mediators
for a quarrel? See the SHEPHERDS. Good news? Bad news? A money transaction?
A family squabble? An affair? Tell the SHEPHERDS and know that it will go no
further.
But what are they really like, this interesting, experienced man in his early forties and
his attractive wife? What lies behind the friendly smile, the sympathetic ear? Why are
they on the island? What brought or forced them there? Is SHEPHERD their real
name? Are they married? Is ERIK really as cold and as unfeeling as he often appears
to be? Wasn’t there some gossip last year about ANN SHEPHERD having an affair
with........? What is their story? Who knows and who among the group really care,
save in moments of idle speculation?
In every episode of THE LOTUS EATERS; in the course of each complete story, we
learn a little more about the SHEPHERDS. They are neither of them easy people to
tag, to categorise but the clues are there as the series progresses. In many instances
these clues will lie in the very nature of the SHEPHERDS’ involvement in the story
which may well reflect some aspect of their past life, either together or separately,
and which will be used as a counterpoint to the central plot and shown in brief,
almost subliminal flashbacks. On other occasions the clues will be in ERIK and
ANN’s attitude toward the dramatic situation or situations around them and their
attitude toward the characters involved and to one another as the situation develops.
In some of the stories the SHEPHERDS should serve as the catalyst for events, in
others as a kind of chorus. But in each they must, as the principal running characters
in the series, play a prominent role. And then, in the last episode, we have their story,
again complete in itself to satisfy the casual viewer but all the more intriguing for
those who have followed the clues in the earlier episodes.
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THE SHEPHERDS’ BACKGROUND
ERIK
ERIK SHEPHERD was born in Ipswich, Suffolk in 1936 when his sister, Elisabeth,
was four and his brother, Alan, was six. The family business which had been
established seventy years earlier was the manufacture of biscuits, and ERIK’s father
was Managing Director of the small, private company which had its bakery and
packing plant in the town.
ERIK was educated at the local grammar school. His brother, Alan, had been killed in
1942 during service with the R.A.F. so that at eighteen ERIK’s father presented him
with a choice, either to go into the business straight away or first go to university and
then join the family firm which he would eventually take over. Neither course
appealed to young ERIK who, it he had been seriously thinking of a career at that
time would have probably chosen something connected with the building or sailing of
boats. Since a very young child he had had a passion for small craft and had spent
most of his spare time and nearly all of his holidays hanging around the boat builders’
yards on the River Orwell. By rejecting the idea of going to university ERIK
successfully put off having to tell his father that he had no intention of going into the
biscuit business. He was called up.
He was eventually commissioned in an infantry regiment and in 1950 he was sent on
active service to Korea. In June 1951 he was taken prisoner and twice attempted to
escape. His defiant attitude in the face of North Korean efforts to brainwash him and
his escape attempts did not endear him to his captors and on two occasions he was
subjected to extreme physical torture. His experiences in Korea and his treatment as a
prisoner left a deep scar.
In 1952, while he was still a prisoner of war, ERIK’S father died.
Released by the North Koreans in August 1953 - two months after the cease fire
agreement had been signed - ERIK returned home to find the family business in a bad
way in the face of rising costs and competition from the giant bakery combines. Very
unwillingly and simply because there was no-one else to do it, ERIK took over the
running of the firm. For three years he did his best to keep the business in the
family’s hands and independent but, having no managerial experience and precious
little interest, the acceptance of a take-over bid was finally the only way out.
Very attractive to women but with no thought or time for marriage during those three
hectic years, he was content to settle for casual and very temporary affairs. And it
was while he was head of the family firm that ERIK first found relief from business
worries and the memories of his time as a prisoner of war in alcohol.
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With his mother financially secure with an annuity from the proceeds of the sale of the
business ERIK went abroad. From 1957 to 1959 he travelled a great deal and tried his
hand at many things, including working as a lorry driver in the Kitimat Mines in British
Columbia, a spell as a merchant seaman and uranium prospecting in Australia. Always
the jobs he chose were physically testing with a touch of danger and among hard living,
hard drinking men.
