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Diaspora Social Life

Photos > Diaspora Social Life > George Divas, head of the sole Greek family left in Gilgandra. 2004.

Photos > Diaspora Social Life

submitted by George Poulos on 10.03.2005

George Divas, head of the sole Greek family left in Gilgandra. 2004.

George Divas, head of the sole Greek family left in Gilgandra. 2004.
Copyright (0000) George C Poulos

Standing in front of a very well kept olive tree. (George is a master "olive maker".)
He purchased from Tommy Colbrin the caravan park on the Coonamble Road.

In another entry about the Monterey Cafe in Gilgandra, I revealed that "...I was born in Gilgandra, in 1952, and left after completing my schooling in 1969.

From the beginning of WWII, until mid-1975 - Gilgandra, population, 2,900 - was a very Kytherian town.

5 families - the Pentes, Sklavos, Kelly (Yiannakellis), (wife Chris, a Yeoryopoulos, from Potamos), Psaltis (Protopsaltis), and Poulos (Tzortzopoulos) - lived in close proximity to each other - culturally, residentially, and commercially.

In the main, Kytherians embraced Kytherians - Gilgandra embraced Kytherians - and Kytherians embraced Gilgandra".

During the middle of the year 2004, I took my father, now 88 years old, on a nostalgia tour, back to Gilgandra, and through other towns in the Central and North West of New South Wales.

Not a single person of Kytherian origin now lives in Gilgandra.

I found of course, all the buildings, where the Kytherians had conducted their businesses; but all of these - with the exception of the Gilgandra Fruit Shop (my father's old shop), had substantially changed their usage.

George Divas's family was the only Greek family left in Gilgandra, and he told me that he was contemplating leaving in the next few years.

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