Posts
Guardian Obituary, Sir Patrick Leigh Fermor
Now that both John Campbell and Paddy Leigh Fermor have departed from us, how many traveller-writers are there left who can remember the old way of life of the semi-nomadic, transhumant Saraktasani shepherds, like the ones who once waxed lyrical to PLF about the high Zagori pasture-lands above Vitsa and the Vikos Gorge?
"All their eyes lit up like those of the children of Israel at the thought of Canaan...You didn't need wine there- the air made you drunk; and as for the shade, the grass, the trees and the water - why the water came gushing out of the living rock as cold as ice, you couldn't drink it it was so cold, and you could drink it by the oka and feel like a giant. Words failed them".
They fail me too.
Europe On Foot
I wonder if Luke Slattery ever got to meet his hero.
Bruce Chatwin did.
The British Council (British Institute) in Athens must have been a very special place in the 1940s when PLF was Deputy Director.
I am looking forward to participating in a conference in Athens next January on the role of The British Council in Greece from 1945-1955. I am sure that the late and much lamented Sir Patrick Leigh Fermor will figure large.
Salute the heros.
Update: The Last of the Scholar Warriors, Christopher Hitchens
Robert Kaplan
Margot Demopoulos
Kathimerini
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
A fine old tree has fallen. I could imagine him choosing to leave from his dearest home, Kardamyli, Καρδαμύλη in Mani, but last Thursday he came home to Worcestershire. Joan died at Kardamyli in 2003; her remains brought back to her birthplace to lie in St Peter's Churchyard, Dumbleton under the inscription - Και γαίαν έχεις ελαφράν. Our friend Aleko tells me modern Greek would write this "And may the earth that covers you be light"
ReplyDelete