Patrick Leigh Fermor
Encyclopedia
Sir Patrick "Paddy" Michael Leigh Fermor, DSO
, OBE
(11 February 1915 – 10 June 2011) was a British
author, scholar and soldier, who played a prominent role behind the lines in the Cretan resistance
during World War II
. He was widely regarded as "Britain's greatest living travel writer", with books including his classic A Time of Gifts
(1977). A BBC
journalist once described him as "a cross between Indiana Jones
, James Bond
and Graham Greene
."
, the son of Sir Lewis Leigh Fermor
, a distinguished geologist
, and Muriel Aeyleen (née Ambler). Shortly after his birth, his mother and sister left to join his father in India
, leaving the infant in England with a family in Northamptonshire
and he did not meet his family until he was four. As a child, Leigh Fermor had problems with academic structure and limitations. As a result, he was sent to a school for "difficult children". He was later expelled from The King's School, Canterbury
, when he was caught holding hands with a greengrocer's daughter. His last report from The King's School noted that the young Fermor was "a dangerous mixture of sophistication and recklessness." He continued learning by reading texts on Greek
, Latin
, Shakespeare and History, with the intention of entering the Royal Military College Sandhurst
.
, from the Hook of Holland to Constantinople
. He set off on 8 December 1933, shortly after Hitler had come to power in Germany
, with a few clothes, several letters of introduction, the Oxford Book of English Verse
and a volume of Horace's
Odes. He slept in barns and shepherds' huts, but also was invited by landed gentry and aristocracy into the country houses of Central Europe. He experienced hospitality in many a monastery along the way. Two of his later travel books, A Time of Gifts
(1977) and Between the Woods and the Water (1986), were about this journey. Written decades later, they benefit from his scholarly learning, and give a wealth of historical, geographical, linguistic and anthropological information as the narrative proceeds.
Leigh Fermor arrived in Constantinople on 1 January 1935, then continued to travel around Greece
. In March, he was involved in the campaign of royalist forces in Macedonia
against an attempted Republican revolt
. In Athens
, he met Balasha Cantacuzène (Bălaşa Cantacuzino), a Romania
n noblewoman, with whom he fell in love. They shared an old watermill outside the city looking out towards Poros
, where she painted and he wrote. They moved on to Băleni, the Cantacuzène
house in Moldavia
, where they were living at the outbreak of World War II.
(actor) and Iain Moncreiffe (became a barristers specialising in heraldic matters and genealogy), and later joined the Irish Guards
, but due to his knowledge of modern Greek
, he was commissioned in the General List and became a liaison officer in Albania
. He fought in Crete
and mainland Greece. During the German occupation, he returned to Crete three times, once by parachute
.
He was one of a small number of Special Operations Executive
(SOE) officers posted to organise the island's resistance
to German occupation. Disguised as a shepherd and nicknamed Michalis or Filedem, he lived for over two years in the mountains. With Captain Bill Stanley Moss MC
as his second in command, Leigh Fermor led the party that in 1944 captured and evacuated the German Commander, General Heinrich Kreipe
. The Cretans commemorate Kreipe's abduction near Archanes
.
Moss featured the events in his book Ill Met by Moonlight: The Abduction of General Kreipe
(1950). It was later adapted as a film by the same name, directed/produced by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger
and released in 1957. In the film, Leigh Fermor was portrayed by Dirk Bogarde
.
. The book won the Heinemann Foundation Prize for Literature and established his career path: it was quoted extensively in Live and Let Die, by his close friend Ian Fleming
. He went on to write several further books of his journeys, including Mani and Roumeli, of his travels on mule and foot around remote parts of Greece. Critics and discerning readers regard his 1977 A Time of Gifts as one of the greatest travel books in the English language.
He translated the manuscript, The Cretan Runner
, written by George Psychoundakis
, the dispatch runner on Crete during the war. Leigh Fermor helped Psychoundakis get his work published. Leigh Fermor wrote a novel, The Violins of Saint-Jacques. It was adapted as an opera by Malcolm Williamson
.
His friend Lawrence Durrell
, in Bitter Lemons
(1957), recounts how, during the outbreak of Cypriot insurgency against continued British rule in 1955, Leigh Fermor visited Durrell's villa in Bellapaix, Cyprus:
. She accompanied him on many of his travels until her death in Kardamyli
in June 2003 aged 91. They had no children. They lived part of the year in their house in an olive grove near Kardamyli in the Mani Peninsula
, southern Peloponnese
, and part of the year in Worcestershire
. In the 2004 New Years Honours Patrick Leigh Fermor was named a Knight Bachelor. In 2007, he said that, for the first time, he had decided to work using a typewriter - having written all his books longhand until then.
