By Yiannis Hadjigeorgiou
Dina Keravnou, the first female driving instructor in Cyprus – and indeed the entire Middle East – passed away on Saturday. A trailblazer for women’s rights on the island and recognised for her contributions to society, this is her fascinating life story, as she shared it with us two years ago, along with rare photographs from her precious personal archives.
“I was 15 when I first properly took hold of a steering wheel. I had just gotten married – in the 1950s, most Cypriot women married very young. My husband, Andreas Keravnos, was a driver who ran his own driving school – his father had established Cyprus’s first driving school in 1927, which Andreas had taken over. I initially joined the school as a learner. I learned to drive and got my licence at 16, primarily to help my husband with his work – I had to declare a false age to the Transport Department to start working. Looking back, I think driving was in my DNA – it was almost like destiny that I would end up behind the wheel”.
“It’s been about 60 years since I became the first woman in Cyprus to obtain a professional driving licence! I’ve received honours from both the Republic of Cyprus and Greece, but my greatest reward is when my thousands of former students greet me in the street, and when I learn that very few of them have had accidents because they learned proper driving techniques”.
“I grew up in Engomi, at what is now 37 Grigoris Afxentiou Street, back when Engomi was still a village outside Nicosia. We were five siblings. I had a wonderful childhood. My father was previously co-owner of a bus company with my father-in-law, running routes between Agios Dometios, Engomi, Agios Pavlos and Nicosia for many years. So, as you can imagine, I knew my husband since childhood; he was seven years older than me. I had a feeling, from the time I was old enough to understand myself, that this man would become my husband”!
“Because of my father, I first sat in front of a steering wheel when I was barely more than a baby. It was like a toy to me. I think I was born knowing how to drive – it was already inside me! And I’ll tell you something I often say to my daughter, Theodora, who’s now a driving instructor herself: Driving is partly about talent, not just lessons or experience. Some people ‘have it’, they’re natural tens, while others will only ever drive mechanically. I can spot the naturals immediately, I sense them, they’re like ‘family’ to me”.
“I had wonderful years with Andreas, my husband – I have no complaints. He was a good man who looked after me, loved me, and we trusted each other completely. I dare say now that I lived a happy life! I won’t hide that his death in 1995 hit me hard; I felt unbearably lonely and was deeply melancholic for a long time, but that’s life, and you have to take life as it comes”.
“Back then in Cyprus, you could count the women who had driving licences on one hand, and I was the first woman to get a professional licence to teach. It was wonderful! Driving was pure joy for me! When I held the steering wheel, I felt like I was flying! I was passionate about cars, I loved them, adored them… The car was my companion in happiness, in sorrow, through the great losses I experienced in life, like the death of my mother, Theodora, at just 52, and later, what really broke me, the death of my younger son, Christos, also a driving instructor, at just 45 in 2011 – especially in those moments, the car never betrayed me; it was my comfort, my anxiety relief, my great support, my ‘person’”!
“There were very few cars on the roads in the 1950s, and most roads were narrow and unpaved… Back then, an entire village might have only 5-6 cars, so we were quite comfortable on the roads. We never used phrases like ‘I’m late because of traffic!’ in the ’50s and ’60s – what traffic? Of course, things changed rapidly after that. I remember though, especially in the ’50s, whenever we women drivers would meet each other on the road, we’d honk and wave; we were rare, maybe fifty at most, and we felt proud to be independent in our way. We didn’t think about it in today’s terms of ‘feminism’ and ’emancipation’; it was just this sense of freedom we had. And we actually considered it ‘normal’ for us to be behind the wheel, not something ‘strange’”.
“It was unprecedented at first for my students to have a woman teaching them to drive instead of a man, as had been the case in Cyprus for many years. Some were skeptical, asking my husband ‘what does she know about cars?’ and he would reply ‘try a lesson, and if you don’t understand her explanations, I’ll take over.’ Gradually, through word of mouth, I earned people’s trust. In the end, everyone was eager to have lessons with me! Over time, I built a reputation, people knew who I was”.
“Throughout my years as a driving instructor, I noticed that we women have a different temperament: We’re more patient than men, we don’t get irritated easily, we give people time to learn how to drive properly and carefully because it’s a responsibility; you don’t want your student to get killed later because you taught them something wrong. And I must tell you, not one of the thousands of students I taught to drive ever complained in my nearly six decades as an instructor – that’s my greatest achievement: The respect of people when they greet me in the street and say: ‘Hello, Mrs Dina! You taught me how to drive’”!
“My favourite moments were when women came to learn to drive. Because, you understand, for a woman to decide to come and say ‘I want to learn to drive’ in those days meant she had already discussed it with her husband, her children, and had gotten her household’s ‘approval’ in a way; there were ‘procedures’, it wasn’t simple. But it was my joy when women came to learn! They were, in a way, the ‘bold ones’, the ‘open minds’, and exceptionally, from many of them I wouldn’t charge the same fees I charged my male students – I felt society was progressing if women were also on the road, that our way of thinking was changing”.
“In all my years of driving, I only had minor accidents; usually being hit from behind by others who weren’t keeping their distance. Only once did someone dare say to my face ‘you just had to become a driver, didn’t you!’, and then all hell broke loose! Of course, there were those who would tease any woman behind the wheel, making crude jokes; I became fierce about these issues, I’d open the window and shout! Gradually, over the years, I saw these outdated attitudes disappear, but I won’t hide that until a few years ago when I could still drive, there were male drivers who continued to say dismissively: ‘It’s a woman driving, what do you expect?’ We need to root out all these attitudes from our mentality – men and women are the same. And I, from my position, fought for many years for women’s rights! I saw it through my work over the decades: What matters isn’t the gender behind the wheel, but the person driving”.
“I’ve always been a dynamic, active woman, perceptive and thoughtful of others. Perhaps that helped me establish myself in this challenging professional field without being overwhelmed. I remember, the young ones, the 18-year-olds who came to learn from me, treated me like their mother and I treated them like my children. And through word of mouth at their schools, the young people would tell each other: ‘Go to Mrs. Dina to learn, she’s patient and doesn’t shout like the others!’ I always had my way with my students. I would assess their psychology first, which is the most important thing, and teach each one differently – I didn’t have one formula for everyone. I paid more attention to the more sensitive ones, for example. If my students did something serious that might put them in danger when they would eventually drive alone, I never shouted – one stern look was enough to make them behave. I had a responsibility”!
“It’s been five years since I last drove. And I miss it terribly… I’ve had three strokes, unfortunately, and I need to be careful now. My daughter Theodora, who is continuing the family’s legacy as a driving instructor, comes to take me for walks on weekends or to visit relatives. Unconsciously, I won’t hide it, from the passenger seat, I still give her directions. I don’t think I’ll ever lose that habit. Even in my sleep, I’ll always be a driving instructor”!
Dina Keravnou’s funeral will take place on Tuesday, 26/11/2024 at 2:30 PM at Saint Nicholas Church in Engomi, Nicosia.
