This is back in the early nineties. I had just finished my studies (Bsc.B.A.)and had one year to go before I join the Greek Army to do my national service. (I had to do 18 months).

My brother and I have just opened up our first small bar on the main street of Faliraki, a resort on the island of Rhodes. We don’t really know how the business works but we are young, full of energy, and eager to learn (plus have some fun!!).

The first weeks are difficult.

The other bars have been there much longer, the owners know more people, they are busier.

One hot afternoon, as I am cleaning the bar top and getting ready for the night, this young English boy comes through the door. Slim, curly hair, big smile. He asks for a job behind the bar.

We had 3-4 boys and girls asking every week, but we had three staff already and we couldn’t really afford to get another one. But there was something about this boy that made me give him a second look, and five minutes later, a job as well.

Martin Rothery was that boy’s name and he had just hitch-hiked from England to Greece!!

One week later, he was running the place! Barman, interior designer, DJ, PR, and party organiser, he was doing everything, and was doing it with unrivalled efficiency and a smile.

The bar got much busier within 2-3 weeks after he started there.

Martin became part of our family too. My mum would send him food almost every day, and ask if “that English boy liked her food, and if he was eating enough”. Even my dad (not a big fan of English young boys - he thought they were drinking too much and were too loud) started calling him by his name!!! Now that (for anyone who knew my dad) was unheard off!!

The winter arrived, and the tourists left, but not Martin. He decided to stay on the island for the winter. We gave him a room above the bar, in the small family hotel we had. I was driving there every day although the bar and the hotel would be closed for the next 6 months.

Faliraki is 14 km from Rhodes town where I lived, and I had to drive there on my way to the village of Afantou. The village is just 10 minutes’ drive from Faliraki. We had a piece of land there and I kept animals. I had chickens, turkeys, rabbits, and ducks…

Martin started coming with me and seemed to enjoy feeding the animals. Plus the eggs and the occasional old hen for the pot, he was there with me, almost every day.

But Martin would not kill.

He would help me with everything else, feeding, carrying bags of corn, cleaning the water tank, picking oranges, and loading stuff on the car. But he would not kill. I was mostly breeding unusual breeds of rabbits and chickens. Some of the animals that did not have the characteristics I was looking for would have to go, so there was always something to take home.

Time goes by and Christmas was only a few days away. My mum decided to come to my little farm to choose a turkey. I was not interested in breeding turkeys, so I had only bought some a few months earlier for Christmas. She would help me do all the dirty work there so we would take the bird home, all clean and ready for stuffing.

So we get to my little farm, the three of us. My mum, Martin and me. I unloaded some corn, a pair of sharp knives, a big pot to heat up some water, and a couple of bin bags. My mum had a look at the birds and made her choice (I only had two males, so it was not difficult.)

And now it gets weird.

I had a small room where I kept the rabbits. Not my breeding rabbits (they had separate cages each) but the young ones. It had a small open area, the size of a room, where they could get out and get some sun. The opening had a very strong fence and was well protected. It even had the top covered with chicken wire because there were a few hawks in the area that seemed to love young white rabbits!

I brought some hay from the car and put it in the centre of the small open area. All the rabbits come out at once and went for the hay. I went for the turkey…

Twenty minutes later the water in the pot is boiling and the bird has no head. As my mum and I get ready to clean our Christmas dinner, she has a look at the rabbit room and said: ”What is Martin feeding them? They left the hay and are all gathered around him.” I turn around and see him in a corner of the rabbit room. Hay is everywhere but the rabbits are not interested and that was unusual. I assumed he had cut some green grass and was feeding them. But no. He had nothing in his hands and there was nothing there other than hay and rabbits.

He was talking to them…And they were just sitting there all 20-25 of them looking at him.

I looked at my mum and she seemed more confused than I was, so we ignored the whole thing and carried on cleaning the bird.

A few days later it’s Christmas Eve and Martin is invited to our home.

Let me talk a little bit about my family.

My dad was a cat person. He had always had a cat and it was always female, and it was called Minou.

All his cats had the same name. If he had a second or a third cat, he would call them with their colours. So there was always a Minou,(the Queen!!) and “the black one” or “the ginger cat”. The only cat allowed on his lap when he was watching TV was Minou (the Queen). The other ones wouldn’t get near him when Minou was there. Too dangerous!

My mum, my brother, my sister, and me have always been dog people. During the time Martin was there we had a little white canishe poodle called “Judy”. That was by far the stupidest dog we’ve ever had. Cute, very friendly, but stupid. The cats had more brains than the dog.

But we all loved her!

So it’s about 18:00 on December 24 and Martin comes into our home (for the first time). He gives me a bottle of wine, says hi to my mum and dad, and gets to meet our pets. One hour later we are all watching TV, drinking wine, and waiting for some guests we had invited for the night.

That’s when the unthinkable happened!

