Sir Patrick 'Paddy' Michael Leigh Fermor DSO (born 11 February 1915, London) is a British author, scholar and soldier, who played a prominent role behind the lines in the Battle of Crete during World War II. He is famous for his travel writing and is widely regarded as "Britain's greatest living travel writer". ^[1] DSO medal The Distinguished Service Order (DSO) is a military decoration of the United Kingdom, and formerly of other Commonwealth countries, awarded for meritorious or distinguished service by officers of the armed forces during wartime, typically in actual combat. ... is the 42nd day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1915 (MCMXV) was a common year starting on Friday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Thursday[1] of the 13-day-slower Julian calendar). ... This article is about the capital of England and the United Kingdom. ... Combatants Greece United Kingdom New Zealand Australia Germany Italy Commanders Bernard Freyberg Kurt Student Strength United Kingdom: 15,000 Greece: 11,000 Australia: 7,100 New Zealand: 6,700 Total: 40,000 (10,000 without fighting capability. ... Combatants Allied powers: China France Great Britain Soviet Union United States and others Axis powers: Germany Italy Japan and others Commanders Chiang Kai-shek Charles de Gaulle Winston Churchill Joseph Stalin Franklin Roosevelt Adolf Hitler Benito Mussolini Hideki Tōjō Casualties Military dead: 17,000,000 Civilian dead: 33,000... Travel literature is literature which records the people, events, sights and feelings of an author who is touring a foreign place for the pleasure of travel. ...

Background

Leigh Fermor's father, Sir Lewis, was a distinguished geologist. Shortly after Patrick was born, his mother left to join his father in India, leaving him behind with another family. 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 thrown out of his school, The King's School, Canterbury, for holding hands with a local greengrocer's daughter. He carried on educating himself, reading texts on Greek, Latin, Shakespeare and History with the plan for him to get into the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst. Lewis Leigh Fermor was the first president of the Indian National Science Academy. ... The Kings School is a British independent school situated in Canterbury, Kent. ... For other uses, see Latin (disambiguation). ... Shakespeare redirects here. ... New College, Royal Military Academy Sandhurst New Colours are presented to RMAS, June 2005. ...

Early travels

He soon decided, however, at just 18, to walk the length of Europe, from the Hook of Holland to Constantinople. Leigh Fermor had set off on 8 December 1933, when Hitler had recently come to power in Germany, with a few clothes, the Oxford Book of English Verse and a volume of Horace's odes. He slept in barns and shepherds' huts, but also in the country houses of Central Europe with the landed gentry and aristocracy. All along the journey he listened to the many stories and dialects he came across. Two of his subsequent travel books, A Time of Gifts and Between the Woods and the Water, detail this journey and, as they were written decades later, benefit from his scholarly learning, giving a wealth of historical, geographical, linguistic and anthropological information as the narrative proceeds. A planned third volume, intended to follow the journey to its completion in Constantinople, has not yet appeared. For other uses, see Europe (disambiguation). ... Hoek van Holland (literally Corner of Holland, but known in English as Hook of Holland) is a town in South Holland in the Netherlands. ... This article is about the city before the Fall of Constantinople (1453). ... is the 342nd day of the year (343rd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1933 (MCMXXXIII) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will display full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... Adolf Hitler Adolf Hitler (April 20, 1889 – April 30, 1945, standard German pronunciation in the IPA) was the Führer (leader) of the National Socialist German Workers Party (Nazi Party) and of Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945. ... Horace, as imagined by Anton von Werner Quintus Horatius Flaccus, (December 8, 65 BC - November 27, 8 BC), known in the English-speaking world as Horace, was the leading Roman lyric poet during the time of Augustus. ... A Time of Gifts (TOG) is one of the classics of travel literature, written by Patrick Leigh Fermor and published in 1977 when he was 62. ...

