Patrick Leigh Fermor, 1915-2011

Just heard this news - FS author Patrick Leigh Fermor has passed away at the age of 96.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/2011/jun/10/patrick-leigh-fermor-obituary?...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/military-obituaries/special-forces-ob...

thank you for posting the obits, he is one of my favourite writers.

What a glorious life!

I just "discovered" him just a few yeays ago. To discribe his life as interesting would be an understatement! I wish that it would be possible to up stakes and let the wonderlust take hold. I just read of a Canadian who wanted to hike around Pakistan, Afghanistan and I gather Turkmenistan. He is now being held for ransum. This result is not at all suprising which is why I am here and not somewhere else. Unfortunately all the really interesting places (e.g. Crusader Castles or indeed Afghanistan. What I give to walk the Kyber Pass) are those places which are dangerous places to visit.
(edited for typos

A modern day walk which is very popular with Canadians is the Camino de Santiago especially the Camino Frances. Not quite the same as PLF but good for the body and soul.

It is sad to see the situation of the world right now. Although it would be an understatement to say the back then the time around WWII was maybe even more dangerous.

Sad to think that he isn't around any more. I hope there does turn out to be something publishable in that "eight inch pile of manuscript" - it will probably take a team of scholars to make sense of it, though, if the breadth of his random trains of thought in the published work is anything to go by.

Interesting how the Torygraph treats him as a soldier who also wrote books and the Grauniad as an autodidact and writer who happened to have an interesting military past. I think the Grauniad's probably nearer the mark, but neither of them talk much about his important role as a mentor (and host) for so many other writers. Probably because PLF outlived most of them...

There are still a few Brits who share some of Patrick Leigh Fermor's characteristics and don't mind being something of a wandering scholar - the Tory MP Rory Stewart comes to mind as one. He spent a couple of years walking through Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Nepal and India moving from one village house to another, staying in hundreds over the period. He also served briefly in the British Army- even more briefly than I. He's rather more of a conformist than Leigh Fermor was but they have much in common.

There are several more obituaries and an account of the funeral on Tom Sawford's PLF blog: http://patrickleighfermor.wordpress.com/

>4 Barton:,5,6
As of late traveling has become slightly more dangerous than it used to be, As a kid I owned a book on pirate history (great pics, probably not as great as I remember them though). It ended with the story of a Chinese lady who commanded a full fleet: fleet destroyed by a single Government warship.... It concluded that modern surveillance technology, (planes, radar) had rendered piracy obsolete and impossible in the future.... ( Yes... I regretted that)...Well..yeah right

Alerting fans of Patrick Leigh Fermor to the excellent feature http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-29518321 , BBC news magazine . a new book out by his estate , his mss , to parallel Moss's Ill Met by Moonlight (which FS published ) .

good article, thank you.

The FS published his "A Time of Gifts" in 1999 and reprinted in 2006, and his "Between Woods and Water" in 2006. Available on secondary market, but not very cheaply ($35+ for the former, $100+ for the latter).