A daughter’s diary of debauchery
Hesitantly, Shona Sibary allowed her 17-year-old to take a holiday job in a notorious Greek resort. Read on and decide if she was right . . .
MOTHERS, look away now! Earlier this summer, 17-year-old Florence Sibary — daughter of Mail writer Shona Sibary — revealed that she had horrified her parents by abandoning her A-levels to work as an au pair for a French family in Lyon. Her hilariously frank diary exposed the realities of working for a foreign family — and how it temporarily curbed her wayward behaviour.
Here, in the second part of her diary, ‘Flo’ has finished au pairing and joins hordes of British teenagers travelling to the Mediterranean in search of summer work (and cheap drinks) on the tourist strips.
In fact, after just five weeks on the Greek party island of Zante, she admitted defeat and headed home. Here, she lifts the lid on what went wrong — and reveals the truth about teenage summer jobs abroad...
THURSDAY, JUNE 2
IT’S 4AM and Mum has just dropped me at Bristol Airport for my flight to Greece. I can’t believe I’ve persuaded my parents to let me do this! I’m off to the resort of Laganas, on Zante, to try to find work for the summer.
I’m going with a company called PlayaWay Abroad. You pay them £368 (Dad did this, but I’ll pay him back) and, for that, I get four weeks’ shared accommodation in a flat and the use of one of their reps for a week to help me find a job.
I could have gone to Magaluf or Ibiza, but they advised me that, as I’m only 17, a smaller resort would be safer.
Because of my age, I can’t do bar work, but they’ve promised it’ll be easy to get a job selling jelly shots (jelly soaked with alcohol) or Nos, nitrous oxide, otherwise known as laughing gas, in balloons to the tourists.
To be honest, it a bit daunting going alone, but none of my friends were allowed to come with me.
Even as I was walking through customs, I expected Mum to suddenly come to her senses and yell: ‘Over my dead body!’ But she just waved.
SATURDAY, JUNE 4
I’M IN an apartment on the main strip, above an English restaurant serving eggs and bacon.
During the day, it’s so ugly — just a long road of rowdy bars and closed nightclubs — but at night, it all comes alive, with smoke machines and lasers beamed out on the pavement.
The room itself is tiny: three single beds, a hob in the corner for cooking all our meals and a minuscule bathroom. I thought I was sharing with two girls, Chantelle and Kanal, but it turns out Kanal is a bloke.
I’m not fussed, though. I just wish we had air conditioning — this heat is killing me.
MONDAY, JUNE 6
I’vE got a trial tomorrow night working as a PR for a bar.
It’s a job all the English girls do out here and involves standing outside on the pavement and persuading tourists to come in and buy drinks.
Apparently, the police don’t like us doing it, but most of the time, they turn a blind eye.
My rep has advised me to try to find work in Greek-run places, as British women have a terrible reputation with the Albanians who own many bars here. They think we’re all drunken tarts with no morals.
I’ve been looked at with such disgust, I want to say: ‘Actually, I’m a nice girl from a respectable family’ — but because I’m wearing skimpy clothes and lots of make-up, I know they’d never believe me.
I was in a bar last night and watched three British couples play a drinking game where they had to simulate as many sex positions as possible in the shortest time, but they were so hammered, they kept falling over.
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 8
I DIDN’T get the job and, to my shame, I think I know why.
On Monday night, I got so drunk I threw up on the pavement outside a bar without realising it was the same place I was doing a trial the next day.
I’m really cross with myself, but it’s just so ridiculously easy to lose control. Everyone is here for one thing only: to drink themselves stupid.
I’ve never had a holiday without my family, let alone had to work in such a crazy environment. I’m not allowed to drink or go clubbing yet in the UK because I’m underage, but here anything goes. They have these places called ‘free bars’ on the strip, where you can drink as much alcohol as you want all night for five euros.
I know after getting so sick the other night that the booze is terrible stuff. God knows what it’s got in it. But that was a rookie error and I’m not going to make the same mistake again.
FRIDAY, JUNE 10
I’vE got a job! It’s in a bar called The Three Lions and they offered me PR work. They were very friendly and are paying me 20 euros a night for seven hours — and I get free drinks.
My boss, Stavros, told me: ‘Get your boobs and bum out, target the boys and try to avoid the undercover police.’ It’s all very exciting.
The deals I have to sell are: ‘One cocktail, a pint and a Nos balloon for five euros’ or ‘one cocktail and two shots for five euros’.
The problem is that tourists on their first few days of holiday just want to go in the ‘free bars’, and I’m finding it hard to persuade them that you get what you pay for.
TUESDAY, JUNE 14
THREE girls I work with who came out here at the same time as me have already flown home because they can’t handle the endless harassment.
We constantly get slapped on the bum and the guys behind the bar throw ice cubes down our tops.
It all seems more amusing if I ‘prink’ before work — that’s pre-drinking vodka bought from the local shop.
We start at around six in the evening and, by the time I get to work at 8pm, I feel confident enough not to care about the attention. Luckily, I’m not too sensitive, but I can see that the girls who are find it all very difficult.
