Patrick Leigh Fermor: An Adventure

by Artemis Cooper

  The only bother about this erratic and disorganised life is that it is beset with financial doldrums which I can nearly always overcome by stop-gaps or going to earth somewhere, but while I’m working on a book, precious little comes in, and sometimes nothing, with the result that poor Mummy suffers by the bank not paying her the wretched weekly sum I’m supposed want to give her … Do explain this when you see her, and tell her I’ll do everything I can to set matters straight as soon as poss … I think I’d better take a regular job on some newspaper soon, so as to be of more help. But it’ll probably mean goodbye to other writing for the time being.29

  Another film company was interested in buying the rights to The Violins, and as Paddy wrote to Jock,

  it would solve so many problems. a) Constantly straining your very generous help about advances etc. b) Freedom from worrying and possibility of finding a permanent cottage or something in which to do nothing but write, and stop living in suitcases and constantly losing things. c) Entirely for your private ear … Other members of my family are not behaving quite as well as they should about my mama; I do what I can, but it’s not much at the moment, and she’s rather hard up. It’s a frightful worry and the extra pennies would settle it for ages.30

  ‘Other members of my family’ is a reference to Sir Lewis Leigh Fermor, who had retired to Surrey with his second wife Frances. His granddaughter Francesca recalled that he never spoke of Æileen without a certain tight-lipped bitterness. His little house (named ‘Gondwana’) near Horsell was scarcely luxurious, but it was still better than the squalid flat near Leicester Square where Æileen lived. Paddy and Vanessa both felt he could have done more for their mother but Æileen, throwing her purple cloak over one shoulder, remained resolutely buoyant.

  Paddy might have felt worried and guilty about Æileen, but had no intention of changing his own life to ease hers. The loss of a notebook covering his travels in northern Greece in 1950 now provided him with the perfect excuse to revisit Epirus – ‘one of the wildest, steepest, rockiest parts of Greece … The place, like Crete, is stiff with vendettas and every mountain is the scene of some skirmish in the Greek War of Independence.’31

  He and Joan travelled to Greece towards the end of June with their American friend Peter Tomkins and his wife, who had a jeep. In Yanina, the Turkish capital of Epirus, Paddy ‘did a certain amount of Ali Pasha research, and took a good look at the remains of Byron’s house’, and visited the monastery of Zitza, where Byron and Hobhouse had stayed. At Souli, Paddy left the party for a two-day walk to the cliff of Zalongo. When Souli fell in 1808 to Ali Pasha’s Arnauts, its women and children fled across the mountains to this cliff; and then, dancing to the rock’s edge, the women threw themselves and their children into the void.

  Paddy had hoped to drive through the Acarnanian mountains to Missolonghi; but Joan came down with a fever and, to spare her the jolting of the jeep, he took her there by boat. When she had recovered they set off on a quest to find a pair of slippers, which were said to have belonged to Lord Byron.

  That a pair of Byron’s slippers still existed in Missolonghi had come to Paddy’s attention the previous year, in a crumbling country house in Sussex: Crabbet Park, the home of Judith, 16th Baroness Wentworth, who was Byron’s great-granddaughter.

  Paddy’s acquaintance with Lady Wentworth had come about at a time when Jock Murray was trying to collect all Byron’s letters, to make a complete edition of his correspondence. Jock knew that there was a great hoard of hitherto unseen Byron papers at Crabbet, but owing to a row between his grandfather and the Lovelace family, Byron’s direct descendants, all contact had been severed. Ever keen to help Jock, Paddy mentioned that his friend Michael Holland was on good terms with Lady Wentworth. A plan was therefore made for Paddy and Michael Holland to visit her for lunch, and perhaps find out more about the Crabbet Papers. It is also possible, given the mention of ‘Ali Pasha research’ and visiting Byron’s house in the letter above, that Paddy was thinking of writing something about Byron.

