Obituary: Professor Chris Jecchinis, war-time soldier, trade unionist, educator, economic adviser, journalist and news correspondent

Published on Friday 1 October 2010 19:32

Professor Christos (Chris) Albert Jecchinis, war-time soldier, trade unionist, educator, economic adviser, journalist and news correspondent. Born: 13 April, 1924 in Athens. Died: 13 September 2010 in Toronto, aged 86.

Professor Chris Jecchinis led a life filled with variety and adventure. With family loyalties to both his country of birth, Greece and, through both his father and uncle to the United Kingdom, he also worked and studied in Chicago, New York, Vienna and Canada and travelled extensively, particularly in South America.

His settled, middle-class existence in Athens, where he was born a couple of years after the expulsion of Greeks, including his family, from Smyrna (now Izmir) in 1922 was rudely interrupted by the invasion of the Nazis in 1941 and he experienced life-shaping events during the hungry winter of 1942 when street carts daily collected the remains of the victims of malnutrition to be burned in the open fields between the city and its port, Piraeus, as he recounts in his vibrant memoir Beyond Olympus. The book goes on to trace his escape to the mountains and rendezvous with the Allied Military Mission and the mainly British Force 133.

Based in poverty-stricken villages and sometimes sleeping in the open, Chris, still a teenager at the beginning of his involvement, took part in the sabotage of German troop trains travelling down the line connecting Greece to the rest of occupied Europe.

He is frank about his moments of fear and repulsion at some of the sights and is generous in his praise of fellow members of the 'Lapworth' group while unsparing in criticism of some of the actions of the Communist-dominated ELAS guerrillas.

After his release from the British Army, Chris worked for the American Marshall Fund, attempting to raise the standard of technical education in Greece, where he also became a trade unionist. It didn't take long for the US authorities to spot him as a rising star and a place on a union delegation across the Atlantic in 1950 was quickly followed by a Fulbright scholarship to Roosevelt University in Chicago. On applying to stay on after his course he suffered a reverse as he was refused a visa due to being mistaken for another student who was on a McCarthyite blacklist.

The next decade was spent in journalism and longer writing, travel and work for Socialist International and study at the London School of Economics, where he received a PhD in the Economics of Labour in 1962.

During the 1960s, as Latin American correspondent for The Scotsman, he had brushes with Castro and Allende while becoming close to Peruvian socialist Haya de la Torre. His books Greece and We Go to Greece were designed to introduce young readers to the country.In his political work he made the acquaintance of well-known labour movement figures such as David Ennals and Vic Feather and would recount the story of how he gave a lift to Harold Wilson to ensure the future Prime Minister arrived on time for a House of Commons vote.

This varied period of Chris's career ended with his appointment in 1965 as economic affairs officer at the International Labour Office, an arm of the United Nations, in Geneva. This was quickly followed by a move to UN headquarters in New York and then, in 1967, to the newly-created UN Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO) in Vienna as acting chief of the Industrial Institutions Section. Here he assisted Austrian Social Democrat politicians and the future chief of MI6, then head of its Vienna station, in helping defectors from the Eastern bloc.

After three productive years Chris faced another setback due to the Greek colonels' take-over of his home country. His passport being due to expire, he was warned by the Orthodox Bishop of Central Europe that the junta had no intention of giving him a new one and he must not surrender it.

As this problem coincided with an unwanted promotion, or being "shot upstairs" as he called it, he returned to the New World, this time to Canada, taking up an offer of an associate professorship at Lakehead University in Ontario.

He took to college life in the fledgling institution and was responsible for supervising the progress of successive generations of students while pursuing a parallel career advising both the Canadian and now socialist Greek governments on economic planning and industrial relations.

As well as actively supporting the left-wing New Democratic Party in Canada, Chris was called on in the 1980s by new prime minister Andreas Papandreou in Greece for advice but, as he recalled, "no more than one page". He also appeared on CBS radio, having first broadcast in post-war Greece. He also adjudicated industrial disputes at the Ontario Public Service Labour Relations Tribunal and worked as a consultant on Ethiopia and South-east Asia for UNIDO and as a research fellow in Austria and Germany.

In 1987 he retired from Lakehead as professor emeritus of economics and a new chapter began, much of it involving the European Union. He became special adviser to the Greek trade union confederation (GSEE), president of the Institute of Labour Studies, the European Centre for Vocational Education and then the National Centre for Vocational Orientation (Ekep) in Athens.

Chris visited Scotland for the first time in 2005. Before heading off to his planned visit to the Scottish Parliament, he insisted on visiting the old The Scotsman building on North Bridge. Even though the paper had relocated to a new site, for Chris it was a moment to re-connect with the paper he had once been a proud correspondent for.

Chris's visit to Scotland reinforced his love of politics and serving the people.He saw Scotland, an old country with a rapidly changing economy and a fledgling Parliament, finding its way in a very modern political and economic set of conditions. Typical to Chris and his pleasant and always supportive manner, he found time that day to meet with and offer a little friendly advice to the then First Minister of Scotland.

Chris married his wife, Philippa, in London in 1963 and is survived by her and their sons Kieron, Alexander and Peter.