Wellington author and travel writer Maggie Rainey-Smith had a marvellous story in the Detours section of the Herald on Sunday yesterday, 8 June.

She tells of meeting one of the greatest of all travel writers, Sir Patrick Leigh Fermor, at his home in Greece and her story is reproduced here by kind permission of the author and the Herald on Sunday.

Meeting Paddy
Recently, I spent two months in Greece chasing the muse, searching for clues, looking for inspiration. One of the more memorable moments was on the Mani Peninsula in Kardamyli where I had the great honour to meet Sir Patrick Leigh Fermor, arguably one of the world’s finest travel writers.

The Mani region is famous for the Maniots and their resistance of the Ottoman occupation. It is isolated by the Taygetus mountain range and enclosed by the Aegean and Ionian seas. The Ottoman’s failed to infiltrate, but I have to advise that the English have. As I shopped for my Twinning’s tea and sat outside a café in the village of Kardamyli, using the free wifi internet service, I lamented the globalisation of this once remote peninsula. I wished, for just a moment that I was back in time when to be a strange woman (alone) in this small village, may have meant considerable hostility until I had proven myself.

In the local bookshop is the very book I’ve been looking for Mani - Travels in the Southern Peloponnese by Patrick Leigh Fermor. On my terrace overlooking the sea, I open this book and find myself mesmerised by the most exquisite, and evocative travel writing I have ever experienced. Not only that, I discover that Patrick Leigh Fermor is a resident of Kardamyli and has been off and on since 1964.

The owner of the bookshop is unimpressed when I ask where Sir Patrick Leigh Fermor lives, and his lips remain sealed his expression disapproving. Patrick is an almost-Saint here in Greece. He was a resistance fighter on Crete during the Second World War (my Dad was on Crete, but a more modest hero at Maleme the point where Crete was lost to the Germans). Patrick, born the same year as my Dad, had a film made about his exploits starring Dirk Bogarde.

At the local café where I catch the free wifi, the owner (who looks like a Maniot right out of Patrick Leigh Fermor’s book on the Mani with her blanket of black ringlets and beautiful olive eyes), tells me Paddy (as the locals call him) will celebrate his Name Day that very week and that he always opens his home to the locals on this day. By now (one week) I consider myself a local, and everyone agrees with me.

So with joyous disbelief at my good fortune, on Thursday, 8 November, I join the local villagers at the Name Day celebration of Sir Patrick Leigh Fermor in his majestic and yet still homely yellow stone house overlooking the Messinian Gulf. It is only 10.30 am in the morning and there has been a service in his private chapel and we are seated in his lounge (books lining the walls from floor to almost ceiling - Nancy Mitford, Henry James, James Joyce) – eating olives, meatballs, feta and drinking local wine. On a person’s Name Day you are required to take a gift, and all I have with me is a copy of my first novel About Turns which I give to Paddy and he signs my copy of his book with a personal inscription and a small drawing to accompany it. We talk about Crete and my Dad and his book on the Mani. I gush, he charms.

Pic left shows Paddy & friends.taken by Maggie Rainey-Smith.

Then the singing begins and Paddy is surrounded by adoring local women who toast him with traditional Name Day songs and at the end Paddy stands and pretends to fire a pistol into the air (an old tradition where real pistols were once used). He is of English and Irish descent and although his name is Patrick, his Greek Name Day is the day of Michali. Michael is the name he assumed while fighting for the Greek resistance.
With me, is an American Orthodox Nun who works in Moscow and a Danish man of the cloth who is studying Byzantine churches. We are Paddy’s “non-local” guests and pinching ourselves to be so fortunate to share this morning with the locals.

And then, when it is time to leave, another Michael (Michali), a neighbour of Paddy’s invites us to his home. We walk through an olive grove up the hill further along the coast to yet another beautiful stone home. Our new host Michali sold Paddy the land and helped him build his house in 1964 – they share the same Name Day. We are feted with fresh coffee and cakes and listen to a story told by Michali’s son who tells us that when he decided to leave Kardamyli some years ago to travel, Paddy told him. You can’t leave.
And when he returned years later, Paddy told him.
You know we are very fortunate, we live in Kardamyli
We are fortunate – we have the mountains.
We are fortunate, - we have good food.
We are fortunate – we have clean air to breathe.
We are fortunate – we have the beautiful sea to swim in.
“Yes, Paddy, the mountains, the food, the air and the sea”, said the young man, nodding in agreement.
And then Paddy said to him: And for all these reasons and more, we may just forget to die.

Sir Patrick Leigh Fermor is 92 years old, he was wearing a double-breasted navy suit, has a full head of wavy grey-black hair and he is still a handsome, charming man with just a slight deafness in one ear. He spoke with a classical English accent which rather surprised me considering the years he has spent in Greece. He is still writing. If you’ve never heard of him, or never read his books, then now is the time to start.

Footnote from The Bookman:
And here are the great man’s titles.

The Traveller's Tree (1950)
The Violins of Saint-Jacques (1953)
A Time to Keep Silence (1957)
Mani - Travels in the Southern Peloponnese (1958)
Roumeli (1966)
A Time of Gifts (1977)
Between the Woods and the Water (1986)
Three Letters from the Andes (1991)
Words of Mercury (2003) edited by Artemis Cooper

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