04-04-2025
‘They speak English, drive on the left and even have chippies': Britain's enduring legacy in Cyprus
Britain's legacy in Cyprus was evident as soon as I turned out of the airport. The busy road was lined with signs urging 'Drive on the Left!'
'We're part of the EU, so people think we drive on the right here. You wouldn't believe the number of accidents on the road from the airport – we call it death row,' Giorgos at the car hire company told me.
A British protectorate from 1878 to 1914, occupied from 1914 to 1925 and finally a Crown Colony, Britain relinquished control over Cyprus in 1960. As a condition of the handover, however, they kept two Sovereign Base areas: Akrotiri and Dhekelia. Covering roughly three per cent of the island, they are among the 14 surviving British Overseas Territories, alongside the likes of Gibraltar, the Falkland Islands and (for now) the British Indian Ocean Territory.
'They are in our country but they have their own laws, their own schools – they even have their own police force, reporting to the UK's Ministry of Defence,' Cypriot friend Vassiliki explained to me the following day as we drove past miles of barbed-wire fence separating us from Akrotiri, with its golden beaches and salt flats flecked with pink flamingos.
