Oh yes, I forgot he did that.

When I spoke to Chris Dowson a couple of years ago he was adamant that was a load of rubbish.

I'm afraid some people think that just because you never marry you must be gay.

There has certainly been plenty of innuendo against Issi on this point, but I don't think you can underestimate the power his moth had on him. After all, she lived with him until he was elderly and judging by everything I've read, and from what people who knew him have said to me, she was very domineering of him.

I guess his self promotion of his own importance may have something to do with an inferiority complex brought about by trying to prove himself to his mother.

Cheers,
Watto Freud.

Watto

Add to that an ethnic origin whilst living in Britain who in the mid fifties lived under the glory of a spitfire flying overhead and british superiority in all matters.

Mike

What he said.

Watto.

Plus the fact that his sexuality isn't really anyone elses business , especially now he's not here to defend himself .

In all the books I've read on him (including his authorised and unauthorised biographies) he has been portrayed as almost non-sexual (there probably is a term for it but I don't know it) in that he wasn't particularly interested in either sex but completely devoted to (and to an extent dominated by) his mother . I don't think anyone will ever really know unless a former lover (male or female) comes out of the woodwork but given his age and their age now it would be unlikely to happen .

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Todays question ,

Where was Sir Alec Issigonis born and what were his parent's nationalities ?

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trick question, but I'll have a go. He was born to greek-ancestry parents in what is now Turkey but his parents were british subjects.
KB

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Nearly but not quite KB , what was the city called and while you have his father nationality , what about his mother ?

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damn google is no heap and all my mini books are in the container in town.

He was a greek cypriot with an english mother wasn't he - went to Britain when things were tough in Cyprus between the Greeks and the Turks ???

Yes to his father but no to his mother . I'll also accept the modern city name instead of the old name but the old name is better known .

They went to Britain at the start of WW1 when their city was over-ran and the British subjects were evacuated by the British Navy .

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The city was Nicosia

Was his mother turkish ??

No , he wasn't born in Cyprus , his family had emmigrated earlier .

No , not Turkish , Hulda's nationality is rather ironic when you look at it now though . She was determined her family would be raised as "being English" so she shunned her native language and learnt English as a young adult . Alec was raised with English as his first language as a result .

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Suprisingly there is very little information about Alex on the net - plenty of tributes but no real biography.

Egypt also has had multinational partitioning over time and many Egyptians speak (used to) arabic, greek, french, italian English, and french. I wouldn't be suprised if Hulda was from Cairo.

Mike

Father was Greek, and ran the engineering firm started by his father (Alec's grandfather).

Before WWI Alec's father, Constantine, spent a number of years studying in England, and as a result eventually took British citizenship. He returned to his home town of Smyrna, Turkey's second-largest city, which is now Izmir on the Turkish coast near Greece, to run his family's business, but ran into trouble with the authorities because he would not do work for the German military during the War, who of course were fighting with Turkey against the British.

Alec's mother, Hulda, was of German (Bavarian) decent, and her father owned the local brewry in Smyrna.

AFTER the First World War there was conflict between Greece and Turkey over the area which included Smyrna, which left the city badly damaged.

British nationals were evacuated to Malta, and the Issigonis family was among the refugees.

They were later transferred from Malta to England, but Constantine was too ill to travel and stayed behind.

Constantine died before being reunited with his family, so Hulda was left to bring up the teenage (he was born in 1906) Alec alone......

I could go on, but I think I answered the question.

Do I win the free no-expense-spared trip to Leopold?

This is fun. Let's do it again.

Cheers,
Watto.

Are you googling Alex Issigonis or Alec Issigonis ? I just googled Alec and found all the info in the top few sites .

Nope , not Egyptian and none of those languages (hint) ,her maiden name was Prokopp (though I've seen variations in the spelling) .

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Yes Watto , that's correct (hence the ironic comment about her being Bavarian ) .

Stay tuned for another tomorrow .

No , you don't win a trip to Leopold , but I can arrange that room in Honiara I mentioned before .

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