I just finished reading a biography of Patrick Leigh Fermor
written by Artemis Cooper. I can tell
you this is a very interesting book about a very interesting man.
From the Sydney Morning Telegraph newspaper
Paddy [as he was also known] Leigh Fermor was born in London
to a father who was emotionally and physically distant (while the boy went to a
series of boarding schools Sir Lewis Leigh Fermor continued his work with the
geological survey of India). After his epic Constantinople walk, with no career
plan, Fermor moved permanently to Greece and he was there when World War II
broke out. The British recruited him as a secret agent operating behind enemy
lines in Nazi-occupied Crete, where, somewhat incredibly, his small band of
partisans managed to capture the German general in charge of much of the
island.
Fermor's literary reputation was established by the books he
wrote about his post-war travels in the Americas and his time spent in Greek
monastic retreats. Gregarious, witty and ebullient, Fermor seems to have known
everyone who was anyone - the great and the good all making the pilgrimage to
his beautiful villa in Greece. He was rumored to be one of the models for his friend
Ian Fleming's James Bond.
Fermor was handsome and was popular with the ladies. His was life was one of adventure and travel, friends and lovers. I highly recommend the book.
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