  Lady Wentworth was almost eighty when Paddy met her, but she was not the sort of woman who made concessions to time. She came to greet them wearing a long skirt and tennis shoes, having just had a game of squash with her farm manager, and her mass of improbably auburn hair was piled up under a mob cap. She still ran the magnificent stud of Arabian horses set up by her parents, and had published several books: on Arabian horses, thoroughbred racing, toy dogs, as well as several volumes of verse – ‘They’re no great shakes, I fear – it doesn’t always run in families,’ she admitted to Paddy.32 Her house was filled with Byron memorabilia, which included paintings, costumes, and trunks full of letters and documents.

  Paddy found her fascinating – not least because she used turns of phrase that had last been fashionable in the Regency. Deploying all his charm, he hinted that he would very much like to see what were known as the Wentworth and Lovelace Papers. Lady Wentworth was not encouraging, but he hoped she would eventually come round to the idea.fn2

  Yet his knowledge of Greece had reminded Lady Wentworth of some letters she had received from an Australian sergeant during the war, who had met a man in Missolonghi who had a pair of slippers belonging to Lord Byron. The slippers’ current owner felt they should be returned to the poet’s family, and he too had written her a letter; but since the letter was in Greek, she was unable to read it and had never heard from him again. Through Michael Holland she forwarded all the letters to Paddy, and asked if he could find out anything more.

  Now he and Joan were in Missolonghi, Paddy realized that he did not have the letters with him, and that he had forgotten the name of the man they were looking for. They spent a hot and frustrating day trudging round the town, asking whether anyone had heard of a man who might have Lord Byron’s slippers. No one had, but word spread. On returning to the hotel they found a young woman waiting for them, who said that the slippers were in the possession of her uncle, Charalambos Baiyorgas.

  Mr Baiyorgas was then in his seventies, and the story of how he had acquired the slippers is told in full in Roumeli. Made of thin red tooled leather with yellow silk uppers and turned-up toes, ‘something about them carried instant conviction … the worn parts of the soles were different on each. Those of the left were normal; the right showed a different imprint, particularly in the instep.’ The owner, who did not know about Byron’s clubbed right foot, was not very interested in this discovery; but for Paddy, ‘I believe I saw my hands trembling as I held them.’33 Had they been shown to Paddy as part of Lady Wentworth’s collection it would not have been such a moment of wonder; but to find them here, at Missolonghi, made ‘Lordos Vyron’ seem very close. He sketched the relics, while Joan took photographs of them – for Mr Baiyorgas admitted, with some embarrassment, that he could not bear to let the slippers go after all.

  The resemblances between Byron and Paddy began with a certain physical likeness, and once the connection was made, they multiplied. Both had an idealized vision of Greece before they ever set foot there. Both felt that in England their spirits were fettered while in Greece they were freed, and both were known for being scholars as well as men of action. In writing, both believed in immediacy, although they corrected their work obsessively and demanded as many sets of proofs as their respective John Murrays would allow. While careless of comfort when abroad they both loved dressing up, and had the reckless courage and panache that the Greeks call leventeia. When Hobhouse wrote that Byron ‘seemed always made for that company in which he happened to find himself’, he could have been writing about Paddy.34

  On a deeper level, their differences are more apparent. Byron’s moods took him to far greater extremes of despair than Paddy ever experienced, resulting in greater poetry and considerably more emotional damage to those around him. Paddy’s looks were a part of his physical confidence, while Byron thought his beauty botched by his hated limp. He went through much of his life feeling bitter and cursed, whilst Paddy never lost a certain joyful innocence and beli
eved himself profoundly blessed.

  He was always rather exasperated when people compared him to Byron, whom he admired very much. Byron had given everything for Greece: his fortune, his health, and eventually his life. The Greeks had taken him to their hearts, and every subsequent Englishman, including himself, benefited from the association and basked in his glory.

