As you see, there’s not much to offer for so ruinous a trip, so I feel I ought not to lure you with too glowing an account; but should you rashly risk it, or succumb to some magnetism more rewarding in comfort and then come here – or vice versa to recuperate – it would be the most tremendous treat to me. Every syllable which might sound like discouragement is dictated by the most quixotic altruism.
The wasps and hornets are beginning to vanish, thank heavens; they are terrified of us, but think it’s all right if they don’t make us angry. Lots of very big, handsome grasshoppers and a small advance guard of mantises; a few cyclamen out, lots of olives, some butterflies with queer-shaped wings so that [they] look as if they were flying backwards. A quite large, very old tortoise rustles within earshot, moving through the dead grass as slow as a glacier.
Well, darling Annie, that’s about all for the moment. I expect you’ll see Joan, who’ll tell you more. It’s moonlight now, three-quarters, expanding round the little islands and rocks in shiny silver discs, and crickets have taken over from cicadas, a higher but steadier note.
with heaps of love
from Paddy
xxxx
P.S. I’ve just finished rereading Evelyn’s Men at Arms trilogy. [2] I hated it when it first appeared; it now seems really wonderful, fearfully sad, very funny, absolutely true, very grand indeed. I think the difference in mood, tempo, scope, and its appearing in driblets, must have put me wrong the first time.
[1] Stanway in Gloucestershire, owned by the Charteris family, where Ann Fleming spent much of her childhood.
[2] PLF means Waugh’s ‘Sword of Honour’ trilogy, of which the first novel is Men at Arms, published in 1952. The other two are Officers and Gentlemen (1955) and Unconditional Surrender (1961).
On 21 April 1967, just a month before a general election, a group of right-wing army officers (‘the Colonels’) seized power in Greece. The coup d’état, which followed a period of constitutional crisis, came as a complete surprise. The coup leaders placed tanks in strategic positions in Athens, effectively gaining complete control of the city. At the same time, a large number of small mobile units were dispatched to arrest those suspected of left-wing sympathies, from lists prepared in advance. The constitution was suspended, allowing citizens to be arrested without warrant and tried by military court. By the early morning all Greece’s prominent politicians, including the acting prime minister, had been taken into custody.
To Joan Rayner
27 April [1967]
La Tartana
Marbella
Prov. de Málaga
Darling,
It seems ludicrous only to be writing now, but everything has been so dislocated and delayed by events inside Greece that mails are ten times slower than they were before. I sent you a telegram from Kardamyli the night before the coup d’état (saying I was coming here yesterday), and days later the Post Office people said it had come back from Athens because every telegram in a foreign language has to have a vernacular translation appended. I also sent one from Kalamata, and another from Athens, but wonder whether they ever reached you.
The queer thing about the recent events in Greece is that you probably know more about it than I do. All internal newspapers stopped, Athens radio gave out nothing but official bulletins, no foreign papers came into the country.
I first heard of it at 1 o’clock on the day of the putsch, when Lela [1] came from the village, where she’d gone to get a loaf; dashed up like Cassandra saying a Dictatorship had been declared and that the gendarmerie were bringing down Communists from the mountain villages in handcuffs after arresting them in the middle of the night – two, in fact from Tseria (one of which was that dark Petro, who made such a mess of building the outside stairs. Paraskevá of Proástion was also arrested. I don’t know anything about Capt. Charn, I hope not). Junior and Petro were enlisted in the T.E.A. militia, [2] – the former most unwillingly – for temporary service, probably over now. Absolute calm – indeed stunned bewilderment – reigned everywhere. For a coup d’état, it was ontologically perfect – no bloodshed, no resistance or time for it, complete fait accompli. Nobody knew anything in the provinces. Athens, when I got there, was a tangle of mutually exclusive rumours. I got the definite impression that the Mani and the provinces in general, were pro – though heaven knows what I base this on – and Athens split up into 100 different attitudes.
