After working for many years in theatre, films and television, Ann Ibbotson escaped from one very wet British summer by visiting the small island of Poros in the Saronic Gulf of Greece. It was to be a holiday that changed her life. Told by the Poriotes that 'Poros is in your blood now, you will always come back', she proved them right by returning again and again until finally deciding to settle there. As she writes: '...here is not paradise. I have had to learn a very different lifestyle
and sometimes it has not been easy. The Greeks think I am a little mad and I think the same of them and that, to my mind, is a pretty good basis for a friendship. It seems to me that I owe the people of Greece, and especially those of Poros, an enormous debt of gratitude for all they have done...' Anne Ibbotson's "Coming Slowly" is a rare account - one that captures the colour, comedy and tragedy - of the contemporary life and times of a small Greek community.
