Epic Encounters

When I was very young I lived in a small town called Kyrenia, now part of Turkish Cyprus. We lived there because my father was attached to a CIA listening post that operated under the suitably innocuous title of the Foreign Broadcast Information Service. Kyrenia is most famous for the medieval castle that dominates the harbour where I first remember learning to swim. Apparently, Richard the Lionheart, on his way to the Third Crusade, conquered Cyprus and deposited his young bride, Berengaria, there briefly while he rushed off to besiege Acre.

But it wasn’t the castle which first led me to history. It was the cinema in Nicosia, an hour’s drive away. I saw my first film there in 1956 – The Ten Commandments with Charlton Heston. I’m told that for several years after, in games with my sisters, the Egyptians were always the bad guys.