History

22 Feb 1930

The Swedish archaeolgoist Alfred Wstholm has his first encounter with George Jeffery

The Swedish archaeologists Alfred Wstholm has his first encounter with George Jeffery:

This work at Vouni has brought me into contact with a highly eccentric person, none less than Cyprus’s chief of antiquities, an old and fantastic eccentric 80 year-old Englishman, who has lived a good part of his life on Cyprus. This peculiar gentleman, himself disdainful toward all and ridiculed by all, who otherwise lives the life of an absolute hermit, together with himself as the only antiquity, has developed a touching and marked love for us young Swedes these last months. He seeks our company himself, and on Sunday he has invited me for tea. On Monday we shall go again to Vouni together. The white-haired gentleman has become completely beguiled with the beauty of Vouni and was a driving force behind the £100. His argument for this, a long piece of writing to the museum council, was as much an ode to the beautiful nature at Vouni as a description of how the palace should be conserved. He hates riding in an automobile, but has nonetheless asked to come along to see Vouni again. You see what witchcraft Vouni exerts upon those who have been there one single time! How would it not be then for those who have been able to live there for a long time!