SATURDAY, JUNE 18
THIS is my routine. Wake up at 3pm. Put on bikini and head to Life’s A Beach, a bar where all the British workers hang out. Eat a cheese and baked bean toastie (two euros).
I’ve discovered a great drink that really helps me hydrate after the night before. It’s called a ‘juicy’ and is a mix of vodka, blackcurrant squash and water. I know it’s alcoholic, and I do worry about that.
My grandmother died of liver failure last year and I wonder if I’ll be able to stop when I get home.
But here, everybody drinks like this, so it feels normal. I know I’m not taking the best care of myself but it’s expensive to eat healthily. A pizza costs one euro, but a fruit salad is five, so it’s obvious which I’ll go for.
Then it’s off to work from 8pm until 3am. After that, we go clubbing until well after the sun comes up. Sometimes, I actually get sunburnt walking back to the apartment to go to bed.
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 22
HAD to phone home today because I realised, with a shock, that I’ve blown almost all my money in just two weeks. I’d saved up £450, which was supposed to help me get through the summer and supplement my wages, but it’s nearly all gone.
My parents were horrified that I’ve spent so much. I’ve pretty much ignored everything they said, so they are furious with me.
They’d be even more cross if they knew what the money has gone on —
mainly drinking, club entry and laughing gas. I can go through 20 euros a night just buying balloons to inhale.
SATURDAY, JUNE 25
I nearly got arrested last night because t he p olice d ecided t o r ound up all the Prs on the strip. Most of the time they ignore us, but then they’ll have a crackdown.
If y ou c an’t p rove y ou’re o n h oliday and produce a return ticket home, you get fined 3,000 euros. luckily, I was warned by a text from another Pr farther up the strip, so I had to rush inside and plonk myself down at a table with a couple of tourists. It was scary, but quite exhilarating.
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 29
By far the most dangerous thing here is that the strip is open to t raffic all night.
you’d think, with the number of drunk people staggering off the pavement, that it would be pedestrianised,but cars drive at 40 mph and I’ve seen two tourists get hit. also, in the past five days, I’ve watched six drunk guys flip their quad bikes over on separate o ccasions. Ic an’t b elieve h ow s tupid some people can be.
last night, an ambulance pulled over to attend to someone who had collapsed and this inebriated Irish guy leapt into the driver’s seat and drove i t o ff d own t he s trip, e ventually crashing i nto t wo p arked c ars.
FRIDAY, JULY 1
I’M s uch a n i diot. I d idn’t e at v ery much yesterday — I’m trying to budget — b ut t hen I d rank s o m any cheap cocktails last night, I ended up o n a d rip b ecause Ic ouldn’ts top being sick.
Mum is going to kill me because I had t o p ay 5 0 e uros f or t reatment — they’ll have to transfer the money. I’ll tell her it was because of an a llergic r eaction t o am osquito b ite.
SUNDAY, JULY 3
Still ill, and now I have a throat infection from all the laughing gas I’ve inhaled. the nurse here, elena, keeps telling me how stupid I am, then gives me a long list of m edications to buy, which I can apparently claim on my travel insurance. But I need the money upfront and Mum and Dad are g etting fed up with me asking.
TUESDAY, JULY 5
This is such a horrible place to be when y ou’re n ot w ell, a nd I c ouldn’t help breaking down on the phone today when I called home.
I just feel so sick, I don’t know what t o d o w ith m yself. I t’s w ay t oo hot to lie on the bed inside.
I can’t put anything in our fridge because the boys in the flat below have filled it with beer and protein shakes, as their fridge is broken.
Mum has offered to put me in a hotel f or a f ew n ights t o r ecover, b ut I feel so guilty about my behaviour (which s he s till d oesn’t k now a bout) and I want to prove I can stand on my own two feet.
THURSDAY, JULY 7
the m edication i s f inally k icking i n andI’mfeelingmuchbetter.thedoctor said I musn’t drink while taking t he a ntibiotics b ut m y r oom- mate t old m e t hat’s o nly t rue i f t hey begin with an ‘m’. Mine begin with ‘a’ — so I should be OK!
SATURDAY, JULY 9
Just when I thought nothing else could go wrong, last night my bag was stolen. I was with friends and we finished clubbing at 6am and went skinny-dipping.
I stowed my bag under a parked car with everything in it — my mobile, m oney a nd a ll m y c lothes — and it was taken by a gypsy.
someone lent me a towel and managed to get back to the apartment, but the police want 140 euros from me to report the crime. My Parents have boughtme a ticket home tomorrow. If I’m honest, I’ve had enough anyway.
But I will miss Zante, even t hough t he o nly b it I’ve seen is the strip. I should definitely do somesightseeingnexttime I come because I’ve heard that the island is beautiful.
MUM SHONA’S RESPONSE...
EVERYONE who has just read this must be thinking: ‘Why the hell did you let her go?’ and having heard flo’s truthful account for the first time, I am, of course, wondering just that.
Keith and I did think long and hard about allowing our eldest, party-loving daughter loose in such a hedonistic environment but, at the t ime, q uite f rankly, I d idn’t t hink her behaviour could get any worse.
she was already breaking all the rules at home and I suppose I just thought: ‘Maybe this will get it all out of her system.’
and, to a certain extent, it looks as if I was right.