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An older person wearing a cardigan
Speaker Profile Προφίλ ηχείου
Panagiota Banbas
| Language: Greek
An older person wearing a cardigan

Speaker background

Occupation: scripture and Greek teacherYear of arrival: 1956

Panagiota was born in 1929 in the village of Kakourio (now Artemisio) in the region of Arkadia in a farming family of six children. She worked at a military hospital for over three years. Here, she met the man that would become her future husband. After a period corresponding by letters, in 1956, she migrated to Australia to join him. In Sydney, the couple first lived in Waterloo, before settling in Marrickville with their three children. She taught scripture and then Greek in the area for many years.

Location in AustraliaMarrickville

Interview summary

Panagiota begins by recalling life in the village during the Second World War, the poverty, and how her family managed to secure food. She talks about her schooling in Greece and her first job at a military hospital. She describes her journey on the Tasmania, and getting married to her husband, Nick, a few months after her arrival.

Interview highlights

highlight
Panagiota recalls her wedding preparations.

Panagiota: We didn’t have a big wedding reception like they do now. On the Friday and Saturday my husband and I did the preparations for the wedding. We cooked, made keftedes, we did a lot of things. I told you he was a chef, and he knew a lot of things. We made a lot of food. And the next day, we got married, on a Sunday. His friends from the army from Wollongong came, and their shirts were very dirty. It was a very hot day. So, I washed them in the pot because we didn’t have hot water. 

Interviewer: You were getting ready to be a bride and you were washing shirts?

Panagiota: I washed them. I ironed them. They got dressed, and I did too. 

Interviewer: And you cooked all the food.

Panagiota: We also cooked and cleaned the house. 

Interviewer: Because everyone was going to come over after church. 

Panagiota: Yes.

Interviewer: And how did it turn out?

Panagiota: Very well. One of our neighbours from across the road, an Australian man, he came over. He was such a good man. He danced. He drank. The other people that also got married, the neighbours. The bishop Theofilaktos also came, who was killed in Melbourne.

[…]

Panagiota: A lot of people came … We danced. We had a radio. We danced. We had a great time. 

Timecode 32:58 - 34:43
highlight
Panagiota recalls the establishment of the church-run Greek school in Marrickville.

Panagiota: On Kelly Street and Excelsior Parade. There was a wooden Anglican church there. We started with very few children, and after a couple of years we reached 300 children. The children kept on coming and eventually we needed a second teacher and then there were three of us, we had three classes […]

Interviewer: Did you later go to those rooms behind the church?

Panagiota: I did, we had the ‘gyneconite’ [women’s space] to do high school. I had 33 girls and one boy. 

Interviewer: Did you always want to be a teacher?

Panagiota: I did. From a young age. I always said I wanted to be a teacher when I was asked. 

Interviewer: This dream became a reality …

Panagiota: … in Australia. 

Timecode 42:00 - 43:07

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