One of the most humble benefactors of the Hellenic Community in Victoria and a proud Macedonian Hellene, Nicholas Sikavitsas passed away late last week in Melbourne. An enthusiastic loyalist of the Hellenic legacies, a devotee of the Macedonian cultural identity and a true patriot, Nicholas will be remembered for his immense contribution to philanthropy and his unfailing support for the Hellenic studies. His pivotal contribution in the communal affairs of the Macedonian Hellenes will be also missed; he served for many years as public affairs officer of the Pan-Macedonian Association of Melbourne and Victoria and founder and founding president of the Macedonian Argites in Argos Orestikon, a nice village of Kastoria and Western Macedonia.

I had the honour to interview him seeking to establish his contribution and to absorb his migration experience as a valued member of Macedonian Hellenism and a benefactor of our wider community. I wish to publish a portion of his story as I portrayed it in my book currently under publication under the title
Macedonian Hellenes in Australia.

Benefactor and philanthropist Nicholas Sikavitsas was born in Argos Orestikon, Kastoria on the 1st January 1937 to indigenous father Christos Sikavitsas (1905-1982) and an Asia Minor refugee mother from Nikomedeia, Anastasia Spyropoulos (1912-2002). Nikos Sikavitsas was the first-born son; he had two brothers, Aristeidis who died at a young age in Rumania, and another called Thomas. Nikos graduated from the local primary school and attended the first years of the local high school, before joining a local carpentry and furniture workshop in his native town as an apprentice. Being inspired by the news that his Argites compatriots in Melbourne had found the caring protection of Pantelis Megas and they were earning a good living in Australia, he decided to emigrate. He travelled to Piraeus and began his long voyage to the southern seas aboard the Egyptian Zum Hürriyet, a cargo ship which was eventually transformed into a passenger ship for immigrants. The voyage lasted for more than forty days as it stopped in various port cities including Port Said, Aden,
Colombo and Fremantle. Nikos recalled these initial days with a rather romantic outlook:

“We disembarked in Melbourne on the 1st October 1956 within the mouth of Yarra River together with other cargo ships; we were travelling in one huge dormitory divided with a curtain into two compartments in every deck; each dormitory contained more than 200 persons, men and women and children. On one side there was an endless row of beds for men; the other side for women; the environment was stuffy and the service almost non-existent. In Colombo we spent one week as the ship was undergoing maintenance and needed provisions; we were preparing to cross the treacherous Indian Ocean; fortunately we were young and desperate for new opportunities in life. In Port Said we had seen thousands of travellers strolling the streets around the port, desperate to catch a ship to the Far Orient or Australia; it was the period of the Suez Crisis and only a few months earlier Nasser had nationalised the company administering the Canal passing. In the Port of Colombo we had adequate time to discover the landscape of this island-country that had gained its independence only eight years earlier in 1948. We disembarked at the Quay berth which was opened only two years earlier with 16 alongside berths, transit sheds and warehouses. It was the busiest harbour in South East Asia.”

On arrival in Melbourne Nikos settled in Brunswick with brother-in-law Aristeidis Liokos and another four Argites, all young, living in the three available bedrooms and sharing the facilities and amenities with another two families: “My sister, Photeini, was betrothed by distance to Aristeidis, who was a prospective groom for her; I had introduced him to her with a photo; so he was now expecting my sister to arrive as a ‘bride’ from Argos to be married. I was also expecting to receive my younger sister Malamati, at a later stage.”

Nevertheless, following his settlement in Brunswick, Nikos was taken by Aristeidis to visit a brickyard in the neighbouring suburb of Thornbury; it was there that he introduced him to a Jewish builder, who employed him on the spot as a carpenter and maintenance handyman; his knowledge of English was not adequate and the remuneration was insufficient. There was a great demand for tradesmen in the booming building industry in Melbourne; however, he received only nine pounds per week, not enough to save after paying for meals, the rent and his feral smoking habits. He moved to country Victoria where there was a scarcity of workers to man the wine and fruit plantations and work in the local juice and raisin factories; he settled initially in Red Cliffs, only 16 kilometres from Mildura; he was a fast picker working long hours; he was also an ambitious person in pursuit of wealth and security:

