The funeral was held at St George’s church in Afrata yesterday of Stefanos Skarakis, who has died from lung cancer at the age of 48. Coming from a well-known Afrata family, Stefanos was a shepherd, like his father Michalis and his brother Giorgos, while he latterly did a number of different jobs. For several years he was an able and affable waiter at the Afrata Paradise beach bar in the summer, and last October he was working at the Tzerani olive oil mill in Kolymbari.

Cretans who are engaged in the agricultural sector are used to hard work in all conditions and the attendant discomforts, and this may have led him to ignore the symptoms of his illness until it was too late. It was a double loss for the family, since they had only buried their mother Argyroula five months ago. Their father Michalis had died a number of years earlier.

Stefanos is survived by his brother Giorgos and the latter’s wife Evangelia Mathiakaki, his sister Eleni and her husband Christos Tsontakis, as well as a number of nephews and nieces. Our sympathies go to them all.