Nana Mouskouri I Remember...

In a career spanning 50 years, Greek singer Nana Mouskouri has released over 200 albums in ten different languages. She looks back on growing up in war-torn Athens and finding international fame…

- Joy Persaud

…MY FATHER WAS A PROJECTIONIST WORKING IN ATHENS in an open-air cinema so my early days were very nice. When I was three years old, we were living behind the screen, because there was a small house with a garden there—my father was also working as the guardian of the cinema at that time.

…WE HAD A SPACE WITH CHICKENS—there was a lot of poultry—and also pigeons, and a little dog. But, of course, at four or five years old, war came so everything changed. I didn’t automatically understand what the war was at that age, but slowly, you saw people going away [and] you saw soldiers arrive…

What I mostly remember from the war is the sound of sirens and planes flying over, and running to find somewhere safe to seek refuge. It was quite wild all the time. There were lots of frightening things then.

When the Allied forces came, we were given chocolates by the soldiers as they passed by us children.

…THE FIRST THING I ASKED MY FATHER WAS, “WHAT IS WAR?” It was sad but I asked that because I always heard it—I’d heard him saying to my mum that there was a war on but I didn’t know what the word meant.

He didn’t answer me at the time; he went out to the front to fight with the soldiers. When he came back from the army, he explained, “War is when people don’t love each other.”

…BECOMING AN INCURABLE OPTIMIST BECAUSE WE MUST HOPE FOR THE BEST AND REALISE THAT LIFE CAN BE HAPPY. There’s always some way it ends though, and then the sorrow comes. I found love in life but this is a little bit more difficult because your happiness doesn’t always depend on you.