Images from Omirou Antiques Shop, Ypsonas, Limassol
Omirou lives just around the corner from us and has a large antique shop close by. At the moment there is a lot of building work going on above his store. The owner of the building is adding 2 more floors and poor Omirou is getting a bit swamped and hidden.
I thought I would give him a bit of exposure on my site as he is a very good friend of ours!
I also remembered an article a little while ago about a photograph album he discovered in a bureau that came to him from the UK. He wanted to reunite the album with its' owner and a friend of ours interested in geneology managed to track them down when she returned to the UK from her holiday with us in Cyprus. The photographs are now back with the owners and more than 3 generations of the family are linked up again....
The article is reproduced below:
The case of the old photos in the bureau drawer
A SERIES of family photographs dating back five generations are being returned to their rightful owners in the UK after being found locked away in an antique bureau in Cyprus. Kathy Stott was visiting friends in the village of Ypsonas outside Limassol when she was shown the photos by a friend’s husband, who knew the owner of the local antiques store.
Omiros Christodoulou told the Sunday Mail that he ordered a bureau from England a couple of years ago. “A drawer was locked however and it was only four months ago that I found a key to fit the lock. When I opened it, there were five or six photo albums inside. I was upset to think that people were missing out on precious family pictures so instead of throwing them away, I passed them on to Kathy, who showed a keen interest in tracking down the owners.”
Along with Christodoulou, she was baffled as to how they initially got inside the bureau, but she collected them all and took them back to England earlier this month to do a bit of detective work, with the thought that many people these days are interested in researching their family history.
An amateur genealogist, she looked through the pictures in the hope of finding a clue - and there was one: a clipping from the Great Yarmouth Mercury reporting the diamond wedding anniversary of Bertie and Florrie Willis, on Boxing Day, 1982. Speaking from Manchester, Kathy Stott told the Sunday Mail: “As I was going through the albums, I realised it was the same family as the same male face appeared in all the pictures from a baby, to a teenager, to an adult with children.”
She said that she, “really wanted to marry the photos up with the family. I cannot imagine they meant to lose these - family history is so important. Three or four generations later, children and great-grandchildren might want to see these pictures of their relatives.” Through Genes Reunited, a family tree tracing website, she managed to track down, Maurice Willis, the man who appears in most of the photographs who is the grandson of Bertie and Florrie.
“He was absolutely delighted and wants to meet up with me,” she said. After an article appeared in the Great Yarmouth Mercury last Thursday, another happy family member also contacted her, via e-mail. “Please forgive me for contacting you, but I am rather overwhelmed,” it said.
“I am the grand-daughter of Bertie and Florrie Willis, the golden wedding couple in the photo that you found in Cyprus. I could not believe my eyes when I opened the Mercury and immediately rang my mum (Bert and Florrie’s daughter) to go and buy a copy. My daughter Carly is the baby in the photo with Bert on the sofa. My uncle Keith e-mailed me the photos and I have printed them out and taken them around to show my mum. She was so happy to see them.”
Omiros Christodoulou told the Sunday Mail that he ordered a bureau from England a couple of years ago. “A drawer was locked however and it was only four months ago that I found a key to fit the lock. When I opened it, there were five or six photo albums inside. I was upset to think that people were missing out on precious family pictures so instead of throwing them away, I passed them on to Kathy, who showed a keen interest in tracking down the owners.”
Along with Christodoulou, she was baffled as to how they initially got inside the bureau, but she collected them all and took them back to England earlier this month to do a bit of detective work, with the thought that many people these days are interested in researching their family history.
An amateur genealogist, she looked through the pictures in the hope of finding a clue - and there was one: a clipping from the Great Yarmouth Mercury reporting the diamond wedding anniversary of Bertie and Florrie Willis, on Boxing Day, 1982. Speaking from Manchester, Kathy Stott told the Sunday Mail: “As I was going through the albums, I realised it was the same family as the same male face appeared in all the pictures from a baby, to a teenager, to an adult with children.”
She said that she, “really wanted to marry the photos up with the family. I cannot imagine they meant to lose these - family history is so important. Three or four generations later, children and great-grandchildren might want to see these pictures of their relatives.” Through Genes Reunited, a family tree tracing website, she managed to track down, Maurice Willis, the man who appears in most of the photographs who is the grandson of Bertie and Florrie.
“He was absolutely delighted and wants to meet up with me,” she said. After an article appeared in the Great Yarmouth Mercury last Thursday, another happy family member also contacted her, via e-mail. “Please forgive me for contacting you, but I am rather overwhelmed,” it said.
“I am the grand-daughter of Bertie and Florrie Willis, the golden wedding couple in the photo that you found in Cyprus. I could not believe my eyes when I opened the Mercury and immediately rang my mum (Bert and Florrie’s daughter) to go and buy a copy. My daughter Carly is the baby in the photo with Bert on the sofa. My uncle Keith e-mailed me the photos and I have printed them out and taken them around to show my mum. She was so happy to see them.”
By Leo Leonidou, Sunday Cyprus Mail, September 24, 2006
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