Platon Ioakimidis was born in 1932 into a Pontian Greek family in Molocha, central Macedonia, and came of age during World War II and the Greek Civil War. After years of menial work, he and his young wife took advantage of Australia’s assisted migrant scheme. In Australia, he settled in Redfern, where he and his wife raised a family of four. After trying his hand at various labouring jobs and small business ventures, Ioakimidis settled on a job fixing poker machines. He was involved in the Pontian Greek community and has been a church chanter.

John Prineas was born in Kythera in 1933, where he completed secondary school. For almost the entirety of his childhood, John’s father was in Australia, where he operated a series of cafes during the interwar and war years. In 1951 John joined him. His first job was working in his father’s café in Griffith. Later he moved to Sydney and worked in an uncle’s café in Randwick, while also working for AWA and taking evening classes in electronics. By the 1960s he had opened his own electronics business in Chester Hill. He also participated in larger business ventures, such as Retravision, became an accountant and served on a number of company boards.

George Hagivassilis was born in Alexandria, Egypt in 1935. After completing his schooling, he worked for the Greek newspaper Tahidromos. Following the Suez crisis in 1956, the Egyptian government nationalised his parents’ printing and stationery business, forcing them to find alternative work. George’s father sent him to Greece to seek employment opportunities. When he was unable to secure work, he and his family migrated to Adelaide where his maternal aunty had lived for forty years. Due to their printing experience, George and his father quickly secured work at the Adelaide Advertiser newspaper. Following an invitation from newspaper publisher Theo Skalkos, in 1969 George moved to Sydney. The pair developed a long-standing professional relationship. During his career, George worked for a number of Greek newspapers, before serving as editor of O Kosmos for more than three decades.

Costa was raised in Rosebery and Maroubra in the 1950s and 1960s. His mother’s family were originally from Kastellorizo. Hence, most of the family’s social time was spent with other Kastellorizians who frequented the Kastellorizian Club in nearby Kingsford. Costa studied law at the University of New South Wales and was one of the founders of the Greek student association Hellsoc. After graduating, he started a legal practice that attracted numerous Greek clients. Over the years, he has dedicated a great deal of time to serving the needs of the Greek associations. He has also worked tirelessly to support the provision of Greek language courses at UNSW.

Eugenia was born in the village of Andania in Messinia, Peloponnese in 1928. She recalls the challenges her family endured under German occupation in the Second World War and the Greek Civil War.  She recalls her experiences as a young girl when she delivered food in a basket during the night, secretly helping villagers in desperate need.She describes her life working as a hairdresser in Athens supporting her family, before making the decision to migrate to Australia to search of a better future.  In Sydney, her hairdressing skills would be utilized immediately along with factory shift work which supported both her family in Greece and her future savings.She would marry soon after arrival by ‘proxenio’ or arranged marriage, and the couple worked hard to buy their first home, renting out rooms to supplement their income.Eugenia and her husband raised three children in Sydney’s inner west and worked several jobs simultaneously to make ends meet: running retail businesses, factory and cleaning shift work.

Nikolaos and Lea came from the northern Peloponnese:  Lea was born in Planitero and Nikolaos in Valmantoura. Nikolaos came to Australia in his late 20s under the migrant assistant scheme, while Lea was sent by her family to join siblings that had migrated earlier. Nikolaos tried several jobs, including working for the national postal service, where he mastered Sydney’s street map and started his own removalist business. Lea worked as a seamstress and then worked in the removalist business after they met and married in 1968. They started a family in Marrickville and then bought an old soldier settler’s house in Earlwood, which he demolished and built a new house.

Evangelia was born in a remote mountain village in Epirus’ Souli region. She worked on the family farm until 1962, when she migrated to Australia. Her fiancé Evangelos followed a year later, and the couple lived in shared housing. After working in several factories, in 1968 Evangelia and her husband purchased a takeaway food business, which they sold in 1974 after winning a lottery. The family stayed in Bexley, and Evangelia worked happily for the State Rail Authority until her retirement.

In 1957, Sophia Haskas arrived in Australia with her mother and three brothers to join their father who had emigrated two years earlier. After studying bookkeeping, she started teaching dance to children at various Greek schools. This eventually led her to establish her own successful dance academy.