Shan [3] thought, unwillingly, that it was absolutely necessary, because of the threat of the big Papandreou [4] rally in Salonica, where troubles with the police were all laid on, clashes, martyrs, perhaps a takeover of Macedonia in the north à la Venizelos, even invitation to the thousands of ex-ELAS [5] partisans to cross the Iron Curtain with guns in hand and then the finally [sic] splitting of the country into two rival halves, hence civil war. A lot of people voice various versions of this: others say it is balls, and that there is no possible raison d’état for the coup whatever. All the leaders are unknown. Neither the King nor Kanellopoulos [6] knew anything whatever. There have been no blows – at least, as far as I know – no bloodshed – at least as far as I know – or anything like that, but far more arrests than announced: a whole busload – fifty? – from our hill villages, 3,000 they say from the whole of Messenia – so from the whole of Greece it must be enormous; some hazard 100,000.
George [Seferis] was not obtainable in Athens – perhaps away for the one and a half days I was there before departure, but apart from Shan all our friends were anti. I had dinner at Magouche’s with Nico & Vana, [7] whose flat had been raided by reluctant soldiers – like the extremely apologetic soldiery who asked for my papers and possible sporting guns on the way to Athens. (Getting an exit visa was less of a toil than I had dreaded.) Lambrakis [8] (don’t tell Nico) hid out for a couple of days in the flat. The President of your bank is arrested! – I mean, the top one. The King and all the regular politicians are dead against.
I don’t know what to think. All my spontaneous sympathies (in spite of my official views generally) are against the coup, largely because those in the provinces who welcome it are exactly the petit bourgeois, extreme right philistine, Poujadist, [9] bakali [grocer’s]-assistant, philistine, ex-peasant class – the businessmen of Kalamata, in fact – that are the people one likes least in Greece. But, whether the thing is good or bad, the more it is criticised and disapproved of in the foreign press (which they care about like hell), the better, more moderate it will be. The King’s being taken as much by surprise as everyone else, and his genuine reluctance about the [illegible], is excellent. If it was a temporary measure till the election in a calm atmosphere can take place, there is perhaps a case to be argued in [favour]. But the longer it lasts, the less in favour there is to be said. The dotty sumptuary laws about church, dress, [10] morality in general, strike a chill. It’s the quantity of hit and miss arrests and banishment to islands without trial that fill one with the most horror & disgust. There is talk of [illegible] trials and release impending.
I’m so sorry, darling, to give you such a fragmentary and garbled account.
Magouche – revelling in all as you can imagine, half Scarlet Pimpernel, half Pasionaria [11] – but a great boon to many – drove me to the aerodome; and here I am in the calm liberal atmosphere of Spain. [12] I’ve got to finish this in a rush as Janetta & I are just off to Seville by car to meet Jaime, so I must shut up. It is veiled and cloudy here, but the hint of better weather on the way. I feel rather lone and gloomy, not really in a Spanish mood, but it’s lovely to be with Janetta, sweet, quiet & kind as ever. I’m not wild about the slight expatriate group feeling of Marbella. I’ll tell you more of all in a few days. Meanwhile, 1,000 tons of love darling, I miss you like anything. All goes well in the house.
xxxxxxx
Paddy
P.S. Could you ask Meyrowitz [13] to make me two prs of half-moon glasses.
P.P.S. Do, if you have time, bring a few lengths of different coloured material – perhaps sari-type stuff from Liber
ty’s or one or more of the many oriental slips for Covering Cushions, as our nice divans are going to need it.
[1] Lela Yannakea, housekeeper/cook. She and her husband Petros performed a wide range of domestic tasks for PLF and Joan.
[2] The TEA (Tagmata Ethnikis Asphaleias – National Security Battalions), an anti-Communist militia.
[3] The former journalist Alexander ‘A. C.’ Sedgwick (1901–96), who lived in Greece during his retirement. He had been Athens correspondent for the New York Times before and after the Second World War.
