Dr John Malos 1927-1995

From left to right: John Malos, his sister Violet, their mother Mrs Malos, their father Mr Paul Malos, and my father Dimitrios (Jim) Aroney.

The family of Paul Malos, originally from Kythera, resided for many years in Mackay, North QLD. Mr and Mrs Malos and their children John and Violet were our close neighbours; John was five years older than me.

Paul Malos was a very successful restaurateur before and during the years of WWII, owning the Capitol Café in Sydney Street. When the war finished he sold his business and properties and moved to Townsville where lost everything in a business venture. Returning to Mackay he borrowed heavily and converted the Central Café into the large and exquisite Tourist Café. He leased the property from my father. The business was a goldmine but it was Paul Malos’ misfortune to become ill soon after and to die.


Violet Malos's favourite photograph of her brother

His son, John Malos was an exceptionally good scholar who was sent to a prestigious high school in Southern Queensland to complete his secondary education. John gained a Queensland Open Scholarship granted to the top twenty five students in the State – a rare distinction in those days especially for someone from a Greek migrant family.

John gained an engineering degree at the University of Queensland and after that a Ph.D. in physics from the University of Sydney where he lectured for several years.

He joined the Physics Department of Bristol University in England having been offered a tenured lectureship at that university by Nobel Prize winner Professor Powell.

John Malos was well known and highly respected for his outstanding research in the physics of subatomic particles. He held the position of Reader (effectively a research professor) and was a world authority on the subject.

Later on in life he ‘discovered’ Greece and fell in love with Kythera – almost unbelievable - as for most of his life he came across as a dedicated internationalist. Over the years we met many times in Sydney and in Greece. With his wife Ellen he bought an old house near the village of Mylopotamos and was gradually restoring it with the intention of spending much time there and making it available to friends from England and elsewhere.



Type of windfarm envisaged by John Malos for Kythera. This one is owned by PacHydro in Australia

In 1994 when we were last together on Kythera, John had retired from his university position and was pursuing with zeal a plan to harness wind power to generate electricity initially for the Old Peoples’Home at Potamos and ultimately for the whole island. I thought it was a great idea and I talked to my colleagues on the Nicholas Aroney Trust (a charitable body) into helping finance the initial experimental phase, measuring and monitoring wind velocity over a period of almost a year. Unfortunately the whole effort terminated when John died suddenly of a heart attack in June 1995 at the age of 68.

He is remembered as a physicist of international repute, a good friend, and generous in devoting time and effort to helping his fellow man.


John Malos, in later life
Dr John Malos

written by Manuel J Aroney