Minou, the Queen, got up from my dad's lap and slowly walked towards Martin who was sitting on the couch. A small jump and she is on Martin’s lap. A few seconds later she is asleep.

Martin had not said a word, did not talk or invite the cat.

That cat was over 10 years old at the time and she had NEVER done that. She was always, ALWAYS on my dad's lap. Not mine or my mum's, or anybody’s. We all stared in disbelief.

My dad was not happy. He called his cat and was ignored.

Martin had a polite smile on his face, but we could all see he was uncomfortable with this.

I tried to joke because there was suddenly tension in the air. I said to my dad: ”Martin is an animal guru dad, did we not tell you? Animals love him…”

My dad (who was not the easiest person to get along with) was not amused. “Can you tell your friend to give me Minou back?” (He could speak German and Italian but his English was really poor).

Martin gave him his cat back, but we all thought that the whole thing was very strange. It was the first and the last time Minou had ever done that.

Forward 3 months. It was late March, the beginning of spring on my island.

Rhodes is in the south of Greece and gets (on average) about 300 sunny days a year.

Many of my chickens, ducks, and turkeys have increased their egg production. We had prepared some nests, and we were very happy to see that we had at least 12 birds that were hatching their eggs. Both Martin and I were determined to produce the next generation of birds the way nature intended. We did not want to buy birds or use an incubator.

By that time I was used to the insanity of all the birds running around Martin as soon as we walked in the farm, although it was usually me carrying the food. It was crazy!

And the rabbits would approach him every single time. And just stare at him.

That fateful Sunday, at the end of March, Martin is waiting for me to pick him up and drive to the farm. As soon as he gets in the car I sensed that something was wrong. He was not his usual self, talking all the time, making jokes about people, observing things, and making comments on everything. No, he was quiet.

I asked him what was wrong. He said he was not sure, but he had woken up with a feeling of impending doom. He had a headache and he felt something was very wrong. That was very unusual of him as he was always the optimist between us.

I joked about it and asked him if it was just a hangover. He wasn’t drinking usually and was sober even late at night working behind the bar.

But it was winter, he was bored, out of work, and maybe had a drink or two(or more..), the night before.

But no, he was sober, I could smell that.

My nose was trained in smelling drunk people from a distance, and surely I would know one if we were together in a car with the windows up.

We drove to the farm in silence.

I park the car and he jumps out and runs to the door. I go for the buckets with food at the back of the car. He comes back and stands behind me. I turn around and have a look at him.

He had a grimace of something between disbelief and sadness.

I asked him what was wrong. He pointed his finger to the farm and said: “We have a problem Tasos..” I went to the fence. There were feathers everywhere and I could see no birds. I opened the door and walked through a carnage. Most of my birds were killed, some of them were half-eaten, and some were decapitated. The ones that had survived were on the orange trees.

It must have been dogs.

But the fence was new and we were 100% sure it was strong enough to hold any predator out of the farm. Obviously, we were wrong! The birds that were hatching their eggs were killed too. That was the worst part of the whole thing. The eggs were intact but I had no incubator. So they were doomed too.

Martin walked behind me holding a big bin bag full of killed birds. He told me that it was not dogs. He had a nightmare the night before. He woke up with a very strong bad feeling but couldn’t remember what his nightmare was about. But he said that whatever happened here, it had nothing to do with dogs. I asked him how he knew it was not dogs. And if not dogs then what was it?

We had a walk around the fence and ten minutes later I knew Martin was right, somehow he knew.

We found a tiny hole at the far end of the fence. The hole was barely large enough for a cat to go through. And there was a thorny bush around the hole. There was no way it was dogs. Martin was right, but how did he know?

So I went to the village and asked one of my grandma’s cousins who had a similar small farm very close to mine. She heard me describing what I saw in my land and informed me that it was definitely a weasel.

But how did Martin know? He wasn’t even local! And how did he know there was something wrong before we had even driven there?

But I loved that place and decided that I will not quit, just because nature took a share out of it.

My farm was as good as new with Martin’s help within one year from that fateful day. Although we had lost more than half of all our animals. From that day onwards my brother and I were constantly making fun of him with jokes I could not possibly write here.

We got used to the fact that all animals, dogs, cats, and farm animals would approach Martin first and then come to us, although we were the ones feeding them! We started calling him “The Animal Guru”.

I predicted that he would end up as a guru in India and his face would be used as a model to carve a Hindu monkey-God statue in a temple.

Almost three decades later, looking at my friend Martin’s work in his field, I begin to realize what was there for me to see all along. I was, and still am a man that will always explain everything with the use of pure scientific reasoning. I do not believe in anything that cannot be proven again and again with experimentation, logic, and observation.

So it was very difficult for me to accept Martin’s unusual, incompatible to conventional wisdom connection to the natural world around us.

He is a very unique, unusual individual, and I am very happy to be his friend.

τασος ζαχαριου