10 June 2011

Death Of Patrick Leigh Fermor - Αἰωνία ἡ μνήμη!

>.
The death of Sir Patrick Leigh Fermor has been announced.

He was one of the great writers of the post-war period, and what a life he had to describe.

We are still waiting for the third volume describing his walk from the Hook of Holland to Constantinople in 1933 - I wrote to the Spectator some years ago begging them not to commission anything new - no articles or reviews - from PLF until vol 3 had been published.

A Time To Keep Silence is Lenten reading for me: his meditation on the effect of traditional monasticsm - Eastern and Western - on a hard-living war veteran tells also of the way in which God's hook, once swallowed, is there forever.

But I also think of his legendary heroism - his time in Crete as a member of SOE, his love for Greece and the Greek people, and the inspitring way in which they took to their hearts the young men who had dedicated themselves to the cause of Greek freedom.

Requiescat in pacem!  Αἰωνία ἡ μνήμη!
.

3 comments:

Richard Collins said...

A great man, hero and writer - May he rest in peace!

Left-footer said...

Amen!

Left-footer said...

Just read him up on Wikipedia. What a man!