“I found employment and shelter in a large vineyard in Red Cliffs; there was a bungalow for the employees working in this spacious estate; the owner, Vic Race, was a well-spoken, fair businessman and a hospitable Australian; his son, Ray Race was a very polite and generous young man of my age; his perseverance and his patience with me was something extraordinary; he was determined for me to learn English; he was spending a lot of hours teaching me the vocabulary and the correct pronunciation. I spent two years at their farm; when the picking period was over, I was working at the local raisin and currant factory, then on the weekends and during the afternoons I was working in potato and fruit farms. I believe it was my second year in the hinterland, when I approached the owners of a local café, the Golden Key café in Red Cliffs established and owned by Ithacan settlers during the 1890s. This historic café was purchased by Ithacan Dimitris Vlassopoulos in the early 1920s. It was a precious family business; for decades his children worked through its premises along with hundreds of Macedonian Hellenes and other Greek immigrants finding shelter and employment; his son Stathis Vlassopoulos served the Greek Community of Melbourne as secretary during the 1950s. In 1959, when I approached the café’s owners, it was his daughter Eleni and his son-in-law Kyriacos Kyriakakis who were running the business; I called in asking for a job; they used to pay six pounds per week for a two-hour work every evening to clean the kitchen and the stoves. I used to have my meal there and obtain my smoke free. During my two years of employment in the Victorian hinterland I amassed enough capital to return to Melbourne and purchase one house in Pearce Avenue in Brunswick with my brother-in-law and my sister.”

Upon his return to Melbourne, Nikos was employed in a carpentry workshop and factory in Northcote as leading hand. His senior post in the factory soon allowed him to introduce certain changes in the employment rules, allowing members of the same family to be employed; he offered employment to his father who migrated to Australia with his wife Anastasia and their daughter Melpomeni in 1960. Nikos also offered employment to a group of six Kastorians. Concurrently, after the normal shift in the factory, he was working in the transport industry of J.D. Barnes, based in Moonee Ponds, as a bus driver. He was soon familiar with the bus line running between the suburbs of Moonee Ponds and Williamstown Beach. There were four buses in this line operated by Nikos and another compatriot Evangelos Spyrou.

“In 1964, the proprietor J.D. Barnes asked me and Evangelos if we wished to buy the bus line running from Broadmeadows to Moonee Ponds and from Sunbury to the city. We accepted the offer and we purchased the four buses of the line, working double shifts seven days a week; then the former boss came back proposing to sell the other bus line running to Keilor and Keilor West involving another four buses. He insisted, claiming that we were hard and committed workers, and we were making enough savings to accept the second offer. However, we did not have adequate capital; then Mr. Barnes suggested that he would remain as a third partner, if we accept to purchase the additional line of Keilor. ‘When you will amass the capital that I want, then you can pay me and I will walk away’ he said to me and my partner Evangelos. We accepted the second offer, increasing the pace of our labour; we were working more than double shifts with Evangelos until we finally set aside the agreed amount; I called on Mr Barnes advising that the requested capital was collected; the accumulated capital to hand was equal to the value of purchasing four houses; when we convened and offered him the agreed amount he said that this would not be enough for him to surrender his share in the business; ‘I want double this amount,’ he stated. We were astonished. ‘Why are you doing this to us?’ I dared to ask. ‘Next time, you should learn to sign proper contracts and obtain signatures via your solicitors,’ he replied, ‘you now will pay me double so that you will never forget this lesson’ he insisted. I was compelled to borrow the money from the bank. This time we lodged the transfer of the business to our solicitor and a proper agreement was signed with him the same evening that we obtained the loan, in the presence of our solicitor. The final transaction with Mr Barnes took place in 1967. We never looked back since then…”

It was the same year that Nikos finally found the time to marry; his bride was an attractive young lady, Arête Voutsidis (27 February1943) from Larissa, Thessaly, who had migrated to Australia in 1966; their initial meeting was pre-arranged only a few weeks earlier by the relatives, as was customary in those days. Nikos was impressed by the charisma of the proposed bride, her polite manners and naturally her extroverted and inviting character. It was during the St Charalambos name day; his mother was working with another lady in the factory who used to know Arête’s family; her husband’s name was Charalambos; so both families were invited to attend a celebration party.

“I attended the gathering unsuspicious of the arrangement; her parents were Dimitris and Maria and she had two other sisters Olympia and Eleni; they never migrated to Australia; I liked the girl; it was February; the following month we were engaged and we married on May 7. We married on the 7th of May simply because I could not find any other days suitable for me, as I was working double shifts seven days a week; I was expecting the May school holidays to find the time to go to the church! During the holiday period we were working with one bus less. ‘I could only marry now; if not you have to wait until November when I could find another free weekend’ I told my parents.”

Nikos and Arête, despite this busy lifestyle, raised two sons: Christos was born on the 2nd June 1968 and Dimitris on 30 April 1970. Christos studied computers and business administration, whilst Dimitris completed his courses in mechanics at the local Broadmeadows Technical College. The combination of the two disciplines assisted the family business to expand a few years later, as we shall see, into the taxi industry. In May 1970 Nikos decided to split his partnership with his Kastorian compatriot Vangelis Spyrou. The new family obligations and the increasing customer service necessitated new business strategies; the overall volume of work had increased dramatically over the last ten years, serving three of the busiest bus lines in Melbourne.