In September 1959 news that his mother was seriously ill brought him back to England.
She died a few days after his return. When everything was settled up and the family
house sold, ERIK SHEPHERD moved to London where he eventually went into
partnership with an old Army friend in a second-hand car business which together they
ran very successfully but only just inside the law. A gay social life and business
entertaining found ERIK SHEPHERD drinking even more heavily.
A year after going into business with his friend, ERIK met, fell in love with and
embarked on a traumatic and disastrously destructive eight month affair with a married
woman. The affair ended when the woman walked out on him and returned to her
husband. Emotionally shattered ERIK reached for the nearest and most familiar comfort,
a drink. By the end of 1961 he was in the alcoholic ward of a private clinic undergoing a
cure.
It was in the Spring of 1962, after his release from hospital, that he met ANN
CHERNIK. ERIK responded to her interest him but made no attempt to sleep with her.
He quickly became very fond of her but never deluded himself that he was in love with
her. Within three months ERIK had had a relapse, and started drinking again. He ended
up back in hospital. It was ANN Who came to collect him when he was discharged and it
was ANN who now took over. ERIK was in no state of mind or condition to argue with
or question her decisions; he needed her strength and the hand she was offering him.
It was ANN who suggested that they get married and it was ANN who made all the
arrangements. On her suggestion and advice ERIK sold his interest in the second-hand
car business to his partner and bought a small boatyard which had a few craft for hire,
and did repair work at Maldon in Essex.
Everything went well for the first six months. The boatyard did not bring in a great deal
of money but ERIK was doing something he enjoyed and he stayed sober, then the fights
started. At first about little things, then about ERIK wanting them to have children and
ANN’s refusal, then about ERIK’s apparent interest in other women. There were times
when ERIK reached for the bottle again but always ANN managed to check him,
although not without some ugly scenes.
Then in the late summer of 1963 CAROL Sadler came to the boatyard. Fifteen years old,
attractive, gay, provocative, and eager to learn to sail. ERIK agreed to teach her. By the
end of the season Carol was convinced that she was in love with ERIK SHEPHERD and
was spending most of her time at the boatyard.
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ERIK enjoyed having her around and was amused and flattered by her obvious devotion
to him. For the first time in a long while, he no longer felt the need or desire to drink. He.
gave much mere attention to Carol than her sailing lessons warranted but he found her
company refreshing and her enthusiasm infectious.
On 3rd April 1964 Carol Sadler disappeared from her home. Her body was found four
days later in a copse near Burnham-on-Crouch. She had been raped and strangled. In the
face of a public outcry for them to find the murderer, the police could come up with only
one suspect and, although he was innocent of the crime, the only leads they had pointed
to ERIK as the murderer. In May he was arrested and charged. At his trial, however, the
jury found the evidence against him too circumstantial for them to find him guilty
beyond all shadow of doubt. He was acquitted.
But if the jury had not found him guilty there were many in the area and elsewhere who
were convinced he was and very soon the boatyard was without any business. In addition
to innuendo and outright hostility from people he had previously counted as friends,
ERIK had to contend with the realisation that although he hadn’t raped Carol Sadler,
there had been times when he’d had to force himself to remember that she was only a
child and to dismiss any thoughts of making love to her.
Within two days of his release he was drinking again. And it was ANN who stood by
him throughout the investigation and his trial who eventually pulled him back from the
brink of total self-destruction. It was ANN SHEPHERD who decided that they should
sell the boatyard, go abroad and make a fresh start. It was ANN SHEPHERD who chose
Crete.
They arrived in Heraklion in February, 1965.
ANN
ANN SHEPHERD was born Judith Huxley in April 1936, the only child of Charles
Huxley and his wife, Margaret. Her father was an established civil servant and eventually
become senior officer in charge of the communications room at the Foreign Office.
Judith’s childhood and adolescence were unexceptional. She did very well at school and
distinguished herself in languages. In 1954 she took up a place at Cambridge to study for
a degree in modern languages. She impressed her friends and her tutor with her ability,
her self-possession and her maturity.
