By Goya Dmytryshchak
A book detailing the life story of a Seaholme resident and refugee from Egypt’s Suez Canal crisis will be launched in March.
English-born Helen Said spent 12 years painstakingly researching the book about her father, titled Five Egyptian Pounds: the story of George Said.
She said the story was timely because it details her parents’ lives as British subjects in Egypt during the creation of Palestine, and throughout the first two Arab-Israeli wars.
In 1956, Arab revolutionaries had nationalised the Suez Canal, the British had destroyed Almaza air base, and the Greek-Maltese Said family was placed under house arrest.
George and his wife, Maroula, together with their baby daughter, Tassie, were given 10 days to leave the country.
“They were quite young and very scared when these wars were on, so it’s helped them to make sense of all the events and get them in some sort of perspective,” Ms Said said.
“The family likes it and the cousins are saying to me things like, ‘Oh, I’ve never understood what we were doing in Egypt or why we had to leave’.
“I learned more of the circumstances about the formation of Israel … and so that tended to make me more aware of why we have some of the international ethnic tensions that we have today.”
The Said family left for London, arriving at Heathrow Airport with two suitcases of clothes and five worthless Egyptian pounds.
They lived as penniless refugees, during which time Mr Said joined the British trade union movement and became an advocate for change.
Eventually, the family’s frozen assets were released and they migrated to Australia in 1962.
“It was a lifelong dream of my dad’s to come to Australia,” Ms Said said. “Certainly, the climate suited therm better here, and it was less of that British class system.”
The book also details Mr Said’s involvement in the early days of Australian multiculturalism and his interest in the welfare of refugees. It is published by Equilibrium Books and will be available on Amazon kindle.
More at fiveegyptianpounds.com.au
