Alexia Stephanides, Gerald Durrell's Closest Friend in Corfu

Alexia and Gerry at the Daffodil Yellow Villa. This photograph and more about Alexia appears in my book The Durrells of Corfu.

'I realise that my father always hoped that Gerry and I would marry. I think the Durrells hoped the same.'

Alexia Mercouri is the daughter of Theodore Stephanides, the friend of the Durrell family and Gerry's mentor in Corfu.

Recently I spoke with Alexia about this photograph which she had never seen before.  

'This photograph of me and Gerald Durrell brings back such very pleasant memories of our years in Corfu. We are playing in the garden of the Durrells’ Daffodil Yellow Villa; it must have been taken around 1937 when Gerry was about 12 and I was nine or 10. I am 90 now. I am the only living person who knew those magical years described in Gerry’s book My Family and Other Animals. But all that belongs to another world.'

My interview with Alexia is published online today in The Telegraph Magazine (complete with misspelling of Gerry's name in the heading).  
And this is scan of how the interview appears on the magazine page (where they got the spelling right).

As printed on the page.