The funeral took place at St Peter's Church, Dumbleton
, Gloucestershire on 16 June 2011. The service was conducted by the Reverend Nicholas Carter. The opening reading, The Garden of Cyrus by Sir Thomas Browne
, was read by Colin Thubron
. A Guard of Honour was provided by serving and former members of the Intelligence Corps, and a bugler from the Irish Guards sounded Last Post and Reveille. Patrick Leigh Fermor is buried next to his wife in the churchyard at Dumbleton.
Distinguished Service Order
The Distinguished Service Order is a military decoration of the United Kingdom, and formerly of other parts of the British Commonwealth and Empire, awarded for meritorious or distinguished service by officers of the armed forces during wartime, typically in actual combat.Instituted on 6 September...
, OBE
Order of the British Empire
The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is an order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by George V of the United Kingdom. The Order comprises five classes in civil and military divisions...
(11 February 1915 – 10 June 2011) was a British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
author, scholar and soldier, who played a prominent role behind the lines in the Cretan resistance
Cretan resistance
The Cretan resistance was a resistance movement against Nazi Germany by the residents of the Greek island of Crete during World War II. Part of the larger Greek Resistance, it lasted from May 20, 1941, when the German Wehrmacht invaded the island in the Battle of Crete, until the fall of 1945 when...
during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. He was widely regarded as "Britain's greatest living travel writer", with books including his classic A Time of Gifts
A Time Of Gifts
A Time of Gifts is regarded by many critics as one of the classics of travel literature. Written by Patrick Leigh Fermor and published by John Murray in 1977 when the author was 62, it is an account of the first part of the author's journey on foot across Europe from the Hook of Holland to...
(1977). A BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
journalist once described him as "a cross between Indiana Jones
Indiana Jones
Colonel Henry Walton "Indiana" Jones, Jr., Ph.D. is a fictional character and the protagonist of the Indiana Jones franchise. George Lucas and Steven Spielberg created the character in homage to the action heroes of 1930s film serials...
, James Bond
James Bond
James Bond, code name 007, is a fictional character created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, who featured him in twelve novels and two short story collections. There have been a six other authors who wrote authorised Bond novels or novelizations after Fleming's death in 1964: Kingsley Amis,...
and Graham Greene
Graham Greene
Henry Graham Greene, OM, CH was an English author, playwright and literary critic. His works explore the ambivalent moral and political issues of the modern world...
."
Early life and education
He was born in LondonLondon
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, the son of Sir Lewis Leigh Fermor
Lewis Leigh Fermor
Sir Lewis Leigh Fermor OBE FRS was an English geologist and the first president of the Indian National Science Academy...
, a distinguished geologist
Geologist
A geologist is a scientist who studies the solid and liquid matter that constitutes the Earth as well as the processes and history that has shaped it. Geologists usually engage in studying geology. Geologists, studying more of an applied science than a theoretical one, must approach Geology using...
, and Muriel Aeyleen (née Ambler). Shortly after his birth, his mother and sister left to join his father in India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
, leaving the infant in England with a family in Northamptonshire
Northamptonshire
Northamptonshire is a landlocked county in the English East Midlands, with a population of 629,676 as at the 2001 census. It has boundaries with the ceremonial counties of Warwickshire to the west, Leicestershire and Rutland to the north, Cambridgeshire to the east, Bedfordshire to the south-east,...
and he did not meet his family until he was four. As a child, Leigh Fermor had problems with academic structure and limitations. As a result, he was sent to a school for "difficult children". He was later expelled from The King's School, Canterbury
The King's School, Canterbury
The King's School is a British co-educational independent school for both day and boarding pupils in the historic English cathedral city of Canterbury in Kent. It is a member of the Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference and the Eton Group....
, when he was caught holding hands with a greengrocer's daughter. His last report from The King's School noted that the young Fermor was "a dangerous mixture of sophistication and recklessness." He continued learning by reading texts on Greek
Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek is the stage of the Greek language in the periods spanning the times c. 9th–6th centuries BC, , c. 5th–4th centuries BC , and the c. 3rd century BC – 6th century AD of ancient Greece and the ancient world; being predated in the 2nd millennium BC by Mycenaean Greek...
, Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
, Shakespeare and History, with the intention of entering the Royal Military College Sandhurst
Royal Military Academy Sandhurst
The Royal Military Academy Sandhurst , commonly known simply as Sandhurst, is a British Army officer initial training centre located in Sandhurst, Berkshire, England...
.
Early travels
At the age of 18, Leigh Fermor decided to walk the length of EuropeEurope
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
, from the Hook of Holland to Constantinople
Constantinople
Constantinople was the capital of the Roman, Eastern Roman, Byzantine, Latin, and Ottoman Empires. Throughout most of the Middle Ages, Constantinople was Europe's largest and wealthiest city.-Names:...
. He set off on 8 December 1933, shortly after Hitler had come to power in Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
, with a few clothes, several letters of introduction, the Oxford Book of English Verse
Oxford Book of English Verse
The Oxford Book of English Verse most commonly means the Oxford Book of English Verse 1250–1900 edited by Arthur Quiller-Couch, an anthology of English poetry that had a very substantial influence on popular taste and perception of poetry for at least a generation...
and a volume of Horace's
Horace
Quintus Horatius Flaccus , known in the English-speaking world as Horace, was the leading Roman lyric poet during the time of Augustus.-Life:...
Odes. He slept in barns and shepherds' huts, but also was invited by landed gentry and aristocracy into the country houses of Central Europe. He experienced hospitality in many a monastery along the way. Two of his later travel books, A Time of Gifts
A Time Of Gifts
A Time of Gifts is regarded by many critics as one of the classics of travel literature. Written by Patrick Leigh Fermor and published by John Murray in 1977 when the author was 62, it is an account of the first part of the author's journey on foot across Europe from the Hook of Holland to...
(1977) and Between the Woods and the Water (1986), were about this journey. Written decades later, they benefit from his scholarly learning, and give a wealth of historical, geographical, linguistic and anthropological information as the narrative proceeds.
Leigh Fermor arrived in Constantinople on 1 January 1935, then continued to travel around Greece
Greece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....
. In March, he was involved in the campaign of royalist forces in Macedonia
Macedonia (Greece)
Macedonia is a geographical and historical region of Greece in Southern Europe. Macedonia is the largest and second most populous Greek region...
against an attempted Republican revolt
Greek coup attempt of 1935
The attempted coup of March 1935 was a Venizelist revolt against the People's Party government of Panagis Tsaldaris, which was suspected of pro-royalist tendencies....
. In Athens
Athens
Athens , is the capital and largest city of Greece. Athens dominates the Attica region and is one of the world's oldest cities, as its recorded history spans around 3,400 years. Classical Athens was a powerful city-state...
, he met Balasha Cantacuzène (Bălaşa Cantacuzino), a Romania
Romania
Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...
n noblewoman, with whom he fell in love. They shared an old watermill outside the city looking out towards Poros
Poros
Poros is a small Greek island-pair in the southern part of the Saronic Gulf, at a distance about 58 km south from Piraeus and separated from the Peloponnese by a 200-metre wide sea channel, with the town of Galatas on the mainland across the strait. Its surface is about and it has 4,117...
, where she painted and he wrote. They moved on to Băleni, the Cantacuzène
Cantacuzino family
The Cantacuzino or Cantacuzène family is an old boyar family of Wallachia and Moldavia, a branch of Greek Kantakouzinos family, allegedly descended from the Byzantine Emperor John VI Cantacuzenus. No definite genealogical links between Byzantine Greek and Romanian Cantacuzinos have been established...
house in Moldavia
Moldavia
Moldavia is a geographic and historical region and former principality in Eastern Europe, corresponding to the territory between the Eastern Carpathians and the Dniester river...
, where they were living at the outbreak of World War II.
World War II
Leigh Fermor as an officer cadet trained alongside Derek BondDerek Bond
Derek William Douglas Bond MC was a British actor.-Life and career:Derek Bond was born 26 January 1920 in Glasgow, Scotland. He attended Haberdashers' Aske's Boys' School in Hampstead, London. He saw active service with the Grenadier Guards in North Africa during the Second World War, for which he...
(actor) and Iain Moncreiffe (became a barristers specialising in heraldic matters and genealogy), and later joined the Irish Guards
Irish Guards
The Irish Guards , part of the Guards Division, is a Foot Guards regiment of the British Army.Along with the Royal Irish Regiment, it is one of the two Irish regiments remaining in the British Army. The Irish Guards recruit in Northern Ireland and the Irish neighbourhoods of major British cities...
