Kibkom North Cyprus Forum

My latest TV boxset binge is The Durrells, the story of the Durrell family that left England to live in Corfu in the 1930’s. Really easy watching and you can relate to it with it being about living on an island in the med.

Anyway, one of the characters is a chap named Lawrence Durrell. It took me until series 3 to google it, but I thought I recognised the name, so checked, and it is the same Lawrence Durrell that lived in Bellapais and wrote the book, Bitter lemons of Cyprus.

Just thought I would mention it.

I was hoping with the series more people would be interested in Bitter Lemons!

unfortunately people who come and visit now don't want quirks of an older house plus easy access which a majority of Bellapais village houses don't have. Internet a must etc

If this was the TV series from the 80's or 90' then I remember it for being beautifully filmed and quite inspiring. I think the British have something in their character that makes them want to escape to small islands! I had only seen Corfu through the holiday adverts for 'fun' resorts, so to see that the island had a lot more to it than that was quite enlightening.

snd1966 wrote:I was hoping with the series more people would be interested in Bitter Lemons!

unfortunately people who come and visit now don't want quirks of an older house plus easy access which a majority of Bellapais village houses don't have. Internet a must etc

I have to be honest, I started to read the book but gave up about half way through as I struggled with the style in which it was written. I might finish it off at some point.

It is a fairly recent tv series, not from the 80’s/90’s. I didn’t realise there was an older version of the show?

The series I was thinking of was a 1987 BBC TV production 'My family and other animals' in 10 episodes, set in Corfu and starred Hannah Gordon and Brian Blessed. I've not seen the latest ITV production.

cyprus2016 wrote:The series I was thinking of was a 1987 BBC TV production 'My family and other animals' in 10 episodes, set in Corfu and starred Hannah Gordon and Brian Blessed. I've not seen the latest ITV production.

I haven’t seen the old series but I am thoroughly enjoying the new one. It’s a shame, but the old series is not available on iTunes, Amazon or YouTube. I wouldn’t have minded watching it.

Trigger wrote:

snd1966 wrote:I was hoping with the series more people would be interested in Bitter Lemons!

unfortunately people who come and visit now don't want quirks of an older house plus easy access which a majority of Bellapais village houses don't have. Internet a must etc

I have to be honest, I started to read the book but gave up about half way through as I struggled with the style in which it was written. I might finish it off at some point.

Trigger, I know exactly what you mean about Bitter Lemons. It was prescribed as a compulsory book to read when I was at school in 1963. It was difficult to read then (particularly the latter more political part) and still difficult when I re-read it a couple of years' ago. At least the second part made a little more sense now that that I have had personal experience of regularly visiting the TRNC and travelling via the RoC.

I found it a riveting read when I read it a few years back. I still have a beaten up old copy of the book.

I'm not a keen reader myself but i bought Gerald Durrel's Corfu Trilogy of books a few years back for Mandy who has now read them. We visited Corfu last year and stayed in Benitses where the Durrels had a house for a while. Loved the TV series, which even with the lovely Keeley Hawes, didn't do the island full justice, but then you have to have something to discover yourself wherever you may go. There was also My Family and Other Animals on TV in 2017, which i assume going by above was a remake.

Also if you are ever in Jersey the wonderful zoo there was founded by Gerald Durrell. He lived in the manor house in the zoo gardens and he was a wonderful raconteur and conservationalist. Studied My Family and Other Animals pre O level. A great book I have read many times since. I have really enjoyed the recent series with Keeley Hawes.
I also struggled with Bitter Lemons, found it very heavy going.