Greece 1973 - STEVEN R. TABOR

Greece 1973
the slides of A.J. de Lorm

Do you want to hear a story?

"Happy is the man, I thought, who, before dying, has the good fortune to sail the Aegean sea."
--Nikos Kazantzakis, Zorba the Greek

In the summer of 2020, my wife shared with me several boxes of slides that my father-in-law A.J. de Lorm (Bram) had made in the 1970s. Among these were a series of slides that he made while on holiday with his wife Liesje in Greece in 1973.

In 1972, Bram and Liesje had been married for 25 years. Their friends and children collected funds for them to finance a special anniversary holiday. The night before the big anniversary surprise party, the children sent their parents to stay overnight at a local hotel, while they decorated the house to look like the Greek islands. The hallway of their house in Arnhem was covered in large sheets of paper painted with scenes from the Odysseus; a lounge area with Greek music was setup on the upstairs floor; and a Greek barbecue was setup in the garden. At their 25th Anniversary Party, Bram and Liesje were presented with the funds that had been collected to pay for their holiday in Greece. It was a big surprise and a dream-come-true for Bram and Liesje.

In 1973, Bram and Liesje headed off to Greece. They visited Athens and then took a boat to Amorgos, the easternmost island of the Cyclades island group. When they returned from Greece, Bram made a slide show to share with their children, neighbors and friends in Arnhem. What is remarkable about these slides is not necessarily their subject or composition----they are largely routine tourist images---but for how much Greece has changed between the 1970s and now, and for how much pleasure this voyage brought Bram and Liesje. The images included in this series are presented in much the same order as Bram had intended.

If you'd like to see the full series, download the PDF catalogue here.