{"id":118197,"date":"2017-12-08T09:00:24","date_gmt":"2017-12-08T14:00:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=118197"},"modified":"2017-12-11T13:08:16","modified_gmt":"2017-12-11T18:08:16","slug":"hanging-churchills-aristotle-onassiss-yacht","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/12\/08\/hanging-churchills-aristotle-onassiss-yacht\/","title":{"rendered":"Hanging Out with the Churchills on Aristotle Onassis\u2019s Yacht"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Patrick Leigh Fermor (1915\u20142011), who was once\u00a0described by the BBC as\u00a0\u201ca cross between Indiana Jones, James Bond and Graham Greene,\u201d was regarded as one of the greatest travel writers of his time. His mostly autobiographical accounts of his adventures through\u00a0prewar Europe, southern Greece, and the Caribbean are regarded as classics.\u00a0The following letter was written to Ann Fleming, a British socialite whose third husband, Ian Fleming, was best known as the writer of the James Bond series. \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

To Ann Fleming \u00a0\u00a0c\/o Niko Ghika<\/span>
\n18 September 1954 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Hydra<\/span><\/p>\n

Darling Annie,<\/p>\n

Very many apologies indeed from both of us (1) for neither having answered your lovely long letter, full of exactly the sort of thing one wants to hear\u2014it was a masterpiece, and by far the best of any ex-Hydriot\u00a0so far; and (2) for being such laggards in saying \u2018thank you\u2019 for The Dynasts.<\/em>\u00a0It really was <\/em>kind of you to remember it. Joan is now in the thick of the first vol.\u2014the second, which is reprinting, will follow soon, your bookseller says. It arrived just as we were about to run out of books. That green detective one, The Gilded Fly<\/em>,\u00a0which vanished so mysteriously, miraculously materialized on the hall table yesterday!<\/p>\n

You were missed a great deal by everyone, including the servants, who still talk affectionately of Kyria Anna. Soon after you went, I got a letter from Kisty Hesketh, introducing her brother called Rory McEwen\u00a0and a pal called Mr Vyner.\u00a0You probably know the former, v. good looking, and a champion guitar player it seems, and probably very nice. They both seemed wet beyond words to us, without a spark of life or curiosity, and such a total lack of conversation that each subject died after a minute\u2019s existence. We had sixty subjects killed under us in an hour, till at last even Maurice and I were reduced to silence. Joan did her best, but most understandably subsided into a bored scowl after the first few hours.\u00a0<\/p>\n

We heaved a sigh when they vanished after two days that had seemed like a fortnight … Your fortnight, I must say, passed with the speed of a weekend. Joan saw Maurice off in Athens, another sad wrench.<\/p>\n

Diana, JJ and Anne\u00a0finally turned up on the 2nd September. The last two left four days ago and D. is still here. They were not nearly such a handful as we feared, in fact very nice and easy and resourceful, Anne painting away industriously, or wandering off independently with JJ, who gave us lots of splendid guitar playing\u2014always stopping in time & not boring at all. I think they enjoyed it very much. Diana, who is in your old room, seems as happy as she is anywhere now, and is very easy and unfussy, enjoying everything, loos, odd food, garlic, ouzo, retsina, etc., mooching about in the port, darting off to Athens, once to see Susan Mary Patten\u00a0off a ca\u00efque\u00a0(but she wasn\u2019t there), once to see the Norwiches off, returning both times laden with Embassy whisky and so on, which was gratefully lapped up. We had a very entertaining old Greek friend for last weekend, Tanty Rodocanachi,\u00a0which was a great success, lots of funny stories and old world gallantry … But Diana\u2019s presence\u00a0proved a magnet for other yachts, first of all Arturo Lopez\u00a0in a very sodomitical-looking craft, done up inside like the Brighton Pavilion, a mandarin\u2019s opium den and the alcove of Madame de Pompadour. Chips\u00a0was on board, le Baron Red\u00e9, a horrible French count called Cast\u00e9ja [Lopez-Willshaw\u2019s son-in-law] and a few other people who looked unmitigated hell, but I didn\u2019t quite manage to take them in during our two hours on board. We all felt a bit bumpkin-ish as we clutched our weighty cut-glass whisky goblets and perched on the edge of satin sofas. We were put down at the little restaurant down the hill, to the wonder of the assembled crowds; and the Balkan dark swallowed us up. They were off for the Cyclades and Beirut.<\/p>\n

