The Last Greek Class

Ancient Greek… an unusual subject nowadays, and even unusual back then… it was compulsory, along with Latin for the “Honours” class up to Inter Certificate (Intercert), and optional thereafter for Leaving Certificate (Leavingcert). And I took the option, even though I wasn’t that good with languages; it was reputed to be an “easy honour” and I needed this to get the state grant to help with college. We were to be the last Greek Class in our School as Greek teachers were becoming hard to find.

That turned out to be very lucky for us, as the Past Pupils Union decided to mark the ending of about 100 years of tradition by organizing a trip to Greece so that we could visit the classical sites. The Past Pupils Union would fund the flights, quite a commitment in 1982 although there was only 8 in the class, and the Greek Ministry of Culture, under its new Minister Melina Mercouri was funding the in-country part. This was arranged by a past pupil who was not engaged in trading in Greece and knew the right people…that’s how things happened back then…

The trip was scheduled for the first two weeks in July when all our exams would be finished. At the time, whereas Greece was even then a sun destination, this was still a very exotic trip and, whereas I, or rather my parents, couldn’t really afford it, a subsidized trip of this sort would require just pocket money and a maternal Uncle kindly helped out.

By the way, my name then was James, I was generally called Jim. Keeping on Greek, and Latin was not just to get the college points; I was fascinated by the classical world. As well as the history, there was also the dress. I longed to wear a tunic and quietly bemoaned the standard male attire of slacks, jeans, shirts, jackets and jumpers. Whereas ours was a male only school, as was standard for boarding schools in Ireland at the time, we shared some classes and facilities such as the science lab with the girls’ convent school. Especially in warm weather, I imagined what it would be like to wear a skirt and feel the coolness of the wind around my legs… and I told nobody of such deviant thoughts! Along with the other lads, I would admire a shapely pair of legs in a school uniform skirt rolled up at the waist as the girls were wont to do to get our attention… but I also secretly wanted to wear the skirt myself.

The Leavingcert examination was tough and we were glad to see the end of June and start out on our grand adventure, accompanied by our Greek teacher and a colleague. He taught Latin and sometimes Greek albeit he was never comfortable with the latter. Both were priests and both were “sound” – easy to get on with and always fair in their dealings with the pupils. The flight was on a holiday charter to Athens, seat only, and it would be the same on our return. Back then the passengers were generally fairly well off and well behaved, the only eccentricity being a round of applause that they gave on landing. Although we were now officially finished in the school, we still respected the authority of our two accompanying teachers; we had our school references to consider but more than that, we had an ingrained sense of discipline developed over 5 years in a strict but fair environment. We respected them.

The trip itself was all we had expected; we visited the range of sites in Athens, Corinth, Sparta, even driving to Thermopylae. The site now is very different as deposition has widened the pass which the Greeks defended against the Persians. We watched the Greek guard being changed at the tomb of the unknown soldier; I was disappointed that they were wearing what we would now describe as leggings under their kilts. Greece in July is very warm and, whereas we wore much shorter shorts then than is now the fashion for males, I spent the trip secretly wishing that I could wear a skirt… this was becoming a bit of an obsession with me.

With two days left, we were back in Athens and had some free time to wander around. I wanted to look at the yachts in the marina, the rest of the lads were going for a drink and we would meet up for dinner. I wandered about, looking in awe at some of the super yachts; there were clearly some very wealthy people around, such as we would not normally see in Ireland at the time.

“Impressive; aren’t they?” A man aged about 35 dressed on a white shirt and white slacks had come through the gate from the marina and had obviously spotted my fascination with the spectacle. His English was good, but accented; I guessed Greek.

“Yes; do you own one?”

He smiled at my naivety.

“No. I’m the skipper of that one”, pointing at a large motor yacht with white topsides and a blue hull.

“That sounds like a great job; I’d love the chance to work on one of these, but we don’t have any in Ireland”.

He grinned and went to move off, then stopped, turned and asked, “Have you ever worked in a bar or restaurant?”

“Both. I’d wait on tables during the day and do bar work at night when I’m not at school.”

I was curious as to why he was interested but saw no reason not to answer his questions. In a few minutes he had ascertained that I was now finished school and waiting for a college place, hopefully starting in the first week of October. He was very interested in the fact that I had studied ancient Greek which gave me a limited understanding of modern Greek, and some unusual pronunciation when I tried to speak!

“Would you like to see the boat?”

I still had time… “Thanks, I’d love that”.

We went down the Marina pontoon and climbed on board.

“There’s no guests on board so we can go to the bridge.”

“Guests? Like a hotel?”

“Not quite. The owner rents the boat out when not using it.”