[4] Georgios Papandreou (1888–1968), three times prime minister of Greece (1944–5, 1963, 1964–5), long-serving liberal politician who first served as a cabinet minister in 1923. His dismissal as prime minister in 1965 began the period of political polarisation and instability that led to the Colonels’ coup. He died under house arrest a year later. His son Andreas served two terms as prime minister (1981–9 and 1993–6).
[5] The military arm of the Communist-dominated National Liberation Front, formed to resist the German occupying forces, which played a part in the Greek Civil War.
[6] Panagiotis Kanellopoulos (1902–86), prime minister deposed in the coup.
[7] Nico Hadjimichalis, the architect responsible for the house at Kardamyli, and his wife Vana.
[8] Christos Dimitrios Lambrakis (1934–2009), owner of one of the largest newspaper groups in Greece. His publications always supported progressive and left-wing causes.
[9] The Poujadist movement, named after its leader Pierre Poujade (1920–2003), articulated the economic interests and grievances of French shopkeepers and other proprietor-managers of small businesses disquieted by economic and social change.
[10] The new regime banned miniskirts.
[11] Isidora Dolores Ibárruri Gómez (1895–1989), known as ‘La Pasionaria’, Republican heroine of the Spanish Civil War (1936–9).
[12] Spain had been ruled by a military dictatorship since a civil war in the 1930s.
[13] An old-established Paris opticians.
To Joan Rayner
undated [autumn 1967]
Kardamyli
Messenia
Darling Joan,
Lovely news of your return! I’ll be there to meet you, unless something awful happens, probably going a day or two before to Athens, so if in doubt, send times etc., to the O.P. [1] as well as here.
Diana [Cooper]’s visit was a great success. I met her at the airport last Saturday, and put her into your room, and had everything looking very nice. She adored the house, had no idea it was going to be nearly as splendid or attractive. She seemed rather tired I thought, had had a fall or two in Spetsai. I dreaded her wandering off into the rocks and blessed our sea-steps doing their true function!
Next morning – Sunday – there was a terrible noise of a helicopter whirling across the sky. I dashed into D’s room – she said that Niarchos had said he might come over with some of Anne Tree’s guests, but hardly without announcing it; so, when the thing disappeared N [orth], I forgot about it, [and] went on working: till looking out of the window, I saw Stavro, Anne and Nancy Lancaster [2] wandering about under the trees with the chief of police and the doctor. The machine had landed beside the war memorial in the middle of the marvelling Sabbath strollers. Sensation! The chief got the Dr to drive them up here in his new car. Luckily, I’d got a chicken and lots of grub for Diana, which, with delicious rice, Lela sat about turning into a lovely luncheon. The machine, meanwhile, had gone back to Spetsopoula for the Canfields, [3] and this time, landed just the other side of our little bay, on plot A, among the olives in the field just under Butlins. [4] Stavro said if we needed any extra food or anything, the pilot would go and fetch it from Spetsopoula! Luckily, no need. The admiration of the house was tremendous, specially by Anne, and above all by Nancy Lancaster, who is a great expert. After a very cheerful and good lunch, the pilot took Lela, little Stavro, her mother and me up on a trip round the island, up the hillside over Proástion; it was rather marvellous. They left again about dusk, leaving us all in a state of slight amazement. All Kardamyli, as you can imagine, was set by its ears with wonder.
D. left on Tues. I took her on a lovely picnick to Marvomati, [5] by the Arcadian gate, and she promised to telephone the moment she got to England, after a night on the way at Judy’s. She has promised to give me a complete and beautiful set of Kipling that she has – so don’t order it!
Darling, no more now. It’s much colder, but lovely and bright and clear. I’m on the lower terrace; meanwhile, upstairs, the gros beton [concrete screed] is being flung – fourteen workmen, a Brueghelesque feast in preparation by the cistern – chaos, in fact! The cobbling is finished and looks lovely. How lovely going to Rotterdam. All news on 1st. Hagar is quite OK again, I’m seldom out of his arms.
Tons of love P
P.S. I really do think that thick dressing gowns will be needed for the winter. Could you bear to bring one? Blue corduroy wool or something.
