|
|
 |
| Mike Nicolaidi |
|
Finding skeletons in the ancestral cupboard
Time travel purls for a former New Zealand stringer in search of his own Deucalion and Pyrrha: A second trip to London that extended to Athens and Istanbul shed more light and posed more questions.
Verily, family research is a life's work and can move in mysterious ways. While the Greek side is difficult to unravel – records unkept or lost in the
maelstrom of conflict in Eurasia, pre and immediately post World War I – other blood lines open up. What I do now know is that grandfather Michael Panayoti Nicolaidi was a (relatively legit?) supplier of Turkish opium under contract to the British government during the Great War.
A strong Willoughby strand on my grandmother's side has disclosed Indian blood from the days of the Raj and a most probable great, great, great grandfather, Michael Francklin, an Empire Loyalist during the American War of Independence (1775-83) who led a regiment of volunteer militia from Nova Scotia.
Meanwhile, a book written with film marketing maven Lindsay Shelton is close to publication and I have been 'recycled' as chairman of the board of trustees of the New Zealand film archive (Te Anakura Whitiahua).
Recently established in a new building in central Wellington, the archive has a theatre offering public screenings five nights a week. I first served as chairman 1993-97. Wellington, the nation's capital, is aka Wellywood, home and operational hq of the country's first genuine film mogul Peter Jackson, now absorbed in a remake of King Kong.
All best, from Mike
Nic Wellington, NZ -- Dec 16, 2004 |
|
|
More from this Mugg |
|
|
 |
|
| Mike Nicolaidi – busier than ever at 65 years |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
