A British geography teacher has released a book entitled “Greco Files” which traces the real-life experiences of a couple of retired British teachers as they fashion a new chapter in their lives in a Greek village as the 21 st Century unfolds. The book is part memoire and part commentary and is put in the context of Greek mythology, history, and geography and set against a background of current issues such as climate change, wildfires, water supply, and economic crisis.

The author charts the challenges, achievements, and pleasures that he and his wife experienced during a quarter of a century creating a new home and lifestyle in the Mani Peninsula of southern, mainland Greece.

The author, John Hayes spent his working life teaching geography in British secondary schools, eventually becoming a deputy head at Great Torrington School in North Devon, before obtaining early retirement in 1997. Since then, he and his wife have lived part-time in Greece, renovating an old stone house, creating a pleasure garden from a rubbish tip, learning the language, running a boutique olive and olive oil business, assimilating many facets of Greek popular culture, cuisine, politics, and sport and engaging in all manner of traditional and modern Greek life. Greco Files captures the highs and lows of their Greek experience.

Thousands of ex-pats from Britain and Ireland have settled in Greece during the last 50 years. Greco Files provides engaging and intriguing reading against which to judge their own experiences.
It is a book that offers encouragement and inspiration for many Brits who want to pursue their dreams of relocating to a place in the sun where they can continue to work or enjoy retirement.
Three million or so British holidaymakers visit Greece each year, and Greco Files offers an informed insight into the country of their choice and provides a rewarding alternative to their standard sun-lounger reading.
It is a book that also offers the 300,000 or so people with a Greek background who live, work, and study in the UK an absorbing and, in some instances, provocative reading about their patrida (fatherland).
For the three million people with Greek heritage, scattered across the globe in the diaspora, in countries like Australia, the USA, and Canada, Greco Files provides a contemporary perspective on Greece and Greekness from an outsider’s point of view.

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