Nikos Vournazos, who migrated to Australia after serving in the Greek National Resistance during the Second World War, is passionate about education in and about Greece.

Having graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of New England at the age of 78, he is now the donor of a UNE Travelling Scholarship in Classics and Ancient History.

He has also established a number of prizes for high school students in his native Peloponnese, and has provided funds for building projects at the village school that he attended as a child.

His graduation from UNE in October, 2002, was the fulfilment of a lifelong dream.

In Greece, after the war, he completed high school by correspondence at the age of 27 and, in 1951, gained entry to Pantion University.

He was unable, because of financial hardship, to take up university studies at that time, and was drafted into the Greek Army the following year.

It was not until half a century later, in the far-away country of Australia (where he migrated in 1955), that his dream of a university degree was realised.

Greg Horsley, UNE's Professor of Classics and Ancient History, said that Mr Vournazos, after achieving his own educational goals through UNE, now wanted to help other students along the same path.

"Niko had been a supporter of Classics at UNE in various ways," Prof Horsley said.

"When he asked me about the options for continuing that support, and I suggested a travelling scholarship, he thought the idea was just right."

The Nikos Vournazos Travelling Scholarship provides the airfare for a postgraduate student to travel to Greece for fieldwork and research.

Its inaugural recipient in 2005 was Graeme Bourke, who is conducting research for a PhD thesis on the ancient Greek city-state of Elis in the western Peloponnese.

Mr Bourke spent nine weeks in Greece, visiting Elis and other historic sites, conducting research in the libraries of the British and American Schools in Athens, and staying in an apartment owned by Mr Vournazos near the Peloponnesian town of Akrata.

"The scholarship enabled me to access otherwise unavailable resources and to experience the topography first-hand," Mr Bourke said.

"Nick (who travels regularly to Greece from his home in Melbourne) took me around to some of the places I needed to see.

"He was also proud to show me the places where he had fought with the National Resistance during the Second World War."

Mr Bourke is to return to Greece in October this year with the help of a second Nikos Vournazos Travelling Scholarship.

In 2005 Nikos Vournazos published his autobiography, Dancing Solo: A Life in Two Lands.

The book fulfils another long-held ambition - to record his experiences in living through a tumultuous period of world history.

It begins with his birth in a small village overlooking the Corinthian Gulf, chronicles his wartime experiences, gives details of his leading involvement in the Greek community of Melbourne and Victoria, and ends with his graduation from UNE after some years of part-time external study.

The final sentences of Dancing Solo encapsulate both his life story and his philosophy: 'Life is generous. It provides all things, good and bad. Happy are those who know how to best utilise this bounty.'

Mr Vournazos is enrolled at UNE again this year for further external study through the University's School of Classics, History and Religion.