, but due to his knowledge of modern Greek
Greek language
Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...
, he was commissioned in the General List and became a liaison officer in Albania
Albania
Albania , officially known as the Republic of Albania , is a country in Southeastern Europe, in the Balkans region. It is bordered by Montenegro to the northwest, Kosovo to the northeast, the Republic of Macedonia to the east and Greece to the south and southeast. It has a coast on the Adriatic Sea...
. He fought in Crete
Crete
Crete is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, and one of the thirteen administrative regions of Greece. It forms a significant part of the economy and cultural heritage of Greece while retaining its own local cultural traits...
and mainland Greece. During the German occupation, he returned to Crete three times, once by parachute
Parachute
A parachute is a device used to slow the motion of an object through an atmosphere by creating drag, or in the case of ram-air parachutes, aerodynamic lift. Parachutes are usually made out of light, strong cloth, originally silk, now most commonly nylon...
.
He was one of a small number of Special Operations Executive
Special Operations Executive
The Special Operations Executive was a World War II organisation of the United Kingdom. It was officially formed by Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Minister of Economic Warfare Hugh Dalton on 22 July 1940, to conduct guerrilla warfare against the Axis powers and to instruct and aid local...
(SOE) officers posted to organise the island's resistance
Cretan resistance
The Cretan resistance was a resistance movement against Nazi Germany by the residents of the Greek island of Crete during World War II. Part of the larger Greek Resistance, it lasted from May 20, 1941, when the German Wehrmacht invaded the island in the Battle of Crete, until the fall of 1945 when...
to German occupation. Disguised as a shepherd and nicknamed Michalis or Filedem, he lived for over two years in the mountains. With Captain Bill Stanley Moss MC
W. Stanley Moss
Ivan William "Billy" Stanley Moss MC , was a British army officer in World War II, and later a successful writer, broadcaster, journalist and traveller. He served with the Coldstream Guards and the Special Operations Executive . He was a best-selling author in the 1950s, based both on his novels...
as his second in command, Leigh Fermor led the party that in 1944 captured and evacuated the German Commander, General Heinrich Kreipe
Kidnap of General Kreipe
The Kidnap of General Kreipe was a Second World War operation by the Special Operations Executive, an organisation of the United Kingdom. The mission took place on the German occupied island of Crete in May 1944....
. The Cretans commemorate Kreipe's abduction near Archanes
Archanes
Archanes is a former municipality in the Heraklion peripheral unit, Crete, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Archanes-Asterousia, of which it is a municipal unit. Population 4,548 . It is also the archaeological site of an ancient Minoan settlement in...
.
Moss featured the events in his book Ill Met by Moonlight: The Abduction of General Kreipe
Ill Met by Moonlight
Ill Met by Moonlight , also known as Night Ambush, is a film by the British writer-director-producer team of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, the last film they made together through their Archers production company...
(1950). It was later adapted as a film by the same name, directed/produced by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger
Powell and Pressburger
The British film-making partnership of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, also known as The Archers, made a series of influential films in the 1940s and 1950s. In 1981 they were recognized for their contributions to British cinema with the BAFTA Academy Fellowship Award, the most prestigious...
and released in 1957. In the film, Leigh Fermor was portrayed by Dirk Bogarde
Dirk Bogarde
Sir Dirk Bogarde was an English actor and novelist. Initially a matinee idol in such films as Doctor in the House and other Rank Organisation pictures, Bogarde later acted in art-house films such as Death in Venice...
.
Wartime honours and legacy
- DSODistinguished Service OrderThe Distinguished Service Order is a military decoration of the United Kingdom, and formerly of other parts of the British Commonwealth and Empire, awarded for meritorious or distinguished service by officers of the armed forces during wartime, typically in actual combat.Instituted on 6 September...
- Honorary Citizen of HeraklionHeraklionHeraklion, or Heraclion is the largest city and the administrative capital of the island of Crete, Greece. It is the 4th largest city in Greece....
- Honorary Citizen of Kardamyli
- Honorary Citizen of GytheioGytheioGytheio , the ancient Gythium or Gytheion , is a town and a former municipality in Laconia, Peloponnese, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality East Mani, of which it is a municipal unit. It was the seaport of Sparta, some 40 km north...
