We met her by chance with members of her family on the footpath leading from Alonissos’ Old Village to the small church of Aghioi Anargyroi on the island’s southwest coast. It was mid-June. A brief shower had left the air scented with thyme and oregano, and the midday heat had eased. Julie Taylor wore well-worn leather hiking boots, a wide-brimmed hat, sunglasses, and carried a small backpack containing water and a handful of cherries. At 83, the retired American schoolteacher has walked this trail – and countless others – more times than she can remember. It is no coincidence that the locals have nicknamed her “No Bus Julie.”
Family
Since 1984, apart from the pandemic years, she has returned to Alonissos every summer. We came to know her remarkable story over the course of three meetings. Having long since become something of a local herself, she was eager to show us around the island. The following day, we met again for lunch at Meltemi, the fish taverna on Megalos Mourtias Beach where she has been a regular for more than four decades. There, we began to piece together a family story that could easily have come from the pages of a novel. Sitting beside me was her brother, Colin Campbell, a former journalist and foreign correspondent who worked for international publications such as The New York Times. Soft-spoken and matter-of-fact, he described his evacuation from the Middle East to Athens in 1982.
