1972 – 1986 – Greece and England

When I arrived in Greece, single Mom with two small children, I first started earning a living by giving Yoga lessons in my home. A couple of funny stories from that time: as my Greek was not so good, I would at times make mistakes and say a wrong word as for instance, ‘elbow’ instead of ‘knee’ and that often resulted in very convoluted poses that had nothing to do with Hatha Yoga. Also, since Yoga was something completely new back then in Greece some people would confuse it for something else from my newspaper advertisement. I once had a man call in the middle of the night saying “Madame Yoga? I need some relaxation …” 😂

Eventually I went back to work for the John S Latsis Group of Companies. They had a fleet of ships, an oil refinery, import/export, and civil and engineering constructions in Saudi Arabia. There is where the career of Micky Guy (as I was known at the time) started. I quickly climbed the ladder and in 1976 was sent to SETE, the London office charged with purchasing for all JSL companies, where I was promoted to Logistics Manager.  John S. Latsis (Yannis in Greek) was a very eccentric billionaire and I learned so much from him. He was a very generous man. When he walked in the street he would be approached by people asking for money. He always had a bundle of cash in his pockets which he gave freely. Once, a man told him a sad story of how his wife was sick and he had no money for her treatment. He did not hesitate to give him what looked like a very substantial amount of cash. I asked him why he believed the man’s story and his reply was ‘Maybe he was lying, maybe he was not. For that one chance that he was not lying it is worth helping when you can.”

That was a very interesting time in my life. We were building large civil engineering projects in Saudi Arabia, like the Rabigh Oil Refinery and the Jeddah Harbor. We also managed several private projects for the Saudi Royal family: a gate for their palace which was especially made in Scotland by a business that had been doing ornate ironwork for generations, and the M/Y Prince Abdulaziz, the largest yacht in the world of that time. I traveled a lot and often surprised our vendors when visiting their workplace as they expected Micky Guy to be a man. In this picture we are visiting the yacht. It was quite magnificent with lapis lazuli tiles and gold fixtures in the bathroom and beautiful Murano chandeliers.  

We lived at 5, Links Close in Ashtead, Surrey. That was the very first house I bought just by myself with my own money. I was very proud of it. Our backyard opened to a beautiful wooded area that was ‘common land’ that could not be built on. On the other side there was a nice pub and on Sundays we would walk through the woods and go have a meal at the pub.

I moved there because it was close to the school the children were going to. One of the very few private schools that allowed boys and girls together, which was very important to me. It meant 3 hours, sometimes even longer, commuting to my office in London but it was worthwhile as Ashtead was such a lovely country side area.

We had two dogs, Trudy and her pup Tracy and a cat named Trixy. Next door lived our Greek dear friends Leo and Lenia. The four of us would have lots of fun together.

My love at that time was Peter Spencer. Peter was a Chemical Engineer who also worked for John S. Latsis. Peter was like a ray of sunshine. He was very friendly and warm with a captivating smile.We met in the Athens office but he asked to be transferred to London when they moved me there.

We had very happy seven years together but something happened towards the end and his character changed. He became obsessed with an invention he was working on that he believed could transform the waste coming out from oil refining into a form that could produce electricity.  He would lock himself in a room and work incessantly and become frustrated for not being able to find people who believed in his invention.

He eventually got very sick with a rare form of Leukemia and died at the young age of 47. To this day I am not sure if his change of character was due to his illness or if it was actually the illness that caused the change. His illness and death were devastating to me.

 

In order to cope, I took a course of The Silva Method, a way to change your thoughts and emotions in a positive way. I liked it so much that I started working as a Silva Method lecturer in my spare time. At the same time, I also studied and got a diploma in Counseling. My next step was taking a course in Neuro Linguistic Programming. After taking the basic NLP course I decided to go to California to do an advanced course at the University of Santa Cruz.

I still remember the car trip from San Francisco airport to Santa Cruz. Coming down the hill of H17, I had this feeling that I was coming home. I fell in love with Santa Cruz and decided to move there.

I quit my job, sold my home and off I went, back to the U.S., but this time to the beautiful state of California – my home!