A handful of black-and-white photos take John Milides back to happy memories growing up in the small village of Zodhia, in northern Cyprus.
The 57-year-old remembers it as peaceful, fun and coherent.
“Turkish Cypriates, Greek Cypriates would work together in the factories on the farms. Then on Sunday morning, they walk the same street and go to different doors - one to the mosque and one to the Greek church,” he told SBS.
But in 1974 everything changed, and the nation began to split.
Mr Milides wiped away tears as he recalled the days and hours before he escaped Zodhia, when fighter planes littered the sky and the idyll was shattered.
“All of a sudden they started throwing rockets at us - machine gunning us and we could hear the shells from the aeroplanes falling on the roof tiles, and we could hear the roof tiles cracking and we were so terrified,” he told SBS News.
His family thought they were safe in their village, but troops kept advancing. When his father returned home to check on the family, he realised they were the only ones left.
They had just minutes to flee in his grandfather's truck.
Greek-Cypriot John Milides and his treasured algebra book. Source: SBS
“I never contemplated that I would be leaving Cyprus in such a way,” he said.
Before the then 15-year-old fled, he had the presence of mind to grab the family photos.
He also retrieved an exercise book containing his beloved algebra notes, which to this day is his most treasured possession.
“I will need this,” Mr Milides thought at the time. “It will help me in life.”
“Low and behold, years later I became a maths teacher and I still treasure this book," he said.
“It means so much - it connects me with my home, it connects me with the beautiful people I lived with, the teachers. I was born in my home.”
The Milides family lived in the mountains of Cyprus, before moving to Greece.
Then, in 1977, when Mr Milides was 18-years-old, his family came to Australia as refugees.
John Milides and his family in Cyprus. Source: SBS
Mr Milides’ dream is to return to a demilitarised and peaceful Cyprus.
“We're going to create a beautiful country again as it was, and we're going to live together in peace and we're going to co-operate and there's going to be prosperity and peace.”
“It means we're going to re-live that life which we lived which we consider paradise.”
But the dream is reliant on United Nations talks between the two sides reaching a successful conclusion. So far, the signs are good, the UN declaring that many issues dividing the island have been resolved.
Neither Greek Prime Minister, Alexis Tsipras, nor Turkish President, Racep Tayyip Erdogan are expected to attend the Geneva talks this week.
But the UN-led discussions between the President of Cyprus, and leader of the Greek Cypriot South, Nicos Anastasiades, and the Turkish Cypriot leader of northern Cyprus, Mustafa Akinci, have led to territorial negotiations, with leaders submitting maps detailing their boundary proposals for a federated Cyprus.
Greece wants to see Turkey remove its troops from the island, but it's unlikely President Erdogan will make a decision more some months.
Any reunification deal that is struck, may be put to a referendum later this year.