In December 1956 both her parents were killed when the car her father was driving was
in collision with a lorry on the Al. Judith had no other traceable relatives.
She graduated from university with a first class degree in 1957 and spent the next
fourteen months travelling on the Continent. On her return to England she was
approached and asked to join the British Secret Intelligence Service.
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She thought the proposition over carefully and finally accepted. She was accepted for
training in May 1958. She was then twenty- two years old. In August 1958, according
to the records in Somerset house, Judith Huxley died in Westminster Hospital of
leukaemia.
In 1960, her training completed and with a glowing report from her examiners, Judith
Huxley officially took on the identity of Ann Chernik, born January 1937 in Prague
of an English mother and Josef Chernik, a Czechoslovakian lawyer.
The Cherniks had come to England in 1938 to escape the Nazis and Ann, their only
child, had been brought up in Derbyshire with no memory of her father’s country. In
1946, Josef Chernik, who before the war had been an active member of the
underground Czech Communist Party, decided to return to Prague but his wife
refused to go with him, so he left her and his ten year old daughter in England. After
the successful Communist coup in Czechoslovakia in 1948 Josef Chernik had again
tried to persuade his wife to join him. Again she had refused and when, later that
same year her husband had attempted to gain custody of their child, a British court
ruled in her favour In 1949 Josef Chernik divorced his wife. Before his death from a
heart attack in 1957 he had become a fairly prominent member of some minor Party
Committees.
At the request of SIS, the Special Branch took note of Mrs. Chernik’s activities and
movements and in June 1950 they reported that she had made an application for her
and her daughter to be accepted as immigrants to Australia. Mrs. Chernik’s
application was granted and the Australian security authorities were advised to expect
her and asked by London to keep an eye on her. But neither Mrs. Chernik nor her
daughter arrived in Australia, not alive anyway. During their long sea voyage they
and six other immigrants, together with five of the crew, contracted typhoid. The
Cherniks and three others were dead by the time the ship dropped anchor outside
Sydney harbour. Within an hour of the vessel having been boarded by anxious health
officials, the British Secret Intelligence Service in London had been informed of the
death of Mrs. Chernik and her thirteen-year-old daughter, Ann. The result was that
their deaths were never made public and their passports and all personal papers were
despatched to the Foreign Office. Officially, once the typhoid outbreak had been
contained and the ship and its passengers and crew had been released from
quarantine, the Cherniks entered Australia alive and well. Again, according to official
records, Mrs. Chernik died in Melbourne four years later and three months after her
mother’s death ANN CHERNIK returned to England and settled in London.
Having taken on the identity of ANN CHERNIK and having absorbed every detail of
her life and background, both real and fictional, the agent who had once been Judith
Huxley, was designated a ‘sleeper’.
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It was explained to her that as a sleeper she might remain inactive for a considerable
period of time, ten, twelve or even fifteen years, but that she must always be ready to be
‘activated’, and sent into the field. Meanwhile, her instructions were that, building on her
new persona, she was to establish a continuance of her cover that would withstand any
amount of investigation by a foreign counter-espionage agency. Furthermore, she was to
create for herself a way of life from which she could, quite legitimately, break away at
any time should that be necessary.
For this ANN CHERNIK chose ERIK SHEPHERD.
THEIR LIFE ON THE ISLAND
On Crete ERIK has found himself. He fell in love with the island on first sight. Now he
feels a part of it and he has accepted the Cretan way of life wholeheartedly and made
friendships among the islanders that he values highly. For him Crete is not a refuge, it is
home. And, in a strange way, he recognised this from the very beginning. On Crete he
felt certain that he could find what he’d been looking for and he experienced the
beginnings of a kind of confidence he had never known before. In the face of ANN’s
protests it was he who had insisted that they should take over the bar and, as the years
hay, passed, so his confidence has grown. But he recognises that one slip, two or three
glasses of anything stronger than wine and he’d be an alcoholic again.
He enjoys his life as proprietor of the bar and as master of his own boat and be enjoys the
special position that has evolved on him within the foreign community of Aghios
Nikolaos.