But this was nothing compared to five days ago, when a giant steam yacht (with an aeroplane poised for flight on the stern) belonging to Onassis\u00a0came throbbing alongside. It was followed by an immense three-masted wonder ship with silk sails, miles of corridor, dozens of Impressionist paintings, baths to every cabin and regiments of stewards, belonging to his brother-in-law, Niarchos.\u00a0They have made 400 million quid between the two of them, and own, after England, USA and Sweden, the largest merchant fleet in the world, all under Panamanian flags; and all, it seems, acquired in fifteen years. We only saw Niarchos, who is young,\u00a0rather good looking, very drunk and tousled, not bad really. On board were Lilia Ralli, several blondes, a few of the zombie-men that always surround the immensely rich, Pam Churchill & Winston Jr.\u00a0Sailing beside it was another three-masted yacht, gigantic by ordinary standards, but by comparison the sort of thing one sees inside bottles in seaside pubs. This was also Niarchos\u2019s, a sort of annexe for overflow, soi-disant<\/em>, lent to Lord Warwick, though he is plainly some kind of stooge.\u00a0He looked like a Neapolitan hairdresser run to fat. We did a certain amount of drinking and social chat on the big one (spurning Lord Warwick\u2019s cockleshell) and wandered through labyrinthine corridors gaping at the fittings. I gathered from Pam C. next morning\u2014the focus of all eyes on the quay in pink shorts, gilt sandals and a-clank with gems\u2014that it\u2019s pretty good hell aboard: no sort of connecting link between all the guests, disjointed conversation, heavy banter, sumptuous but straggling meals at all hours, nobody knowing what is a test. Diana, Tanty, and the Norwiches got a lift in this to Athens (D. returning next day), and Joan and I trudged up to fried salt cod and lentils and garlic. We learnt on Diana\u2019s return that the massed blast of our five breaths nearly blew the whole party overboard. There is something colossally depressing about contact with the very rich. What I want to know is: why the hell don\u2019t they have more fun with their money?<\/em><\/p>\n

Modiano\u2019s Cyprus article was the best I have seen so far.\u00a0After you left Athens, I accompanied the whole of the demonstration: oaths in front of the Unknown Warrior\u2019s tomb, the burning of the Cyprus sedition proclamation, also of bundles of Union Jacks, cries of \u2018Down with the English! Down with the Barbarians!\u2019, then, from the steps of the University, an awful incendiary speech from the Rector\u00a0that overstated the case so much (he ended with an undying curse and anathema to the English!) that nearly all the sensible Greeks feel ashamed. What a bore it is, and so foolishly unnecessary. Niko G[hika] comes back next week, but may not be able to stay on, as he is a lecturer in Athens. Joan returns sooner than me, so I\u2019m going to keep my teeth into Hydra till the last possible moment. In spite of all the goings on, I\u2019ve managed to keep on scribbling. I hate the idea of another uprooting and would like to stay till winter starts. Thanks again, dearest Annie, for The Dynasts<\/em>, and do please <\/em>write another London newsletter! Lots of love from Joan and Diana, also\u00a0to Ian, and from me. All wish you were here.<\/p>\n

Love
\nPaddy<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Excerpted from\u00a0<\/em>Patrick Leigh Fermor: A Life in Letters<\/a>, selected and edited by Adam Sisman\u00a0\u00a9 1940\u20132010 by the Estate of Patrick Leigh Fermor. Courtesy The\u00a0New York Review Books.<\/em><\/p>\n

Patrick Leigh Fermor (1915\u20132011) was a traveler and soldier who is widely considered to be one of the finest travel writers of the twentieth\u00a0century. He was the author of more than ten books, and in 2004 was knighted for his services to literature and to British-Greek relations.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Patrick Leigh Fermor (1915\u20142011), who was once\u00a0described by the BBC as\u00a0\u201ca cross between Indiana Jones, James Bond and Graham Greene,\u201d was regarded as one of the greatest travel writers of his time. His mostly autobiographical accounts of his adventures through\u00a0prewar Europe, southern Greece, and the Caribbean are regarded as classics.\u00a0The following letter was written to 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