Leigh Fermor arrived in Constantinople on 1 January 1935 then continued on to travel around Greece. In March, he was involved in the campaign of pro-royalist forces in Macedonia against an attempted Republican revolt. He fell in love with Greece and its language. In Athens, he met Balasha Cantacuzène (Bălaşa Cantacuzino), a Romanian 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 then moved on to Băleni, the Cantacuzène house in Moldavia, where Leigh Fermor was when World War II was declared. is the 1st day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... 1935 (MCMXXXV) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will display full calendar). ... Monarchism is the advocacy of the establishment, preservation, or restoration of a monarchy. ... The attempted coup of March 1935 (Greek: ) was a Venizelist revolt against the Peoples Party government of Panagis Tsaldaris, which was suspected of pro-royalist tendencies. ... This article is about the capital of Greece. ... The sarcophagus of Princess BălaÅŸa Cantacuzino, kept in the National Museum of Romanian History The Cantacuzino (Cantacuzène) family is an old boyar family of Wallachia that claims to have its roots in the Byzantine Greek emperor John VI Kantakouzenos. ... Poros (Greek: Πόρος) is a small Greek island-pair in the southern part of the Saronic Gulf, at a distance about 48 km (32 miles) south from Piraeus and separated from the Peloponnese by a 200-metre wide sea channel. ... The sarcophagus of Princess BălaÅŸa Cantacuzino, kept in the National Museum of Romanian History The Cantacuzino (Cantacuzène) family is an old boyar family of Wallachia that claims to have its roots in the Byzantine Greek emperor John VI Kantakouzenos. ... For other uses of Moldavia or Moldova, see Moldova (disambiguation). ...

World War II

He joined the Irish Guards, but due to his knowledge of Greek he was commissioned into the Intelligence Corps and became a liaison officer in Albania and fought in Greece and Crete. During the German occupation he returned to Crete three times, once by parachute. He was one of a small number of Special Operations Executive officers posted to organise the island's resistance to German occupation. Disguised as a shepherd, he lived for over two years in the mountains and led the party that captured and evacuated the German Commander, General Heinrich Kreipe in 1944. The episode was immortalised in the book and later film, Ill Met by Moonlight in which Leigh Fermor was portrayed by Dirk Bogarde. He was awarded the DSO, was made Honorary Citizen of Heraklion and later of Kardamyli and Gytheio. The National Archives in London hold copies of Leigh Fermor's wartime dispatches from occupied Crete, in file number HS 5/728. This article deals with the current British Army regiment, for historical regiments, see Historical Irish Guards regiments. ... The Intelligence Corps (also known as Int Corps) is one of the corps of the British Army. ... For other uses, see Crete (disambiguation). ... The Special Operations Executive (SOE), sometimes referred to as the Baker Street Irregulars after Sherlock Holmess fictional group of spies, was a World War II organization initiated by Winston Churchill and Hugh Dalton in July 1940 as a mechanism for conducting warfare by means other than direct military engagement. ... Karl Heinrich Georg Ferdinand Kreipe (5 June 1895 - 14 June 1976) was a German general, who served in World War II. He is most famous for his spectacular abduction by British agents from occupied Crete in April 1944. ... Poster for Ill Met by Moonlight. ... Sir Derek Jules Gaspard Ulric Niven van den Bogaerde (28 March 1921 – 8 May 1999), better known by his stage name Dirk Bogarde, was an actor and author. ... DSO medal The Distinguished Service Order (DSO) is a military decoration of the United Kingdom, and formerly of other Commonwealth countries, awarded for meritorious or distinguished service by officers of the armed forces during wartime, typically in actual combat. ... Heraklion or Iraklion (Greek: Ηράκλειο; Italian: Candia), is the largest city and the capital of Crete. ... Kardamili Kardamili (also spelled Kardhamili, Kardamyli, (Καρδαμύλη in Greek) is a village by the sea and 35 kilometers away from Kalamata. ... Gytheio (Greek, Modern: Γύθειο, Ancient/Katharevousa: -on), also Gythio, Githeio or Githio is a town of Laconia in Greece, long known as the seaport of Sparta some 30 miles inland. ...

In 2005, a documentary film on the Cretan resistance movement entitled The 11th Day was released. The documentary, produced by filmmakers Christos and Michael Epperson, contains extensive interview segments with Leigh Fermor, filmed in 2003, in which he recounts in great detail his service in the S.O.E. and his activities on Crete, including the capture of General Kreipe. The Special Operations Executive (SOE), sometimes referred to as the Baker Street Irregulars after Sherlock Holmess fictional group of spies, was a World War II organization initiated by Winston Churchill and Hugh Dalton in July 1940 as a mechanism for conducting warfare by means other than direct military engagement. ...

Post war

In 1950, Leigh Fermor's first book, The Traveller's Tree was published about his post-war travels in the Caribbean. The book won the Heinemann Foundation Prize for Literature and firmly placed him on the map. 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. Many critics and discerning readers regard his 1977 A Time of Gifts as one the very greatest travel books in the English language. He translated the manuscript, The Cretan Runner, written by his former subordinate on Crete during the war, the dispatch runner George Psychoundakis, and had it published. He also wrote a novel, The Violins of Saint-Jacques, which was turned into an opera by Malcolm Williamson. “West Indian” redirects here. ... George Psychoundakis (November 3, 1920 – January 29, 2006) was a Greek Resistance fighter on Crete during the Second World War. ... Malcolm Benjamin Graham Christopher Williamson CBE, AO (November 21, 1931 – March 2, 2003) was an Australian composer. ...

Leigh Fermor's extraordinary charm and gift for bridging the cultural divide between the United Kingdom and the Hellenic world (for which he was knighted in 2004) was vividly described by his close friend, Lawrence Durrell, in Bitter Lemons (1957). During this difficult period which saw the outbreak of the Cypriot insurgency against continued British rule in 1955, an episode which severely strained Anglo-Hellenic relations, Durrell describes how Leigh Fermor visited his villa in Bellapaix: "After a splendid dinner by the fire he starts singing, songs of Crete, Athens, Macedonia. When I go out to refill the ouzo 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." (pp.103-4) Lawrence George Durrell (February 27, 1912 – November 7, 1990) was a British novelist, poet, dramatist, and travel writer, though he resisted affiliation with Britain and preferred to be considered cosmopolitan. ... Bitter Lemons is an autobiographical work by writer Lawrence Durrell, describing the three years (1953-1956) he spent on the island of Cyprus. ...

Later years

After many years together, Leigh Fermor was married in 1968 to the Hon. Joan Elizabeth Rayner, née Eyres Monsell, daughter of Viscount Monsell, who accompanied him on many of his travels until her death in Kardamyli in June 2003 aged 91. They lived part of the year in their house in an olive grove in the Mani Peninsula, southern Peloponnese, and part of the year in Worcestershire. Bolton Meredith Eyres-Monsell, 1st Viscount Monsell, PC (1881-1969) was a British Conservative politician who served as Chief Whip until 1931 and then as First Lord of the Admiralty. ... Kardamili (also spelled Kardhamili, Kardamyli, Καρδαμύλη in Greek)is a village by the sea and 35 kilometers away from Kalamata. ... Map of Greece highlighting the Mani peninsula. ... Greece and the Peloponnese The Peloponnese or Peloponnesus (Greek: Πελοπόννησος Peloponnesos; see also List of Greek place names) is a large peninsula in southern Greece, forming the part of the country south of the Gulf of Corinth. ... Worcestershire (pronounced ; abbreviated Worcs) is a county located in the West Midlands region of central England. ...

Patrick Leigh Fermor was knighted in February 2004; in February 2007, the Greek government made him Commander of the Order of the Phoenix. At the same time, it emerged that, for the first time, he had decided to work using a typewriter - having written all his books long-hand until then.^[2] Grand Cross of the Order of the Phoenix, III. type The Order of the Phoenix (Greek Τάγμα του Φοίνικος) is an Order (decoration) of Greece, established on May 13, 1926 by the republican government of the Second Hellenic Republic to replace the defunct Royal Order of George I. The Order was retained by...

Books

• The Traveller's Tree (1950)
• The Violins of Saint-Jacques (1953)
• A Time to Keep Silence (1957)
• Mani - Travels in the Southern Peloponnese (1958)
• Roumeli (1966)
• A Time of Gifts (1977)
• Between the Woods and the Water (1986)
• Three Letters from the Andes (1991)
• Words of Mercury (2003) edited by Artemis Cooper

A Time of Gifts (TOG) is one of the classics of travel literature, written by Patrick Leigh Fermor and published in 1977 when he was 62. ...

References

1. ^ http://books.guardian.co.uk/news/articles/0,,2025178,00.html
2. ^ http://books.guardian.co.uk/news/articles/0,,2025178,00.html

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 extensive interviews with Fermor, filmed in 2003.