While he does not consider himself to be one of them he looks on the other expatriates
with tolerance and sympathy. He, more than most, can understand why anyone should
feel the need to break away and make a new start. And anyone who is doing just that can
count on his help. However, be is not so sympathetic to those who are just using the
island as a convenient bolt hole to escape from taxation and other minor inconveniences
or to those who are just playing at escaping.
As far as his relationship with ANN is concerned he is reasonably content. Only his own
inadequacies and failing as a husband cause him any real concern. He is aware of
something inside her, some tension that he cannot put a name to and he believes that it is
this unquiet spirit in her which is behind very many of their frequent rows and
disagreements. The only barrier ERIK sees between himself and ANN is the past. He is
made particularly conscious of this when he sees her watching him somewhat
apprehensively when he is behind the bar, when she questions him too closely about his
movements and by her attitude toward KATERINA. For there has always been a
dreadful suspicion in his mind, that, inspite of the way she stood by him, she too doubted
his innocence in the murder of Carol Sadler. So, the more she demands that he get rid of
KATERINA the more he is determined to keep her.
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For ANN Crete has been no escape. She does not share ERIK’s feeling for the island or
its people, neither does she understand them nearly so well as he does. Nor is she
accepted by the people of Aghios Nikolaos or their other Cretan friends in the way that
they accept and respect her husband. Perhaps if she were free, free of the past and the
secret which binds her to it. But she is not. For although as the years have gone by
without any word or sign from the SIS, she finds it increasingly difficult to believe that
she ever joined the Intelligence Service, she nevertheless recognises that a call to activate
her could come at any time. Once she must have looked forward to that day, new she
fears its coming. And she cannot tell ERIK what it is that frightens her without revealing
how she used him and involved hum in the deception.
ANN has watched ERIK change over the past seven years and seeing him grow in
strength and confidence she has come to feel an increasing and, to her inexplicable,
feeling of resentment toward him. Before her eyes an essential facet of her cover is
apparently being destroyed but then, every once in a while, he will do something which
is in character with the old ERIK SHEPHERD, take a woman, put out a hand toward a
bottle. Seeing this one part of her is deeply hurt, while another is relieved that he is living
up to her expectations and yet another cries out at seeing him fall short of his own. In the
time they have been in Aghios Nikolaos she has seen her dominance over him whittled
away by his growing self-confidence. Again the dichotomy, one side of her welcoming
this, the other seeing in it a threat to such an extent that she is often prompted to reassert
her old position by deliberately challenging his confidence.
Her greatest fear is that perhaps he no longer needs her.
Neither ERIK nor ANN really know how much each needs the other. And they won’t
find out until the day DONALD CULLY returns so unexpectedly to Crete and Aghios
Nikolaos.
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OTHER RUNNING CHARACTERS
These characters need only be used when a dramatic situation or a story point
legitimately calls for the introduction of one or more of them, or to support the
continuing thread of the SHEPHERDS story throughout the series.
KATERINA PAPADAKIS A very pretty sixteen year old girl, though she looks
younger. Born and brought up in Aghios Nikolaos, she is employed by the
SHEPHERDS as a general maid-of-all-work in the house and bar. She has been with
thou for just under a year. There is an air of innocent coquettishness about her. She is
conscious of ERIK SHEPHERD’S interest in her and aware of his obvious affection
for her. She accepts this affection as she would from a brother or BR uncle and she is
not above trading on it to offset ANN SHEPHERD’s apparent resentment of her and
sometimes open hostility towards her. KATERINA cannot understand this. She is
polite. She works hard and is reasonably honest. What else does MRS. SHEPHERD
want of her? Why should she have this attitude towards her?
NIKOS SEFAKAS: Forty-years old. The SHEPHERDS’ barman. A thickset, sharp
eyed man with a ready smile and a natural discretion; very popular with the
customers. NIKOS is also a native of Aghios Nikolaos. He is married with three
children. He was a fisherman before he took up the less arduous and more rewarding
job behind the SHEPHERDS’ bar. With his years of experience at sea and his
knowledge of the Cretan coast and of the adjoining islands, he often acts as crew
aboard ERIK SHEPHERD’S boat on the occasions when it is chartered by tourists for
pleasure trips or skin diving expeditions.