“To who?” My English teacher wouldn’t have been impressed; I was relying on getting an honour in English to get my college place and grant and here I am forgetting my grammar!

“Mostly businessmen trying to impress their colleagues and friends… sometimes honeymooners with wealthy parents…”

We reached the bridge, it was like I had seen before on a Naval Service ship that I had visited (Ireland does not have a Navy, the Naval Service is like a Corps/Arm of the Defence Forces) but much more luxurious.#

“My name is Yiorgas by the way… call me George…everybody does.”

“I’m James…Jim,” I replied.

“Pleased to meet you.”

George picked up a telephone and spoke in Greek after a few seconds. He spoke too quickly for me to follow but I knew that he was talking to a lady called Maria and I picked up the work “koritsi” which I knew meant “girl”.

He showed me around the bridge. The spoked wheel and throttles were together, obviously to be operated by one person who had a very comfortable chair with arm supports. There were some screens… CC tv and Radar George explained… a large compass and an array of impressive looking dials and instruments.

“Port engine, starboard engine, Decca Navigator,” George explained pointing out various groups of instruments.

A woman came onto the bridge, about thirty, probably Greek, small, slim and very beautiful. She was wearing a white -t-shirt and shorts. She looked at me for a moment then spoke to George, sounding a little annoyed… I picked out the word “koritsi” again.

George grinned and answered in Greek, then switched to English.

“Maria, this is Jim. He doesn’t really speak Greek yet. Jim, this is our Purser, Maria.”

“I’m very pleased to meet you Maria” I said. “This ship is really impressive.”

“We say yacht”, she replied with a smile. “Ship is a cargo boat or a liner.”

She looked at George, back at me and again at George and then back at me.

“He said come up to meet the new girl?”” she said.

I had guessed that was what the issue was. My hair was long and well looked after, as was fashionable in 1982. Both my mother and elder sister had insisted that I kept it well and I think they both enjoyed brushing and styling it for me. More questionable were my shaved legs, a legacy of my time with the swimming team, albeit its impact on our times was more psychological than real. Rather than have a major fight with my hairy legs every few months, I had developed the habit of shaving them when I showered.

George grinned again, “Maybe I should have said replacement for our last girl. I wasn’t sure until I spoke to you… Jim speaks English, reads some Greek, has done bar and restaurant work and…”

That was ambiguous but I didn’t look for any clarification.

“Can you swim?” Maria interrupted.

“Yes, I’ve done a lifesaver course.”

“Do you get seasick?”

“I was at sea once on a day out with our Naval Service and I was fine.”

My mind was struggling to take this all in and the questions continued for another few minutes. I felt that I was being interviewed there and then for a dream job that I hadn’t applied for.

“We have a vacancy,” said Maria. “One of our stewardesses has just left to work for our last guests.” She stressed “work”; probably because she didn’t really mean “work”.

“She was due to stay with us for another 6 weeks before going back to college in France. We’ve more guests coming in two days. Would you like the job?”

My head was full.

“You said stewardess?” I heard myself saying.

“Stewardess or steward,” said Maria. “We haven’t had a steward before but I’m sure we can get some sort of uniform to work for you.”

“I’ll wear anything you want,” I said. “I wouldn’t miss this chance for the world.”

“Then we’ll put you in Anna’s uniform,” George interrupted, grinning. Anna, I gathered, was the stewardess who had abandoned her post.

I blushed… “I, I, I didn’t mean…”. Of course I did mean just that!

“Don’t heed him,” Maria said. “Let’s show you the crew cabins.”

As we set off, I notice that she brushed against George who silently patted her rear. I guessed that they were an “item”, not that we would have expressed it like that then.

On the way we talked money. I would be paid the equivalent of twenty five Irish pounds a week, with a one hundred pound bonus if I stayed for the full six weeks, and I would be provided with a flight home. Payment would be in cash, in dollars. This was a man’s wage back at home and would go a long way towards my expenses in college. I was relying on a Government scheme to pay my fees along with a maintenance grant, but this latter was not sufficient to fully fund me and I would need to do night and weekend work to pay my way.

We walked along the deck to a door inside which the ambience changed from unabashed luxury to plain, clean, simple functionality, down a narrow metal stairs with the steps covered in some rubber type substance to a lower deck. The low hum of machinery was noticeable but not intrusive.

The kitchen –galley- was on the left as we reached the bottom of the stairs – companionway – and the crew accommodation was on the right. The crew dined at a raised counter at the near end of the kitchen which could seat 4 and a small hatch at the other end of the galley was used to deliver food to the guest areas on the upper decks. A small, wiry, tough-looking man was cleaning some kitchen equipment.

