Brides on board: just just What occurred to your Greek women regarding the Begona?
It really is 60 years since a lot more than 900 brides left their loved ones in Greece for husbands in Australia they’d never ever came across.
Whenever Anastasia Tsiorvas travelled to Australia in 1957, it had been to fulfill her spouse when it comes to very first time.
She ended up being among a lot more than 900 Greek females aboard a ship known as the Begona, and had been cruising through the Port of Athens to satisfy a person she’d opted for to marry just by an image.
“I happened to be a bit uncomfortable, but a lot of girls, they arrive she told SBS News like me.
In the past, wedding by proxy had been a means for Greek males residing in Australia to get spouses of the identical standing and background that is cultural.
Peter Photakis had been a curious boy that is eight-year-old board the Begona together with mom and two brothers. Their mother wasn’t among the ‘brides’, but he’s since invested several years researching the voyage that is historic.
‘They simply would like a coffee and a smoking’: Melbourne’s Greek-Australians unhappy at smoking ban
“there have been three groups, there have been people who had been involved before they left, there were those that married by picture, not to mention the other people who arrived for, kind of, household reasons and discovered their husbands right right here,” he said for the ladies from the ship. Continue reading