Costas Simitis: Life relationship with Daphne Simitis – Their acquaintance, the years in London and their two daughters

Like lightning fell the news that his former prime minister and former president suddenly left life on Sunday morning (5.12025) in his cottage in the Holy Theodores. The former president of PASOK, Kostas Simitis, was with his wife Daphne, the Saints Theodoros, in their vacation home they often visited. In fact, Daphne Simitis, reportedly newssit.gr, was in the police car following the ambulance that moved Kostas Simitis to Corinth hospital. CORVERSE The President of PASOK, Nikos Androuliakis from the first moment of his news, contacted Daphne Simitis expressing his condolences. Daphne Simitis has always been on the side of Kostas Simitis. The two met 63 years ago, married and had two daughters: Fiona and Marilena. Life relationship with Daphne As Costas Simitis had revealed, in his autobiographical book “Routes of Life” the two had met Daphne Simitis, the genus Arcadia, at a party: “Parties and dances were usually occasions where you could meet a girl. Daphne and I sat at the same table in a group of my acquaintances. I liked it. He didn’t have the fake look that girls of that time were covering their insecurities. CORVERSE She was natural, smiling and of course very beautiful, with delicate characteristics. I suggested we meet again after a few days, no matter what. Since then a firm friendship has developed between us and soon an increasingly strong sympathy. We met regularly, went to theaters, cinemas, excursions, but more and more often without a program. We had enough to be together. So unconsciously, of course, we fell in love. Three years later, in August 1964, we were married.” Daphne was different perhaps because she had already lived a year in London before they met and there she returned to attend social psychology classes at London School of Economics. At LSE he had decided to continue his studies and Costas Simitis in Political and Economic Sciences, after graduating from the University of Marburg in Germany and was fired from the army. Within the university there was “feeling freedom, critical mood, demand for documented positions and systematic analysis”. Outside this, London in a period of prosperity, “the overthrow of the conservative government had meant a more general removal from conservative standards and conservative lifestyles. The miniskirt was the symbol of the new era”. Her spirit was expressed in literature, theatre, cinema, many new restaurants with European or Asian food, in the major demonstrations against nuclear weapons. “We lived together with Daphne this new reality for us seeing and participating, with a feeling of permanent curiosity, search and freedom. The years in London were for me one of the finest of my life.” At another point he said: “From London I left in the spring of 1963. I went to Paris. I doubted for a few days whether I should stay there to collect the material for a new book. But I decided to go back to Athens. I wanted to meet with Daphne again. Daphne and I were different characters. I was careful, she was spontaneous, I was focused on what interested me, she was more open to the environment and to various aspects of life, I was more focused on what I was reading and working, she with a lot of attention to aesthetics, harmony and beauty. We became a bonded couple, each of us having their own views and distinctive personality. No one sought to impose on the other. The different and the audience gave stability to our relationship and to the happiness we felt moving along the way of life. What followed with my political activity did not ease our bond,” the former Prime Minister described. The two had succeeded and had kept their family away from the spotlight and spent their free time between their home in Kolonaki and the cottage in Saint Theodoros.