“Chef, can I introduce you to Jim, our new stewardess – I mean steward,” said Maria.

Chef looked up, nodded and held up two rubber-gloved hands to apologise for not taking my extended hand. Maria moved off, I followed.
“Sorry,” she said, “my English sometimes slips”.

“No problem. Does everyone on board speak English?”

“It’s the working language so we all do… to a greater or lesser degree”.

The crew quarters consisted of 4, very narrow cabins,

“You’ll share this with Lisa,” Maria said, opening a door. “Don’t worry,” she said, looking at my startled expression. “This happened in crew quarters from time to time. You need to get used to it and be considerate!”

“Won’t Lisa mind?”

“Mind what?” A blond girl in her late teens had just arrived at the door. Her accent was English.

“Lisa, this is Jim, our new stewarde…steward,” said Maria. “He’s replacing Anna. He seems nervous about sharing a cabin with you!”

“Hi,” said Lisa. “He’ll get used to it. I was afraid I’d be doing this trip on my own.”

I had just graduated from an all-male boarding school and now I was to share a cabin with a girl of approximately my own age. And she was pretty; how would I manage?

I suddenly remembered… I was to meet the rest of the guys for dinner. I looked at my watch, it was almost time. Maria asked Lisa to drop me off at the restaurant using the crew support car in the marina carpark. I arrived at the restaurant 10 minutes late; the guys were all having a beer outside. The looks on their faces had to be seen to be believed when Lisa stopped the car at the kerb immediately beside the outside tables and I hopped out.

“See you tomorrow,” I called as she pulled away into the traffic.

And I did… albeit after a lot of discussion with our two teachers. Eventually they agreed to take a letter back to Ireland and post it when they got home. I tried to explain to my parents that I had hit on a good, short-term job and that all was well. I’d be back home soon. Apart from going to the UK, and my father’s wartime service with the British Army in Europe in 1945, my parents had no experience of travelling. They would be worried that their 17-year-old son had headed off on his own in a very far off place.

I arrived at the marina and waved from the board walk. One of the crew saw me and came up to the gate to let me in. He had obviously been briefed to expect me. I did not have much kit… luckily as there was no real room to store it. Maria called to the cabin and said that there was no time to buy much in the way of uniforms, but I should try Anna’s shorts which should fit. At the time, both boys and girls wore short shorts; I tried on Anna’s abandoned kit and the shorts fitted. I decided to ignore the fact that they closed the “wrong” way; nobody would notice. Anna’s plain white t-shirts were a bit tight but otherwise OK. Maria explained that they would look to get some shirts before we sailed.

Lisa brought me to the guest cabins to explain the service procedures. As I leaned into the service hatch to take out a pretend tray of food, she suddenly said….

“That won’t do.”

“What did I do wrong?”

“Nothing, but I can see your coloured underwear.”

“And…?”

“Crew dress is all white…. I’ll sort you out later.”

A busy day… Lisa drilled me on the service and George took us both through docking procedure and Man-Overboard-Drills. There were two crewmen who generally handled the deck work as well as relieving George at the helm, but docking stern-to was a bit of a chore requiring both crewmen as well as Lisa and me.

After a long day, Lisa and I joined Greg our Engineer and Jorge, one of our crewmen for dinner. The crew generally ate in split shifts as, when at sea, the boat had to be continuously manned. Greg arrived last, looked at me, then Lisa, and said.

“Hi Lisa, won’t you introduce me to our new stewardess?”

Both Lisa and I laughed.

“He’s our new steward, Jim,” Lisa said.

I stood up, extended my hand and said, “Hi”.

Greg stammered, “S-s-sorry, the hair…”

I grinned, “No Problem,” secretly pleased at his mistake. We all sat down again and resumed chatting. Greg was English, about 40-45, ex Royal Navy. Jorge was in his early 20s and from Spain. His role as a crewman was effectively an apprenticeship as he had completed high school and was now working towards becoming a yacht skipper himself. Our conversation was slow and deliberate as Jorge’s English was difficult.

Chef, and nobody addressed him as anything else, had prepared stifado which was delicious. I was surprised to be given a medium sized glass of red wine.

“Only when moored,” Lisa said. “We never take alcohol when underway.”

I wasn’t really used to wine but decided that I liked this continental approach to dining. Wine was a rarity back home, only drunk on the most special of occasions.

Dinner finished; Lisa brought me back to our cabin.

“You haven’t shared with a girl before?”

“No, I was in an all-male boarding school!”

“It’s not unusual on Yachts,” Lisa said. “We just need to be careful not to cause offence or create problems.”