DEMETRIOUS MARKOULIS: In his early fifties. A small, neat man, very fastidious
about his appearance. Unmarried. MARKOULIS runs a local travel and tour agency
and provides ERIK SHEPHERD with a great deal of the charter work for his boat. He
is useful in other ways too. For, in matters of business, there are apparently very few
people of use or consequence on Crete or the surrounding islands, or indeed on the
mainland of Greece itself, whom MARKOULIS does net know or know how to
approach through a friend of a friend, He can arrange or supply most things but only
if approached through ERIK for whom he has the highest admiration and genuine
regard.
He has a fierce pride in Crete and everything Cretan and a profound knowledge of the
island’s history and legends. Like all Cretans he loves music, singing and dancing
and his emotions are easily stirred by the gentle notes of a lyre or the rhythm a
bousouki.
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The police and particularly the security police make MARKOULIS nervous for,
under the present regime, his political background is suspect and for five years he
was virtually under house arrest and his passport was taken away from him. For the
past twelve months, though, things have been easier for him. His passport has been
returned to him and he is now more or less free to come and go as he pleases. But he
has not been forgotten by the authorities and he treads delicately and assiduously
avoids drawing too much attention to himself.
ERIK SHEPHERD gets on well with MARKOULIS and considers him a friend.
ANN does not. She distrusts him and she dislikes both his effusive politeness towards
her and his deferential attitude, to ERIK which, in her eyes, falls only just short of
obsequiousness.
CAPTAIN MICHAEL KRASAKIS: KRASAKIS is in his late thirties or early forties
and in charge of the civil police in Aghios Nikolaos. He seldom visits the bar but is
sometimes entertained privately by the SHEPHERDS in their hone. KRASAKIS is a
quietly spoken, shrewd man. He is also a good policeman; as fair and as humane as
the laws allow and, occasionally, his humanity has been known to stretch beyond the
limits they impose. But he is a policeman. He has a job to do and it the need arises he
can be both tough and ruthless.
Contrary to the suspicion that will be deliberately set up in the viewers’ minds that he
is open to bribery, KRASAKIS is net for sale. He uses ERIK SHEPHERD as a point
of contact with the foreign community in Aghios Nlkolaos. If one of them is guilty of
a minor legal infringement then, rather than embarrass or upset then by a direct
approach, KRASAKIS will use ERIK as a go-between and rely on him to get the
matter sorted out. And ERIK is usually successful. In return he can count on
KRASAKIS to return a favour with a favour.
ANN SHEPHERD finds the CAPTAIN attractive, amusing and interesting. ERIK
tends to keep KRASAKIS at arms length. His attitude towards him is one of wary,
watchful and somewhat distant friendship.
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POSSIBLE STORY OUTLINES
These story outlines contain only the central dramatic core of possible themes to
some of the episodes. They are suggestions only. Some of the stories will open in
England and or elsewhere, others will be set entirely on Crete.
1.
A man has left his wife in England and comes to Crete to find what he
considers to be his true fulfilment as a Painter or sculptor. He is a very bad painter or
sculptor. He is living with another women. The play, a comedy, is about the effect on
him and his relationship with his mistress and the group when his wife comes on the
scene to reclaim him in a very original way.
2.
An elderly British couple (he is a retired stockbroker) have come to live on
Crete to escape taxation. Their home in Aghios Nikolaos is a replica of the one they
left behind in Esher in almost every particular. The food they eat comes in hampers
from London and the arrival of the next batch of Coopers marmalade has become
their calendar. They hate the island; they hate the climate; they hate the Cretans and
slowly in their self-imposed exile their hatred has turned inward on each other. A
trivial deception sets off a train of events that ends in tragedy.
3.
A newcomer from the old country is a great event to any colony of exiles.