.
- The National Archives in London holds copies of Leigh Fermor's wartime dispatches from occupied Crete in file number HS 5/728.
Post war
In 1950, Leigh Fermor's published his first book, The Traveller's Tree, about his post-war travels in the CaribbeanCaribbean
The Caribbean is a crescent-shaped group of islands more than 2,000 miles long separating the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea, to the west and south, from the Atlantic Ocean, to the east and north...
. The book won the Heinemann Foundation Prize for Literature and established his career path: it was quoted extensively in Live and Let Die, by his close friend Ian Fleming
Ian Fleming
Ian Lancaster Fleming was a British author, journalist and Naval Intelligence Officer.Fleming is best known for creating the fictional British spy James Bond and for a series of twelve novels and nine short stories about the character, one of the biggest-selling series of fictional books of...
. He went on to write several further books of his journeys, including Mani and Roumeli, of his travels on mule and foot around remote parts of Greece. Critics and discerning readers regard his 1977 A Time of Gifts as one of the greatest travel books in the English language.
He translated the manuscript, The Cretan Runner
The Cretan Runner
The Cretan Runner: His Story of the German Occupation is a book written by George Psychoundakis...
, written by George Psychoundakis
George Psychoundakis
George Psychoundakis was a Greek Resistance fighter on Crete during the Second World War. He was a shepherd, a war hero and an author. He served as dispatch runner between Petro Petrakas and Papadakis behind the German lines for the Cretan resistance Movement and later, from 1941 to 1945, for the...
, the dispatch runner on Crete during the war. Leigh Fermor helped Psychoundakis get his work published. Leigh Fermor wrote a novel, The Violins of Saint-Jacques. It was adapted as an opera by Malcolm Williamson
Malcolm Williamson
Malcolm Benjamin Graham Christopher Williamson AO , CBE was an Australian composer. He was the Master of the Queen's Music from 1975 until his death.-Biography:...
.
His friend Lawrence Durrell
Lawrence Durrell
Lawrence George Durrell was an expatriate British novelist, poet, dramatist, and travel writer, though he resisted affiliation with Britain and preferred to be considered cosmopolitan...
, in Bitter Lemons
Bitter Lemons
Bitter Lemons is an autobiographical work by writer Lawrence Durrell, describing the three years he spent on the island of Cyprus...
(1957), recounts how, during the outbreak of Cypriot insurgency against continued British rule in 1955, Leigh Fermor visited Durrell's villa in Bellapaix, Cyprus:
"After a splendid dinner by the fire he starts singing, songs of Crete, Athens, Macedonia. When I go out to refill the ouzoOuzoOuzo is an anise-flavored aperitif that is widely consumed in Greece and Cyprus, and a symbol of Greek culture.-History:Traditionally, tsipouro is said to have been the pet project of a group of 14th century monks living in a monastery on holy Mount Athos. One version of it is flavored with anise...
bottle...I find the street completely filled with people listening in utter silence and darkness. Everyone seems struck dumb. 'What is it?' I say, catching sight of Frangos. 'Never have I heard of Englishmen singing Greek songs like this!' Their reverent amazement is touching; it is as if they want to embrace Paddy wherever he goes."
Later years
After many years together, Leigh Fermor was married in 1968 to the Hon. Joan Elizabeth Rayner, née Eyres Monsell, daughter of the 1st Viscount MonsellBolton Eyres-Monsell, 1st Viscount Monsell
Bolton Meredith Eyres-Monsell, 1st Viscount Monsell, GBE, PC was a British Conservative Party politician who served as Chief Whip until 1931 and then as First Lord of the Admiralty.His parents were Lt.Col...
. She accompanied him on many of his travels until her death in Kardamyli
Kardamili
Kardamyli is a town by the sea and thirty-five kilometers from Kalamata. It is the seat of the municipality of Lefktro in the region of Mani....
in June 2003 aged 91. They had no children. They lived part of the year in their house in an olive grove near Kardamyli in the Mani Peninsula
Mani Peninsula
The Mani Peninsula , also long known as Maina or Maïna, is a geographical and cultural region in Greece. Mani is the central peninsula of the three which extend southwards from the Peloponnese in southern Greece. To the east is the Laconian Gulf, to the west the Messenian Gulf...
, southern Peloponnese
Peloponnese
The Peloponnese, Peloponnesos or Peloponnesus , is a large peninsula , located in a region of southern Greece, forming the part of the country south of the Gulf of Corinth...