Vangelis retained the Keilor line under the business name Kastoria Buses which had been established by the two partners in 1964; while Nikos maintained the other and busier line under the trading name Tullamarine Buses, paying more to his departing partner. Each partner retained seven buses with their drivers; by the year 2000 the fleet of the Tullamarine Buses increased to 31, employing almost fifty drivers. So by the year 2000, Nikos decided to involve his sons, Christos and Dimitris more decisively in the business; they had graduated from their schools and they were promised a share and an input into the family business which had been growing fast over the previous twenty years. By 2009 the two brothers embarked on a business offensive to accelerate their revenues; they became involved in the Smart Buses innovative transport system introduced by the State Government, acquiring an additional fleet of twenty buses with thirty drivers. The new scheme was based on a contract system between the state and the bus line industry.

“The Victorian government always subsidised the bus lines to make them profitable and hence productive; it was a very fair system of collaboration between the state and private industry; their support was much needed to introduce new buses, to upgrade the services to make the transport safer; we used to pay half a million for each bus; the subsidy in fiscal terms was an incentive to improve our industry; we purchased a spacious block of land of four acres in Airport West, where we erected our mechanical workshops, our offices, our administration and our maintenance departments. As we were growing we had the opportunity to negotiate better environment for the commuters, safer trips, more convenient and reliable buses.”

On 30 June 2010, Tullamarine Buses entered an agreement with a successful businessman and longstanding benefactor of the Greek community, Tassos
Revis, purchasing the business arm of the Taxi Staffing Service; this successful enterprise was established in 1969 by Tassos Revis and his partner, Norm
Granger, operating initially from their depot in Craine Street, South Melbourne. Ten years later, in 1979 this well-developed taxi industry which held the licenses of a fleet of more than 130 taxis was moved to 25 Murphy Street in Richmond. The negotiations between Nikos and his two sons and Tassos Revis were successfully completed and the administration of this significant fleet of taxis was finally passed to Christos and Dimitris Sikavitsas. The daily take from their hundreds of taxi drivers is submitted to the appointed manager, and 50 per cent kept as their remuneration. The spacious Richmond depot incorporates a centre for mechanical works, panel beating workshops and stores.

Nikos and Arête endowed their children with the benefits of Hellenic culture; they remained closely attached to their Greek language and culture, sending their grandchildren to Greek schools and using the Greek language at home. The elder son, Christos, met and married in Melbourne Nicoletta Kolaras, born to Greek immigrant parents; they raised two children, Nikos and Arête; his younger brother Dimitris married the charismatic Efrosyne Paraskevopoulos, and together they brought up two children, Nicholas and Stamatia.

Nikos’s vast communal involvement and input has taken various forms over the last forty-five years. For almost forty years he served his native town Argos Orestikon, and for more than twenty years the Pan-Macedonian Association of Melbourne and Victoria. His contribution to the brotherhoods of Kastorians was also decisive. In 1988, having served as treasurer from 1970 until 1988 in the Argos Orestikon Brotherhood, he was elected president, a post he held until 1996, initiating the most significant changes, including the 1992 acquisition of the association’s premises at 85-87 Warrigal Road in Oakleigh for $155,000. During his presidency, the constitution of the Argites was written by Menelaos Sikavitsas and Georgios Tezepsidis and was finally endorsed by their assembly; while in 1992 the association was legally registered in Victoria, enabling its members to possess and manage their property in Oakleigh. In 1996, Sikavitsas resigned his post to allow more people to contribute; in 1998 he was re-elected once again to the most senior post, in an effort to consolidate the operations of the club, to refurbish their building and commence a profitable rapport with the authorities in their native Argos in Macedonia.

Nikos Sikavitsas and his family were distinguished as benefactors of Hellenism over the years, offering significant donations and in-kind support to Greek community organisations, university faculties and departments of Hellenic studies, Greek daily schools and research centres for the study of Hellenism.
They became major benefactors of the Greek Community of Melbourne and Victoria, offering tens of thousands of dollars for the erection of the new Community premises in the city of Melbourne; they benefited the former national centre for Hellenic Studies and Research at La Trobe University and the Greek Daily Alphington Grammar School; generous gifts were offered to the Thessalonikeans, the Kastorians and the Australian Institute of Macedonian Studies to conduct their conferences and seminars.

On behalf of the members of the Australia Institute of Macedonian Studies and my associates of the former National Centre for Hellenic Studies and Research, I wish to reiterate that we shall remember him. To his kind wife, children and grandchildren we wish them courage. Our thoughts will be with them. Let us not forget, that memory is the only transgression of death.

*Anastasios M. Tamis is Adjunct Professor of Greek Studies at the University of Notre Dame, Australia.