Friday, 30 September 2022

A memorable journey

 

The book on the left I bought in 1988. It is volume one. This morning I bought the book on the right, volume two. I can’t believe it has taken me so long!

These are beautiful travel books which conjure up a lost world of interwar Europe. Norman Stone says of this one - A book so good you resent finishing it. High praise indeed. The first few pages, over coffee this morning, whisked me effortlessly through time and space to Holy Saturday 1934 , Esztergom, forty miles upstream from Budapest. 

Do give these a go, you certainly won’t regret it. Just right for someone working on Mark’s Little Soldiers and a mittel European imagination.

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12 comments:

  1. The Good Soldier Svjek30 September 2022 at 05:57

    These look intriguing, must give them a look.

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    Replies
    1. Anonymous1 October 2022 at 07:20

      You won’t regret it. So diverting.
      Alan Tradgardland

      Delete
  2. rross30 September 2022 at 07:13

    Thanks for the tip, I may give them a try. I assume they were written at the time and are not fictional accounts?

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    Replies
    1. Anonymous1 October 2022 at 07:20

      My pleasure, enjoy.
      Alan Tradgardland

      Delete
  3. Anonymous30 September 2022 at 08:05

    I’ve been meaning to get around to reading some of PLF’s travel books. And his wartime memoirs.
    This might give me the shove to get on with it.
    Chris/Nundanket

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    1. Anonymous1 October 2022 at 07:21

      I am delighted to be that shove, enjoy.
      Alan Tradgardland

      Delete
  4. Mark Man Of TIN30 September 2022 at 08:11

    There is a small amount of interview, readings and dramatised versions of Paddy Leigh Fermor On Radio 4 - BBC Sounds online such as https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b042qnmv

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    Replies
    1. Anonymous1 October 2022 at 07:21

      I will look that up, thanks.
      Alan Tradgardland

      Delete
  5. David Crook30 September 2022 at 08:24

    Hello there tradgardmastare,

    They are quite simply fantastic reading! There is a third volume in the series that was published shortly after PLFs death which finishes up in Istanbul I believe. He was also involved with the Cretan resistance during WW2 and was instrumental in the capture of the German General Kreipe.

    By all accounts quite a character.

    All the best,

    DC

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    1. Anonymous1 October 2022 at 07:26

      A character indeed. I was looking at volume three in the bookshop too, looks interesting. My cousin’s wife’s mother told me a story once about her relative being that captured general. It was a small part of a long anecdote about her family’s German wartime experience . Vexingly l never got a chance to find out more…
      Alan Tradgardland

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  6. Anonymous30 September 2022 at 20:16

    They are lovely books. I bought mine 30 odd years ago. Are they fictional? No but I think that they may have grown a bit in the recollection. There is a story that he lost his diary in Roumania but was given it back 30 odd years later by a friend who had lost everything in the communist state but had guarded the diary.

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  7. Anonymous1 October 2022 at 07:26

    Love the diary story.
    Alan Tradgardland

    ReplyDelete

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