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Speaker Profile Προφίλ ηχείου
Miranda Hatziplis
A person sitting on a chair with their arms in their lap

Speaker background

Method of transport: Business owner, event manager, translator

Miranda Hatziplis was born in Sydney in 1963. She and her two sisters were educated at Kincoppal School—at the time, the only students from a Greek background enrolled in the school. In 1974, Miranda was sent to Athens to study at an American college for four years, before returning to Sydney to attend university. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, her parents operated delicatessens and ‘Ta Salona,’ a popular Greek nightclub in Newtown. Later, her family managed the ‘Westside Lounge’ in Marrickville, a popular wedding venue for children of early Greek migrants.

Location in AustraliaBellevue Hill

Interview summary

Miranda shares memories of family life and her parents’ heavy work schedule. She pays tribute to their work ethic, business acumen and status in the Greek community. Miranda refers to her mother as a role model, describing her influence, both personally and professionally. She also details her long involvement with the Greek Young Matrons Association (GYMA), its history and role in the community.

Interview highlights

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Miranda discusses her mother’s migration to Sydney to join her father and other family members.

Miranda: So, when my mother got married, my parents got married in 1960, two of her sisters had come, but her mother wasn’t here, and neither was the younger two siblings. They hadn’t come yet; they came later. The two sisters came a bit after. I’m not sure when they came. But she was here working with her father. She was very close to her father, but she was very industrious from then. Her uncle had a cafe in Penrith, and she worked there, and my Dad would tell us, she’d say, ‘Yes Please.’ She hardly knew the language and she was very communicative, very sociable, really business minded. She ran it really well, and my Dad was impressed by that, by the way. Mum was impressed by the fact my Dad was running around so hard. She thought he must have ten kids.

Interviewer: Your Dad was actually working at the café?

Miranda: No, no. He would come to the café. He was friends with my grandfather. So, my father’s twelve years older than my mother. So, he really liked her, and, as I said, they were very good friends, and I guess he decided that she was a good, perfect match for him.

Interviewer: Did your mother need much convincing?

Miranda: No, I think she really liked him. He had a motorbike.

Timecode 10:29 - 11:42
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Miranda describes her father’s popularity within Sydney’s Greek community and how he became a Godfather to countless children.

Miranda: People would come up to him and say, ‘Can you baptise my kid?’ They had so many koumbaros. It went over the thirty mark … and he wouldn’t remember what he named the kid. So, the kid would come up and go ‘nonno, nonno,’ and he couldn’t remember the kid. So, he’d ask the kid what name he had given them, and they’d say ‘Yiorgo,’ and he’d say ‘Bravo Yiorgo.’ How else is he going to get the name? 

Interviewer: So, he had become a sort of celebrity would you say within the community? Everybody knew him through the businesses.

Miranda: Yes, he was very well connected, and throughout his life one of my memories of him—and he’s still in life, of course—is that people would come and ask for advice all the time. He was always very helpful, his door was always open, and he would be constantly advising, connecting people with the banks, you know. Anything he could do, he did. So, they were very much that way, but they worked very hard.

Timecode 17:35 - 18:22

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