The Film - Edward Lear Returns to a Corfu on Fire

• We meet Edward Lear painting Santa Maria della Salute in Venice.
• We ask Edward to come to Corfu to see where he painted from northern point to southern tip.
• We travel through the Corfu Channel and see Mount Pantokrator above beautiful villas.
• In 2023 seen from the sea, the Mountain caught fire, which was driven north by a 40C southerly wind.
• From the top of the mountain, we look east to the Corfu Channel after the fire.
• If it had been a westerly wind the beautiful villas would have been destroyed.
• In 2,000 the 30c north-westerly wind drove the flames from the Ropa Valley to Gastouri. 15 villages were evacuated.
• South of Gastouri we see where Lear painted the ‘Quiet boy of Stavros' and the scene today unchanged with restored Benitses below.
• In 1856 Lear tells us about olives falling in February.
• In 1911's An Artist in Corfu by Sophie Atkinson said: “the picking started in the new year and continued till May”.
• Today some ripe olives are on the trees on October 1. The olives will be fully ripe when black and will be picked before Xmas.
• Global warming must be having some effect - France, Italy and especially Spain had a very hot drought summer, and the olive crop was decimated.
• In 1970 our beach with Taverna Theodoros was wide.
• In October 2021 heavy rains washed away the bridge over our river.
• In November 2021 our beach was washed away. The sea undermined Taverna Theodoros.
• This was a catastrophe caused by climate change.