  From Missolonghi, Paddy left Joan with the Tomkinses and took a bus eastwards to Naupaktos on the Gulf of Corinth ‘where Lepanto was fought and Cervantes lost an arm’, as he wrote to Diana.35 He revisited the Kravarites, and made further notes on their secret language. ‘I collected some amazing stories,’ he wrote to Jock, ‘also a vast glossary of their very peculiar thieves’ cant.’ He did not regret losing the notes: ‘I got very much more and newer stuff this time, and it was well worth it.’36

  In August 1953, the Ionian Islands were struck by the worst series of earthquakes in their history. Over the course of several days, more than a hundred tremors tore the fabric of the islands apart, leaving hundreds of people homeless and the economy of the islands in ruins. Since Paddy was in Greece he was asked to write about what had happened for the Sunday Times, and he was pleased to hear that Philip Toynbee was coming out to cover the story for the Observer. Thanks to Paddy’s friend Panayiotis Canellopoulos, whom he had met during the Greek campaign and who was now Minister for National Defence, Toynbee and Paddy travelled to the islands on a Greek air force plane. In Zante they found ‘two British frigates laden with aid to the quakestruck, commanded by a dashing young captain called Geoffrey Crick … We all clicked at once, and helped as much as we could …’37

  Back in Athens, Paddy and Toynbee repaired to neighbouring tables in a café to write their copy. ‘As we had been inseparable throughout, our pieces were nearly identical, so we had to go through them, docking similar adjectives and adjusting our phrases, so that the rival newspapers’ reports came out respectably different.’38 That done, they could relax. One evening was devoted to an orgy of talk with Katsimbalis and George Seferis, while on another occasion (he and Paddy were both very drunk) Toynbee found himself in the mood for a more traditional sort of orgy. They were in a flat belonging to two pretty but prim girls who worked at the British Embassy. ‘As usual, Philip behaved like a centaur at a wedding breakfast, grasped one of them, and said “Now, let’s all have a great deal of SEX! And, just in case anybody’s feeling shy, I’ll get the ball rolling and kick off by buggering Paddy.”’39

  Cyprus was hit by an earthquake a month later, and once again Paddy was sent by the Sunday Times to cover the event. Maurice Cardiff, who had been a colleague at the British Council in Athens in 1946, was then working for the British Council in Nicosia. He and his wife Leonora, and Paddy who was accompanied by Joan, went out to dinner on two or three occasions, during which Cardiff noticed Joan’s unusual relationship with Paddy. One evening, Leonora and Joan left the restaurant earlier than the men. As Joan stood up to go, she took a handful of notes out of her wallet and gave them to Paddy saying, ‘Here you are, that should be enough if you want to find a girl.’40 When this story was told to one of Joan’s closest friends, she was not surprised. ‘A moment came when Joan told Paddy she no longer wanted to sleep with him,’ she said, ‘but she never expected him to remain celibate.’41

  Nor did he; but his weakness for the sleazier pleasures of the night sometimes led to a nasty surprise for his more respectable girlfriends. When one complained that she had found an embarrassing parasite on her eyebrow (let us not ask how it got there) Paddy told her she was making a fuss about nothing. ‘They’re perfectly easy to get rid of … I expect I picked them up from a tart in Athens.’ On another occasion, however, his mortification at having passed on the same sexually transmitted vermin gave rise to a letter so funny that it must be quoted in full.

  I say, what gloomy tidings about the CRABS! Could it be me? I’ll tell you why this odd doubt exists, instead of robust certainty one way or the other: just after arriving back in London from Athens, I was suddenly alerted by what felt like the beginnings of troop movements in the fork, but on scrutiny, there was nothing to be seen, not even a scout, a spy or a despatch rider. Puzzled, I watched and waited and soon even the preliminary tramplings died away, so I assumed, as the happy summer days of peace followed each other, that the incident, or the delusive shudder through the chancelleries, was over. While this faint scare was on, knowing that, thanks to lunar tyranny, it wouldn’t be from you, I assumed (and please spare my blushes here!) that the handover bid must have occurred by dint of a meeting with an old pal in Paris, which, I’m sorry to announce, ended in brief carnal knowledge, more for auld lang syne than any more pressing reason.

