On Tuesday 17 February 1959, the plane carrying the Turkish Prime Minister to talks concerning the Cyprus affair crashed just before landing in London. Adnan Menderes survived and was found in a tree by a local farmer, who offered first aid and a cup of tea.

Cyprus had been a colony of Great Britain since 1878, though different groups over the years had pressured for that to change. This came to the forefront of world politics first in the 1950s, when Greek terrorists (EOKA) began bombing the British and the Turks – and Turkish terrorists (TMT) countered. There were calls for independence, for enosis (reunion) with the nation of Greece from the Cypriots and reciprocal attacks on the ethnic Greeks still living in mainland Turkey. The three interested parties agreed to meet in London: the Greeks, led by Prime Minister Konstantinos Karamanlis; the Turks, led by Menderes; the Cypriots, represented by the Ethnarch, Markarios III. But it was the British who took the most away from the conference, seeing to it that no one was satisfied. One of those present at the negotiations was the Greek ambassador to the UK, George Seferiades, known better by his nom de plume, Seferis. He wrote to his sister, Ioanna: ‘I have the feeling that this time it’s not just Cyprus but the fate of Greece itself that’s hanging in the balance. And behind all that there is a Nemesis which has already begun to work; a Nemesis that, in the way of these things, strikes down the ...