She explained that if we changed clothes wearing a robe when the other was present and didn’t “crowd each other” we should be fine.
Looking back, these arrangements seem unusual, but that was the way that it was back then. Things have changed now, and different sexes are required to have separate spaces, only sharing on a voluntary basis.

Lisa pointed out Anna’s storage drawers and small hanging space. She started to empty the drawers into a plastic bag, then stopped with a handful of white underwear.

“I’d nearly forgotten, you’d better have these.”

“Huh?”

“Remember I told you today that crew dress is all white? Your blue underwear shows under your shorts. Don’t worry; they’re clean!”

I took the underwear. Lisa looked at some bras and said, “I don’t think these’ll fit me,” and pushed them into the bag.
There were three pairs of white shorts which Lisa gave to me – remember I was already wearing some of Anna’s shorts, and some white short skirts. Lisa picked one up and mused,

“Hmmm, too big for me… here, you try it on!” and she tossed the skirt to me.

“I’m hardly supposed to wear a skirt?” Secretly I was thrilled with the prospect.

“No, No, I’m just curious if it fits.”

It seemed a lame excuse, but I wanted to try the skirt myself so I put on a robe, turned my back, slipped off the shorts…

“And these…”

I pair of white panties appeared over my shoulder: obviously Lisa interpreted the “don’t crowd” rule liberally.

I removed my underwear and stuffed them into one of Anna’s, now my, drawers. I felt uncomfortable about leaving these out with Lisa right beside me. I pulled up the panties and fumbled with the skirt…

“It’s got a zip at the back,” clearly Lisa was watching.

I opened the zip, pulled the skirt on back to front, pulled up the zip, sucked in and twisted the skirt around the correct way. I slipped the robe off, hung it up, and turned around.

“Hmmm, you should wear it working…”

I could see myself in the mirror over Lisa’s shoulder. With my long hair, wearing a girl’s t-shirt and a skirt, I looked like a girl… just lacking the hips and breasts…

Lisa reached over, she was right beside me as the cabin was so small, caught the skirt waist and twisted it a bit…

“That’s better, I think…”

A knock on the door interrupted her.

“Come in” she called before I had a chance to say no.

The door opened and Maria came in with a bag. She looked quizzically at me…

“My fault,” said Lisa, “I asked him to try it on.”

Maria took another look, appeared thoughtful…

“Not bad, don’t dump those skirts! At least I know that my “Formal Attire” buy is suitable.”

“Formal attire?”

Lisa took a hanger from her locker…

“Like this…”

She was holding an off-the-shoulder white dress, the skirt of which was quite short on the left, shoulder, side and much longer on the “off” side.

“Our nod to classical Greece,” Maria said. “We wear these when serving formal dinners, all invented history of course. When I was shopping, I passed a costume shop and got a male equivalent for you.”

She pulled what seemed to be a white dress with some gold embroidery along the hem and at the end of the loose, short sleeves from the bag.

“A costume classical Greek tunic… about as authentic as the outfits we wear. I’m sure the ladies will love it on you.”

Lisa giggled a bit.

“I wonder if he’ll get felt up as much as we do when the old fellows have had a few glasses of wine?”

“No harm for a guy to be on the receiving end for once,” grinned Maria. “I got some t-shirts with our crest embroidered on as your standard uniform top, and some white sneakers” she continued. “It’s about all you’ll need for 6 weeks. Try it all on and anything that doesn’t fit will need to be exchanged first thing tomorrow as our guests are arriving in the afternoon. See you both for first shift breakfast at 6.”

Maria took one more look at me in my skirt and left.

When she was gone, I tried on the t-shirts; they fitted ok. Then I pulled the costume tunic over my head, and down over the skirt. Facing Lisa, I reached under the tunic at the back, undid the shirt zip and slid it down my legs.

“Very neat, turn around.”

I turned fully around and again looked at my reflection in the mirror.

“I like it,” Lisa said, “very sexy.”

“I like it too,” I replied. “Real fake classical Greek.”

We got ready for bed under our robes. I slipped out to the male “heads” (toilet/shower/sink) to wash my teeth. Lisa was back before me, already in the upper bunk. I was making my way into the lower bunk in my robe when Lisa said,

“No pyjamas?”

“No, I didn’t bring any… the nights are very hot.”

With a slight sigh, she hopped down from the bunk wearing a plain short cotton nightie, dug into Anna’s to-be-discarded bag, pulled out some similar nighties and threw them playfully at me.

“’Night sweetie,” she said and hopped easily onto the top bunk, leaving me with a flash of long legs disappearing up into her nightdress.

“’Night Ma,” I said in my best Walton’s accent.

I pulled on one of the nighties, stowed the others, slid into my bunk… I was in heaven!