  On getting your letter, I made a dash for privacy and thrashed through the undergrowth, but found everything almost eerily calm: fragrant and silent glades that might never have known the invader’s tread. The whole thing makes me scratch my head, if I may so put it. But I bet your trouble does come from me, because the crabs of the world seem to fly to me, like the children of Israel to Abraham’s bosom, a sort of ambulant Canaan, I’ve been a real martyr to them …

  There’s some wonderful Italian powder you can get called MOM which is worth its weight in gold dust … Don’t tell anyone about this private fauna. Mom’s the word …

  As well as noticing Joan’s generosity in funding Paddy’s post-midnight prowls, Maurice Cardiff also observed (not for the first time) how oblivious he could be to the reactions of people around him. On another evening in a taverna Paddy, already pretty drunk, began singing his repertoire of Greek songs. ‘The tension in the room was hardening by the minute: the Cyprus question had not blown up, but there was a lot of anti-British feeling and they did not think it was right for an Englishman to sit there pretending to be more Greek than the Greeks – but Paddy had no idea, he just kept on singing.’42

  Yet his songs had the very opposite effect in the village of Bellapaix, near Kyrenia, where Lawrence Durrell had a house. He and Joan were once again in Cyprus in November 1953, after one of their gastronomically punishing tours of Crete and the strongholds of the Cretan resistance. ‘It was as joyous a reunion as we ever had in Rhodes,’ wrote Durrell.

  After a splendid dinner by the fire he starts singing, songs of Crete, Athens, Macedonia. When I go out to refill the ouzo bottle at the little tavern across the way I find the street completely filled with people listening in utter silence and darkness … ‘What is it?’ I say, catching sight of [a neighbour]. ‘Never have I heard of Englishmen singing songs like this!’ Their reverent amazement is touching; it is as if they want to embrace Paddy wherever he goes.43

  With Joan at Dumbleton Paddy spent Christmas 1953 in Ireland, at Luggala (pronounced Luggalore), the house of Oonagh Oranmore and Browne. Luggala was a Gothic Revival toy of a castle, though its innocent exterior belied the reckless goings-on inside. Paddy described the atmosphere as ‘a mixture of a night-club, the Hons’ cupboard and the Charge of the Light Brigade, so tremendous was the pace, even for me, all day and all night …’44 Oonagh, who was one of three Guinness sisters, had married the 4th Baron Oranmore and Browne in 1936, but at that stage she was passionately involved with the journalist and historian Robert Kee.

  They were still at Luggala when Paddy read that Duff Cooper had died on New Year’s Day. He put off writing to Diana for days, waiting in vain for the moment when the words would flow of their own accord – which of course never came. When he finally wrote to her on the 11th, he recalled Duff ‘having to stop reading Vile Bodies out loud by the fire, to mop away the helpless tears of laughter that were streaming down his face. None of the obituaries I’ve seen quite got the point …’

  He spent a few days recovering from the excesses of Luggala at Birr Castle with Michael and Annie Rosse and Michael’s sister, Bridget Parsons, followed by a visit to Dublin where ‘I did some agreeable pub-crawling with Robert Kee, and made friends with the poet Patrick Kavanagh and Sean O’Faolain, drinking Guinness in Joycean pu
bs.’45 He and Robert then returned to Luggala, which was quieter now than it had been over Christmas and New Year. The only party on the horizon was the Kildare Hunt Ball to which nobody wanted to go, least of all the hostess; but Paddy was convinced it might be fun, and cajoled everyone else into accepting the invitation. Before leaving for the ball, Oonagh summoned the butler and asked him to bring her one of her pills which, she remarked, would make a tiresome evening a bit more bearable. A pill the size of a hornet arrived on a silver salver and Paddy, intrigued, asked if he could have one too.

  In the early hours of the morning, Paddy – now revved up on a mixture of alcohol and the contents of the hornet – began deliberately to antagonize Tim Vigors, one of the tallest and broadest of the pink-coated Kildare huntsmen. When Paddy asked Vigors if it was true that the ‘Killing Kildares’ were in the habit of buggering their foxes Vigors punched him to the ground, while a few of his friends decided that this insufferable Englishman needed a lesson he would not forget.

  ‘There we were, all slamming away at each other like navvies,’ wrote Paddy to Diana. ‘I was being dealt with by half a dozen great incarnadined Nimrods; Robert Kee came to my rescue, only to be brought down by Roderick More O’Ferrall, and the scarlet maelstrom surged over them and me. The Macgillicuddy of the Reeks’s sister-in-law plunged into the middle and fetched me one on the top of the head with her ringed fist …’46 This resulted in a cut on his head, which began to bleed profusely.