, and part of the year in Worcestershire
Worcestershire
Worcestershire is a non-metropolitan county, established in antiquity, located in the West Midlands region of England. For Eurostat purposes it is a NUTS 3 region and is one of three counties that comprise the "Herefordshire, Worcestershire and Warwickshire" NUTS 2 region...
. In the 2004 New Years Honours Patrick Leigh Fermor was named a Knight Bachelor. In 2007, he said that, for the first time, he had decided to work using a typewriter - having written all his books longhand until then.
Death and Funeral
Patrick Leigh Fermor was noted for his strong physical constitution. Although in his last years he suffered from tunnel vision and wore hearing aids he remained physically fit up to his death and dined at table on the last evening of his life. For the last few months of his life he suffered from a tumour, and in early June 2011 he underwent a tracheotomy. Realising that death was close he expressed a wish to die in England. He travelled back to England on 9 June 2011 and died on 10 June 2011, aged 96, following this short battle with cancer..The funeral took place at St Peter's Church, Dumbleton
Dumbleton
Dumbleton is a village in the English county of Gloucestershire. The village is roughly 20 miles from Gloucester and 50 miles from Bristol.The village is known to have existed in the time of Ethelred I who granted land to Abingdon Abbey, and it is mentioned in the Domesday Book.St Peter's church is...
, Gloucestershire on 16 June 2011. The service was conducted by the Reverend Nicholas Carter. The opening reading, The Garden of Cyrus by Sir Thomas Browne
Thomas Browne
Sir Thomas Browne was an English author of varied works which reveal his wide learning in diverse fields including medicine, religion, science and the esoteric....
, was read by Colin Thubron
Colin Thubron
Colin Gerald Dryden Thubron, CBE is a British travel writer and novelist.In 2008, The Times ranked him 45th on their list of the 50 greatest postwar British writers. He is a contributor to The New York Review of Books, The Times, The Times Literary Supplement and The New York Times. His books...
. A Guard of Honour was provided by serving and former members of the Intelligence Corps, and a bugler from the Irish Guards sounded Last Post and Reveille. Patrick Leigh Fermor is buried next to his wife in the churchyard at Dumbleton.
Awards and legacy
- 1950, Heinemann Foundation Prize for Literature for The Traveller's Tree
- 1978, WH Smith Literary AwardWH Smith Literary AwardThe WH Smith Literary Award was an award founded in 1959 by British high street retailer W H Smith. Its founding aim was stated to be to "encourage and bring international esteem to authors of the British Commonwealth"; originally open to all residents of the UK, the Commonwealth and the Republic...
for A Time of Gifts. - 1991, elected an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of LiteratureRoyal Society of LiteratureThe Royal Society of Literature is the "senior literary organisation in Britain". It was founded in 1820 by George IV, in order to "reward literary merit and excite literary talent". The Society's first president was Thomas Burgess, who later became the Bishop of Salisbury...
- 1995, ChevalierChevalierChevalier is a class of membership in a French Order of Chivalry or order of merit.* a member of the Ordre National du Mérite* a rank in the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres* a rank in the Legion d'honneur* a member of the Order of Palmes académiques...
, Ordre des Arts et des LettresOrdre des Arts et des LettresThe Ordre des Arts et des Lettres is an Order of France, established on 2 May 1957 by the Minister of Culture, and confirmed as part of the Ordre national du Mérite by President Charles de Gaulle in 1963... - February 2004, accepted the knighthood which he had declined in 1991.
- 2004, awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award of the British Guild of Travel WritersBritish Guild of Travel WritersThe British Guild of Travel Writers was formed in 1960. It is a membership organisation that admits authors whose work focuses on travel. It also includes among its membership many other professionals who generate travel-related content for print, broadcast and online media...
. - 2007, the GreekGreeceGreece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....
government made him Commander of the Order of the Phoenix. - His life and work were profiled by the travel writer Benedict AllenBenedict AllenBenedict Colin Allen is a British traveller. He is best known for his survival modus operandi: tapping into local, indigenous knowledge above reliance on modern inventions. His approach is to present himself as ready to learn, like an infant; the communities that he visits take him under their...
in the documentary series Travellers' CenturyTravellers' CenturyTravellers' Century is a 2008 BBC Television documentary series presented by Benedict Allen that profiles the lives of three influential 20th century British travel writers.-Production:...
