In 1949 I left the Cyprus Regiment and the Royal Army Service Corps to which I was attached in order to return to the Civil Service and a new appointment with the newly created Cyprus Tourist Development Office . Officially I was the "Hotels Inspector" ; in practice I was a Jack-of-all-trades and when the need for photographs arose for brochures , calendars , illustrations of travel features and advertising in general , photography became my concern . The Tourist Development Office had a tiny staff and a minute budget and as a result it relied heavily on the free publicity we could get from journalists whom we guided around the island showing them what the country had to offer to the discerning visitor . It was thus that I had a marvellous opportunity to travel extensively and get to know and photograph Cyprus in all seasons .

Through some lucky coincidences a number of my photographs were exhibited in Nicosia and this led eventually to the publication of my first book under the title Cyprus in Picture . The instant success of that picture-book encouraged me to produce Portrait of Cyprus . This was also sold out , but by then Cyprus was in turbulent times and the Tourist Development Office came under the Director of Public Information who was none other than the late famous poet/writer Lawrence Durrell . There was then not much scope for tourist development but fortunately for me there was a great demand by visiting journalists for background material and guided tours . This offered me more opportunities for trvelling all over the island . My connection with photography led to a course in cine-filming and when eventually Cyprus was to have an experimental television station I was appointed Head of Films , Cyprus Broadcasting Service , which again involved extensive travelling to places of interest across the island .

In 1959 I left Cyprus en famille and moved to London where I took up an appointment in Film Operations with the British Broadcasting Corporation . Although my duties with the B.B.C. were in no way connected with Cyprus my production colleagues knew of my links with the island and on a number of occasions I was asked to accompany production teams and act as a guide in location hunting . A number of visits to Cyprus on holiday complete the record of how I came to accumulate the great number of pictures from which a selection appears in this book .

A very busy life , a growing family , the pressures of living and working in London together with an interest in a number of new activities had prevented me from doing anything further with great quantity of photographs I had amassed . I was putting off the difficult task of sorting out al the colour slides until one day , at a book fair in Hampstead , I spotted H.V. Morton's In the steps of St. Paul and bought it for a few pence .'In the Steps of St. Paul ' was the title of the first little documentary film I made for Cyprus Television . Reading again the chapter that dealt with Cyprus brought back nostalgic images and memories . I looked for slides of the monastery of St. Barnabas , of Salamis , of Paphos ...I soon realized how the passage of time had made the pictures I was looking at more interesting , for Cyprus has , in the last forty years , experienced rapid and almost unbelievable changes .

I read : ' Entering the city , I looked round in amazement , for Famagusta is today very much as it was when the Turkish guns ceased fire in 1571 ... The reason why Famagusta had been spared , and remains more or less as it was over three and a half centuries ago , is because after the siege the Turks swore that no Christians should ever again live there ... It seems to me strange and unfortunate that so many well-educated , middle-class Cypriots speak atrocious English ... when you get into lonely parts of the island it is often difficult to find a person who can speak one English word , although the Union Jack has been flying over Cyprus for nearly sixty years...' And I wondered what Morton would say if he were to see Famagusta now and realize how many of the sons of those Greeks who spoke atrocious English or could not utter a word in English now hold doctorates from English universities .

I found myself unconsciously trying to illustrate what Morton saw . I felt that I ought to do something with all the irreplaceable pictures I had , and fairly soon ; otherwise they might be lost for ever . I spent hours viewing hundreds of colour slides . I begun to feel like a child putting together a large jigsaw puzzle who realizes that only a few pieces remain to complete the picture and that the places where they fit are beginning to be obvious . To my amazement I could remember where every photograph belonged and from what journey it had resulted .

In the preface of my book Cyprus in Picture I wrote that I was more than anyone conscious of the vast number of pictures I should include in order to claim that I had , even to a small degree , covered Cyprus . I also said that perhaps I would one day publish a second volume to fill many gaps . That picture book contained 176 photographs in monochrome . It was followed by Portrait of Cyprus with some 131 photographs . This collection contains 478 photographs in colour , yet one look at the map of Cyprus compels me to make the same apology . I still feel quite energetic and keen on photography and who knows , I may still produce another volume . What is certain , however , is that I shall not be able to photograph many of the old people , the old streets , the old houses , the old way of life such as I knew them when I was young and time seemed to move more slowly .

I was exceptionally lucky that in April of 1974 I spent a holiday in Cyprus and revisited Kyrenia and the Northern Range from Vasilia to Kantara as well as the Karpas peninsula to Cape Andreas and the monastery of Apostolos Andreas . Eighteen years now of prohibition to visit some of my favourite haunts is something that distresses me every time I visit my country . Like many of my compatriots who live abroad I find the arbitrary and unnatural division of our island absurd and unbearable . I hope that it will not be long before we can all enjoy every part of the island without restrictions of any kind .

Visitors to the island who might be tempted to use this book as a rough guide of where to go and what to see must bear in mind that the photographs were taken at different times of the year and that the landscape varies tremendously depending on the season .