Paschalidis, Lambis

Lambis Paschalidis was born in Cairo in 1914. He had two siblings; Takis, who was an established singer, and a younger sister who died at the age of 14. His father was from Cairo and Xanthe and he used to sell cigarets for a living. His mother was originally from Kusadasi, Asia Minor. Lambis had graduated from the Ampeteios School in Cairo, and he started getting involved with theatre at the age of 23 when he was asked to participate in a Spanish theatrical play in Cairo named " For Her Love". This was the start, and since then Lampis wrote and directed more than 42 theatrical plays in Egypt. In January 1955, Lampis arrived to Melbourne by the Swedish boat Seven Seas, and from there he took the train to Sydney. According to interviews, Lampis moved to Australia because he had good friends there, and Alexandria "had stopped intriguing him". Αt first he struggled to attract the right audience for this theatrical plays. Later though he managed to become a well established journalist and theatrical director in Sydney. He was a song writer, he wrote frequently at the Greek Herald (Eλληνικός Κήρυκας) newspaper, he was the director and publisher of the weekly Greek newspaper "Κυριακή" and he also directed and published the satiric magazine "Koρνίζες". Lambis was a very much loved member of the Greek community in Sydney, demonstrated by the respect and love his friends and readers wrote to him in their correspondence. Lambis was part of an elite groups of connections consisted of politicians and others; such as Andreas Papandreou and Melina Merkouri. *Κυριακή the newspaper, and his beloved boat, were named after his second wife Κούλα - Kυριακή. Reference:Compiled from the collection