They are swept into the group, fought over, seduced and entertained with unlimited
hospitality. Until the moment, that is, when they cease to be a novelty any longer and
they become part of the background. This is the story of one such newcomer, only he
is a newcomer with a difference because he has made a profession of it.
4.
A property magnate with a fortune behind him has forsaken the rat race and
settled on Crete with his wife to embrace the simple life, to get back to basics. They
live in an unostentatious villa and seemingly embrace with enthusiasm their new
found freedom from the single minded accumulation of money. Then begin the
nagging doubts which are expressed in the form of “Have we the right to enjoy such
peace of mind, such tranquillity, such beauty when it is denied to so many others.”
When the contented? ex-property king is seen pacing available villa building plots on
his paradise island and talking to locals with land for sale, the group become
concerned. Has he renounced his old way of life or was it never the mere
accumulation of wealth that fascinated him but rather the manipulation of people and
events. Cut off from the jungle in which he was once king does he now intend to
bring the jungle to him?
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5.
A young couple, he is in his early twenties, she in her late teens, are living
together in a disused fisherman’s hut on the seashore. They are true lotus eaters - the
hippies of the group. He is American, disenchanted with the new frontier, the racial
problem and the great American dream. She is English and in revolt. Both have
rebelled against society and opted out to smoke pot and compose songs of protest.
They are very important to the group who see in them, each in a different way, a
justification for their own motives in running away from reality. But when the young
couple become aware of some of the misery around them on the island and begin to
care, the group cast them out.
And so on with stories reflecting the lives and backgrounds of THE LOTUS
EATERS; sometimes humorous, sometimes startling, sometimes tragic. Until:-
13. The story of ERIK and ANN SHEPHERD.
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GENERAL INFORMATION
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THE ISLAND
Crete was the birthplace of the painter, El Greco, and the writer, Nikos Kasantsakis,
who is buried on the highest point of the old Venetian wall which surrounds the
capital, Heraklion. Next to Cyprus, Crete is the largest island in the Mediterranean. It
is 260 kms. long. Its widest point is between Cape Dion and Cape Lithinon (60 kms.)
and its narrowest (12 kms. wide) at the so called Isthmus of Ierapetra. The island is
roughly equidistant from the Greek mainland, the Cyclades, Rhodes and Libya. Crete
has always been a stopping off point for ships sailing to Europe, Asia and Africa.
A high mountain range traverses the island from west to east, in the centre of which is
the massive bulk of Mount Idi with an altitude of 7,982 ft.. Crete offers great scope
for filming with widely contrasting scenery and an interesting variety of architecture
ranging from Cretan peasant village houses through Venetian mansions and Turkish
mosques to the modern skyscrapers of the capital.
The gulfs, bays and capes of Crete all face the Greek mainland. The south coast of the
island consists for the most part of steep cliffs and is harbourless, offering no direct
communications with Africa. At least not officially.
There are several small off-shore islands. The largest, which is also the only one
which is inhabited, is Gavdos.
Crete is connected by air with Athens and by sea with Piraeus. There are two daily
flights from Athens to Heraklion and Chania and vice versa - morning and afternoon.
The flight takes about an hour. By the time location filming begins the new
international airport outside Heraklion, with direct flights to and from most parts of
the world and capable of handling jumbo jets, will be open. There are also daily
connections by air from Piraeus in passenger and ferry boats. The departure from
Piraeus usually takes place in the early evening, between 6-8 p.m., arriving at
Heraklion or Chania at 7-9 a.m. the following morning. The distance between Piraeus
and Hereklion is 175 miles and between Piraeus and Chania 157 miles.
Crete is associated with many myths end legends. According to those the first king of
Crete was Minos, son of Zeus. And local superstition has it that Zeus himself was
born and is buried on the island. Other fabled characters which figure largely in
Cretan mythology are Dadaelus and his son, Icarus, who were imprisoned in the
legendary labyrinth, and the Minotaur.
A considerable amount of archaeological investigation and excavation has been done
on the island which has uncovered, among other treasures, the Minoan Palace of
Knossos. Sacred caves, Roman villa sites, Greek and Roman ruins and monuments to
the Venetian occupation exist in profusion.
