In 1967 I returned to Greece and later tried to recall some of the atmosphere of that fateful year in a novel, Strange Alphabet. Unfortunately for Greeks democracy still seems a distant dream rather than a daily reality, but if is important to believe in that Byronic dream of freedom.

After the coup I visited Marathon - Marathon, where Lambrakis began his one-man march to Athens; Marathon, where many thousands of Peace Marchers gathered the year after his assassination... And I could not forget those words: 

"The mountains look on Marathon –
And Marathon looks on the sea;
And musing there an hour alone,
I dream'd that Greece might still be free.” 

Nor, as a poet, could I let 1971 - the 150th anniversary of Greek Independence - pass without making some sort of gesture, however small, of solidarity with all the brave Greeks, men and women, young and old, left-wing and royalist, communist or conservative, who have suffered and are today suffering under the brutality of a cor­rupt and illegal military regime.  This collection of poems on Greek themes is dedicated to them, and proceeds will be donated to Greek Democratic organisations.

"A tribute to the Greeks who suffer imprisonment and torture for their struggle against the present dictatorship... An attractive and worthwhile pamphlet."

[Kemble Williams, ed. Samphire 21^st issue, winter 1973-74]