- silence

- I remember that when we arrived in Marseille, he said, “Well, here, I’m good, France is my country.”

- My father came from the Symi Island and my mother from the town of Kalymnos.

- So they came with their family to Marseille, my father was 15 and my mother was surely not much older, and they didn’t know each other.

- But there was her and he, and they got married.

- When you left your island and that you arrived in Marseille, which memories do you keep from the arrival in Marseille?

- In Marseille, not for long, we first moved to Rousset,

- there was the aluminium American factory.

- It was quite big.

- I can remember we didn’t talk much about Greece and about my parents’origins.

- .

- We left, we arrived in Gardanne. They were hired into the mines.

- In Gardanne, my father didn’t like the town, he wasn’t used to it, and neither was my uncle, they were sailors.

- Did they fish sponges?

- Yes, they fished sponges.

- .

- I can remember the outings on Sunday when we used to go to the Orthodox church,

- we were about 10 by the time, and as the Orthodox mass was very long,

- and that we started puffing a bit, my father allowed us to go out to have some fun.

- silence

- It is a good thing that the tape exists as we didn’t ask much.

- So my father used to talk very little about Greece, and when we asked him about his village, he only said that it was very steep.

- My parents never returned to Greece, my father wasn’t really keen on it and I think that mom would have wished to.

- .

- We want to get back to his island, to see his street, his house, well aware that we don’t know what we will find.

- Annette never knew the precise date of her parents’ arrival in Marseille. The Caliaros family moved to St Zacharie in 1956, Annette was 15.

- After living for a year in a mill, the mayor granted them a spot in the workers’ housing estate. Annette plans a trip to Greece for the first time in spring 2013.