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There is no railway en Crete. The only form of public transport are the rickety single
decker buses which connect the towns and villages.
The capital of Crete, Heraklion, was almost totally destroyed in the Second World
War and, now rebuilt, it is an ugly town of little interest. It has a busy port and a
number of industries; factories for processing resin, an olive oil extraction plant,
distilleries, brick kiln and tanneries, which only add to its ugliness. There are a
number of hotels including several newly built to cope with the flood of tourists
which the Greek National Tourist Board is hoping for and for which many Cretan
businessmen are praying. The archaeological gem of the island, the Palace of
Knossos, lies three miles south of the city.
AGHIOS NIKOLAOS
The town of Aghios Nikolaos is approximately 45 miles from Heraklion. It is built on
the coast of the picturesque Gulf of Merabello. Above the town are the remains of the
Venetian Port of Merabello which gave its name to this whole province of Eastern
Crete. Close by there are also ruins from the time of the Turkish occupation.
It is a small town of around 3,860 inhabitants and very attractive. It has a beautiful
harbour and jetty, adjoining which is a lake, which was probably formed by volcanic
action. Local belief is that it was once the mouth of an underground river. The lake is
connected to the outer harbour and the sea by a small canal. It is in the old houses
surrounding this lake that many of the characters in THE LOTUS EATERS will have
their homes. And here is the SHEPHERDS’ Bar with ERIK and ANN’s living
quarters behind and above it.
THE PEOPLE OF CRETE
The Cretans are, by Western European standards, a poor people. The majority of
them are peasants who make their living by farming on a small scale or by fishing.
They have incredible dignity, enormous pride and they are intensely nationalistic. In
parts of Crete little has apparently changed over the centuries and it is here that the
feud and the vendetta are still a way of life.
The Cretans are, as yet, barely affected by the flood of tourism that has so disrupted
and changed the life of the inhabitants of the Spanish, French and Italian islands in
the Mediterranean. But it is not far off. And already a highway is being blasted
through the mountains to carry the coach loads of foreign holidaymakers from one
end of the island to the other.
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The Cretans love music and practically every man on the island can play one or more of
the national instruments, the lyra, the bouzouki and the violin. At night in the cafes there
is a great deal of singing and men will get up from the tables and dance spontaneously
and unselfconsciously express their emotions.
Cretan women are guarded and chaperoned even more closely than they are in Spain.
Any man whistling or ogling a woman in the street is likely to run foul of the temper of
an outraged father, husband, or lover. And the men of Crete are very handy with a knife.
As with all Greeks, just about every man and woman on the island carries a string of
worry beads to be idly toyed with while conducting small talk or transacting business
deals in the open air cafes or tavernas.
GENERAL
There are no telephone boxes on Crete. To make a telephone call outside your own home
or place of business in the towns you would go either to the Post Office, to one of the
small kiosks which sell newspapers, cigarettes and sweets (and there are not many of
these) or to the nearest hotel. In a village, if there is a public telephone at all it would be
in one of the local shops or the taverna.
It is all-figure dialling on Crete. Six figures for every call, the first three representing the
district code, the last three the subscriber’s number.
There are not that many cars outside the capital. They are expensive, to import. What
cars there are, including the taxis, are mostly several years old and the majority of them
are either German or English.
The most popular local drinks are ouzo, retzina, beer and the island’s own ‘eau de vie’, a
potent and fiery spirit called raki.
There are a number of very good, first class hotels outside Heraklion and more and more
are being built.
There are few, if any, nightclubs other than in the capital which boasts of four as well as
a number of ‘intimate’ bars which remain open until the last customer leaves.
Cretan roads range from good to impassable. Except for the central highway which has
yet to be completed, all roads are invariably narrow and winding and traffic is often held
up by passing flocks of goats and sheep.
Many of the older Cretan men still wear the national costume. In the rural areas donkeys
and mules are the main form of transportation and it is a common sight to see husband
and wife mounted on a mule, the husband holding the reins, his wife perched side saddle
behind him.
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