Lady Foot’s Story Of Her Life in Cyprus

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29220, 2 June 1960, Page 2

Lady Foot’s Story Of Her Life in Cyprus

(By SUSAN VAUGHAN)

Three years ago, Lady Foot arrived in Cyprus eager to tour the island informally and meet as many ordinary people as possible—-Cypriots, Greeks

and Turks alike. She wanted to shop in the local markets and plan regular parties and receptions at Government House. Instead, as the wife of the new Governor of Cyprus, Sir Hugh Foot, she became one of the loneliest women In the world, living behind barbed wire with trenches, sandbags, machine - guns, tin * hatted troops and Alsatian guard dogs separating her from the outside world.

She could not Visit the shops. She could not walk unguarded even in her own garden. Nor could she employ ordinary servants. One of the last civilian servants had left a bomb under the bed of former Governor, Sir John Harding, and now the army staffed her palatial home. They were dull, frustrating days for Lady Foot, but there was one profitable result. It gave her time to work on her first book, which she has now completed. It is the story of her experiences in Cyprus—not a chronicle of the anti-terrorist campaign, but a warm account of life at Government House and of her household which she kept so gay and cheerful during the troubles. When I met Lady Foot before she went to Cyprus, she was “terribly apprehensive” about the future, and sad at leaving Jamaica where her husband had been governor for 10 years.

She already knew Cyprus well since her husband was Colonial Secretary, and for a time ActingGovernor, on the island during the war. But her return to the terror-ridden island meant separation from her children. Her sons, Benjamin, aged 10, and Oliver, 13, had to remain at school in England, while her eldest boy, Paul, was studying at Oxford. Only her 21-year-old daughter, Sarah, could join them in Cyprus. “Murder Mlle” Soon after their arrival the terrorists became more active. The shopping centre she had hoped to visit was labelled “Murder Mile.” Parties were cancelled, including a Queen’s Birthday reception for 2000 guests. “If I went out it only made extra trouble for so many other people,’’recalled Lady Foot. “So I bought my clothes by mail order and sometimes had my hair done by an army barber.” Even at the height of EOKA activity, one part of her routine remained unchanged. Lady Foot always insisted on going to church as usual every Sunday. At Government House, she found many activities to pass the time. She took charge of the spacious gardens and planted new flowers brought over from Jamaica. She prepared a cricket pitch for her sons to use in the school holidays. She swam in her tiny, blue-tiled pool, played tennis and did a great deal of knitting and embroidery. Trouble-apota Lady Foot always believed that her husband was the one man who could solve the political problems of the island, for she had seen him work in other trouble-spots—in Palestine, where he had a narrow escape from an ambush; in Nigeria, where an Arab tried to stab him to death. The Foots hated the colour bar and official pompousness and when they moved to Jamaica they won the hearts of the people with their informal ways and direct approach to their problems. Lady Foot, formerly Florence Sylvia Tod, a beautiful, darkhaired woman, half Scots, half Italian, married Sir Hugh Foot in 1936. “But when he’s cross I leave him alone,” she said. “When he’s anxious about something he talks to me. And when he asks my opinion, then I know he’s already made up his mind.” Now Lady Foot is happy about the future. She loves life on the island now she is able to mix freely with the people and entertain as often as she likes. The barbed wire has been rolled away and only one solitary guard stands at the front door to Government House.