New Beginnings

The start to a new academic year always signals new beginnings, even for us adults, I find. Time to map out the next twelve months and hunker down in order to start realising those plans as the days begin to draw in.

For OUR STORIES this hopefully means two consecutive terms of school visits in Brent and other exciting developments to be shared in the near future.

For now, I would like to share a link (click on LINKS in the menu) to: HUNGER TOOK HIM HOME, a short film produced by a colleague and friend of mine, the Hungarian actress Kata Sarbo, who was inspired to turn her grandmother Luca Kallo’s memoirs, into an astonishing piece of cinema. Playing the part of her grandmother as a young woman, Kata narrates the story of Bandi, the boy who would later become her husband, his and her brother’s deportation and that of many of their friends under Nazi occupation of Hungary. It is a moving, yet surprisingly joyous tribute to her family and a funny love story in spite being one that was shaped by tragedy. Take a look.

And last but not least and with a very heavy heart, I want to remember Yiannis Kotrotsis, my daughter’s great grandfather who passed away back in April in Athens at the age of 94. He was the inspiration for this project and the storyteller that I always hope every child might have in their family. He was funny and endearingly naughty at times, full of songs and stories about his life at sea and travels all over the world. His memory and his stories will certainly live on in our hearts and minds. One of those, perhaps the most dramatic one, was immortalised in the very first OUR STORIES book in 2014: