Patrick Leigh Fermor

Sir Patrick Michael Leigh Fermor (11 February 1915 – 10 June 2011) was an English writer, scholar, soldier and polyglot. He played a prominent role in the Cretan resistance during the Second World War, and was widely seen as Britain's greatest living travel writer, on the basis of books such as A Time of Gifts (1977). A BBC journalist once termed him "a cross between Indiana Jones, James Bond and Graham Greene".

Early life and education

Leigh Fermor was born in London, the son of Sir Lewis Leigh Fermor, a distinguished geologist, and Muriel Aeyleen (Eileen), daughter of Charles Taafe Ambler. His mother added the "Leigh" before "Fermor" in his surname, although it was not a true double-barrelled name. Shortly after his birth, his mother and sister left to join his father in India, leaving the infant Patrick in England with a family in Northamptonshire: first in the village of Weedon, and later in nearby Dodford. He did not meet his parents or his sister again until he was four years old. As a child Leigh Fermor had problems with academic structure and limitations, and was sent to a school for "difficult" children. He was later expelled from The King's School, Canterbury, after he was caught holding hands with a greengrocer's daughter. At school he also became friendly with another contemporary, Alan Watts.

His last report from The King's School noted that the young Leigh 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. Gradually he changed his mind, deciding to become an author instead, and in the summer of 1933 relocated to Shepherd Market in London, living with a few friends. Soon, faced with the challenges of an author's life in London and rapidly draining finances, he decided to leave for Europe.

Early travels

At the age of 18 Leigh Fermor decided to walk the length of Europe from the Hook of Holland to Constantinople (Istanbul). He set off on 8 December 1933 with a few clothes, several letters of introduction, the Oxford Book of English Verse and a Loeb volume of Horace's Odes. He slept in barns and shepherds' huts, but was also invited by gentry and aristocracy into the country houses of Central Europe. He experienced hospitality in many monasteries along the way.

Two of his later travel books, A Time of Gifts (1977) and Between the Woods and the Water (1986), cover this journey, but at the time of his death, a book on the final part of his journey remained unfinished. This was edited and assembled from Leigh Fermor's diary of the time and an early draft he wrote in the 1960s. It was published as The Broken Road by John Murray in September 2013.

Leigh Fermor arrived in Istanbul on 1 January 1935, then continued to travel around Greece, spending a few weeks in Mount Athos. 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 Romanian Phanariote 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, Galați, the Cantacuzène house in Moldavia, Romania, where he remained until the autumn of 1939. On learning that Britain had declared war on Germany on 3 September 1939 Leigh Fermor immediately left Romania for home and enlisted in the army. He did not meet Cantacuzène again until 1965.

Second World War

As an officer cadet Leigh Fermor trained alongside Derek Bond and Iain Moncreiffe. He later joined the Irish Guards. His knowledge of modern Greek gained him a commission in the General List in August 1940 and he 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, and was among a small number of Special Operations Executive (SOE) officers posted to organise the island's resistance to the occupation. Disguised as a shepherd and nicknamed Michalis or Filedem, he lived for over two years in the mountains. With Captain Bill Stanley Moss as his second in command, Leigh Fermor led the party that in 1944 captured and evacuated the German commander, Major General Heinrich Kreipe. There is a memorial commemorating Kreipe's abduction near Archanes in Crete.

Moss featured the events of the Cretan capture in his book Ill Met by Moonlight. (The 2014 edition contains an afterword on the context, written by Leigh Fermor in 2001.) It was adapted in a film by the same name, directed/produced by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger and released in 1957 with Leigh Fermor played by Dirk Bogarde. Leigh Fermor's own account Abducting A General – The Kreipe Operation and SOE in Crete appeared in October 2014.

During periods of leave, Leigh Fermor spent time at Tara, a villa in Cairo rented by Moss, where the "rowdy household" of SOE officers was presided over by Countess Zofia (Sophie) Tarnowska.

During the same period in Crete, Leigh Fermor would become a member of the Travellers Club proposed for membership by fellow SOE officer Arthur Reade while the two alongside Xan Fielding, were sheltering in a cave on the German occupied Island in 1942.

Wartime honours

Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (OBE)

The Distinguished Service Order (DSO)

Honorary Citizen of Heraklion, of Kardamyli and of Gytheio