Melbourne’s Deputy Lord Mayor Nicholas Reece a proud Greek by wedlock

The City of Melbourne’s Deputy Lord Mayor Nicholas Reece, was lauded by members of the Greek community for his impassioned speech at the recent Antipodes festival where he regaled members of the audience with personal anecdotes from elder family members.

Mr. Reece told Neos Kosmos “My beautiful wife Felicity is Greek, and my children are very much growing up as Greek Australians, learning the Greek language, we consider ourselves very much part of the community”.

As to what exactly was the cause of such excitement during his speech at Antipodes, Mr. Reece says that his recounting of his wife’s grandfather’s early escapades in the country were probably the culprit.

“My wife’s grandfather Vic Miritis came to Melbourne in 1956. He was born on the island of Kea but grew up in Athens. Due to the hardships Greece was facing in the 50’s he decided to leave for Australia, to build a better life,” he says.

“He came out on his own at first, the idea being to work and save up enough so that when he returned to Greece he could pick up his family and bring them back to Australia with him”.

So, Vic Miritis took up a job driving trucks all over the country. Nick recalls that he tells a funny story about the tea they’d have ready brewed at the truckers stops.

“He wasn’t quite sure what was put in the tea at the truck depots, but it kept him up all night. One time he went all the way to Brisbane without a rest,” or so the story goes.

Mr. Miritis went back to Greece after a couple of years work on the truck routes, but soon returned with his wife Koula and two young children Mersina and Theo.

“They originally lived behind a milk bar they operated in Collingwood, they didn’t have a front door. The only way they could get in or out was through the shop.”

“Like so many Greeks at the time they got jobs working in the textile factories around Collingwood, then they moved to Clifton Hill and eventually Vic found work at a textile factory in Fawkner,” says Mr. Reece.

When the factory’s owner passed, Mr. Miritis along with a fellow migrant colleague John Eisner essentially took over running the operation, A-Weave textiles, which at one point was one of Australia’s largest blanket manufacturers.

But that’s only half of the story according to Mr. Reece.

“My father in law arrived in Australia by ship in 1970 as a member of the Greek merchant navy,” he continues.

“While on shore leave he met a very beautiful young woman named Mersina Miritis, the two instantly fell in love and let’s just say… when the ship left the next day George Pantelidis was not onboard.”

Soon enough George Pantelidis and Mersina Miritis were happily married, with three children of their own, one of them being Mr. Reece’s wife Felicity (nee. Pantelidis).

“And that’s the story… Now we’ve got three children ourselves, they’re just in love with their Greek culture and next year we’re planning to take them back to Greece and on a journey to experience their family history.”

“We’ve already got the maps out at home, it’s going to be an amazing family moment for us all.” Mr. Reece laughs with a note of sentimentality.

An immigrant himself having arrived from England at the age of four, Mr. Reece certainly seems to have wholeheartedly embraced the Hellinism of his other half.

Neoskosmos,com