Saturday
Lots of cyclamen out . . . Hagar is the most MTF [Master of Truffle Hounds] cat I’ve ever met.
[1] Olympic Palace Hotel in Athens.
[2] Nancy Lancaster (1897–1994), American socialite, partner with John Fowler in the firm of decorators Colefax & Fowler, creators of the influential ‘country house look’.
[3] Cass Canfield and his wife, the sculptor Jane Sage White (1897–1984). In 1967 Canfield stepped down from his position as chairman of Harper’s, but he continued as senior editor until his death.
[4] Possibly a private term for the Kalamitsi bungalows.
[5] A village twenty-five kilometres north of Kalamata. The ruins of the ancient city of Messene lie nearby, and the road north to Arcadia still runs through the Gate, part of a mighty defensive wall.
On his return to Greece early in 1968 after a Christmas break in England, Paddy had some news for Balasha . . .
To Balasha Cantacuzène
26 February 1968
Kardamyli
Messenia
Balasha darling,
There’s so much to say and tell that I hardly know where to start! Too late for happy new year and Christmas, as it’s now nearly Lent, and the children in the village are wandering about in cloaks and masks with wooden swords and little bells they seldom stop ringing, getting the best out of carnival till the Big Fast begins, and nothing but boiled grasses, fish paste etc. – no oil or cheese! – till Easter . . . It is funny, living in this remote region, the only strangers for hundreds of miles. I hope all the locals are as fond of us as we are of them. I adore Greece, with all its changes of fortune, and always will. My attitude is that we are guests here, and lucky to be so, and as guests would no more dream of taking sides in domestic differences of opinion than I would in the family affairs or disagreements of friends in whose house I was staying. I’m so sorry to have gone on so long about this very minor matter, darling, but I don’t want to seem even a worse correspondent than the bad one well known by everyone to be. When you write, don’t waste any precious space on all this . . . [1] I don’t know what to do about me and letters. Nobody would ever think it – this is the first I’ve written for months – but I simply love it; and that’s the trouble. I’m hopeless at postcards, and very bad at short ones so I go on putting off the lovely long letters that I’m constantly writing mentally, for days and days which, before I know where I am, turn into months and months. Hinc illae lacrimae. [2] With you, darling, it’s especially grave; yours are so marvellous and thoughtful and funny and beautifully written that dashing off a short bright answer seems even less possible than at other times. It’s just because I’ve so much I want to say, and because I want to write something a bit more complete and thought-out than I might in other cases, that these dreadful gaps occur. I hope no more will occur – gaps, I mean – but should a seemingly heartless and incomprehensible silence ever crop up again (I’m sure it won’t!), do bear this in mind and forgive if you can, and attribute it to anything but lac
k of love or feeling. I talked about this sort of thing to Lucienne [3] in Paris about ten years ago, and she looked at me with a pitying smile and said: Mon pauvre Paddy, tu es velléitaire! [‘My poor Paddy, you are a vacillator!’] Absolutely right, alas! I’ve never yet produced a book that is less than two years overdue, and delay with articles and reviews etc. in papers or magazines is just as bad. I passionately love writing but – except when one gets completely emballé [engrossed] and suddenly, by the pallor outside the window and a twittering of birds when one thought it was still 11 p.m., realises one has been writing all through the night – find settling down to it an agonising torment. No one knows better than I what Valery meant by ‘le papier vierge que sa blancheur défend’. [4]
. . . We went back to London about the 20th of December, rather snowy and windy, but very exciting with Salvation Army bands pounding away at ‘Good King Wenceslas’ and ‘Noel!’ under the falling flakes, trombones reflecting the lamplight. I stayed with Patrick Kinross, Joan just round the corner at Barbara and Niko’s, all this in ‘Little Venice’, a charming bit of Paddington with a network of canals. Imagine my delight when Barbara said she had asked Ina and Michel [5] over for a week and taken the pretty little house and studio for them in Jeremy Hutchinson’s garden, filling it up with food & drink, as there was no room in her house . . .
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