(2008) on BBC FourBBC FourBBC Four is a British television network operated by the British Broadcasting Corporation and available to digital television viewers on Freeview, IPTV, satellite and cable....
. - A documentary film on the Cretan resistance The 11th DayThe 11th Day: Crete 1941The 11th Day: Crete 1941 is a 2005 documentary film featuring eyewitness accounts from survivors of the Battle for Crete during World War II. The film was created by producer-director Christos Epperson and writer-producer Michael Epperson, and funded by Alex Spanos. Among the eyewitnesses are...
(2003) contains extensive interview segments with Leigh Fermor in which he recounted his service in the S.O.E. and his activities on Crete, including the capture of General Kreipe.
Books
- The Traveller's Tree (1950)
- The Violins of Saint-Jacques (1953)
- A Time to Keep Silence (1957). This was an early publication from the Queen Anne PressQueen Anne PressThe Queen Anne Press is a small private press. It was created in 1951 by Lord Kemsley, proprietor of the Sunday Times, to publish the works of comtemporary authors. In 1952, as a wedding present to his then Foreign Editor, Kemsley made Ian Fleming its managing director. The press concentrated on...
, a company managed by Leigh Fermor's author friend Ian FlemingIan FlemingIan Lancaster Fleming was a British author, journalist and Naval Intelligence Officer.Fleming is best known for creating the fictional British spy James Bond and for a series of twelve novels and nine short stories about the character, one of the biggest-selling series of fictional books of...
. - Mani - Travels in the Southern Peloponnese (1958)
- Roumeli (1966)
- A Time of Gifts - On Foot to Constantinople: From the Hook of Holland to the Middle DanubeA Time Of GiftsA Time of Gifts is regarded by many critics as one of the classics of travel literature. Written by Patrick Leigh Fermor and published by John Murray in 1977 when the author was 62, it is an account of the first part of the author's journey on foot across Europe from the Hook of Holland to...
(1977) - Between the Woods and the Water (1986)
- Three Letters from the Andes (1991)
- Words of Mercury (2003) edited by Artemis CooperArtemis CooperThe Hon. Alice Clare Antonia Opportune Cooper Beevor is a British writer known as Artemis Cooper.Known as Artemis, a nickname which honours her paternal grandmother, she is the only daughter of the 2nd Viscount Norwich and his first wife, the former Anne Clifford, and a granddaughter of the...
- Introduction to Into Colditz by Lt Colonel Miles Reid, Michael Russell Publishing Ltd, Wilton (1983). The story of Reid's captivity in Colditz and eventual escape by faking illness so as to qualify for repatriation. Reid had served with Leigh Fermor in Greece and was captured there trying to defend the Corinth Canal bridge when the Germans launched an attack with paratroops in 1941.
- Foreword of Albanian Assignment by Colonel David SmileyDavid SmileyColonel David de Crespigny Smiley, LVO, OBE, MC & Bar was a British special forces and intelligence officer. He fought in the Second World War in Palestine, Iraq, Persia, Syria, Western Desert and with Special Operations Executive in Albania and Thailand.- Background :Smiley was the 4th and...
, Chatto & Windus, London (1984). The story of SOE in Albania, by a brother in arms of Leigh Fermor, who was later a MI6 agent. - In Tearing Haste: Letters Between Deborah Devonshire and Patrick Leigh-Fermor (2008), edited by Charlotte Mosley
Translations
- No Innocent Abroad (published in USA as Forever Ulysses) by C.P. Rodocanachi (1938)
- The Cretan Runner: His Story of the German OccupationThe Cretan RunnerThe Cretan Runner: His Story of the German Occupation is a book written by George Psychoundakis...
by George Psychoundakis (1955)
External links
- Faces of the Week - you can hear Leigh Fermor's voice there
- Long Distance Paths E6, E8 and E3 trace similar routes across Europe
- Official site of the documentary film The 11th Day which contains an extensive interview with Sir Patrick Leigh Fermor, and documents the Battle of Trahili, filmed in 2003.
- Fermor's obituary in the Daily Mail: The Lionheart who stole a Nazi - and the heart of every woman
- Profile in the New Yorker, by Anthony LaneAnthony LaneAnthony Lane is a film critic for The New Yorker magazine.-Personal life:Lane lives in Cambridge with Allison Pearson, a British writer and former Daily Mail columnist...
, published May 22, 2006