Man of the Mani

read time: 3 mins

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video 21.31 mins + audio 27.37 mins

Following in the footsteps of Patrick Leigh Fermor...

...by following in the footsteps of the BBC's John Humphrys

One spring evening, a decade ago, I was at home when the phone rang- both fairly unusual occurrences in themselves. A male voice introduced himself as a freelance radio producer who went on to explain the reason for the call. He was bringing John Humphrys to the Mani to narrate a half hour programme on the renowned Grekophile, local hero and writer, Patrick Leigh Fermor, who had died a few years earlier. They would be here for 2 days- the first day would be focused on his house on Kalamitsi beach in Kardamyli, which was in the process of being handed over to the stewardship of the Benaki museum. For the second day, they were planning a trip into the Deep Mani with the idea of directly quoting or at least paraphrasing from Leigh Fermor’s book, “Mani- Travels in the Southern Peloponnese”. Essentially Humphrys following in the footsteps of “Paddy”. For this excursion they needed a local guide and I was found through my website, Inside the Mani. Naturally I agreed and to seal the agreement, we immediately had to deal with the messy business of renumeration. 2015 was still slap bang in the period of austerity in Greece and the value of any kind of employment was still on the decline. With this in mind I quoted 50 pounds for the day. Silence on the other end of the phone until…. “Um, I think we can do a bit better than that”. My brother was furious that I quoted such a low fee- this was (indirectly) the BBC!

A few weeks later, another phone call to arrange meeting at the Stoupa bakery the following morning at 9.30. Despite feeling a little apprehensive about the day as I had no idea what would be required of me, I still cheekily asked if I could chuck some of my magazines and guide books in the boot to deliver to the (now relocated) bookshop on the square in Areopoli. No problem and the party of four set off- John, his son Chris who, being a cellist living in Athens, was also suffering from a lack of employment and so Dad had got him the job of being translator and driver for the enterprise, Mr. Freelance whose role was organiser and sound engineer and my good self, a slightly nervous, local “expert”! Our first (literal) port of call was to be Limeni so I had time to get to know my fellow travelers.

Before we continue, a poignant side note. In preparing for this article, “Mat following in the footsteps of John Humphrys, following in the footsteps of Leigh Fermor”, I pulled the latter’s book off the shelf. An A5 piece of folded paper dropped out of the inside cover- a hand written note from PLF himself! Eh? I’d forgotten that I’d inherited a number of books from my great friend Bob Barrow and this was one of them. For those of you who knew Bob, I need not go any further. For those who didn’t, he was a real Stoupa character and Mani enthusiast, publishing his own book “The Mani” in 2000, before sadly dying in 2019. The note is barely legible, as is often the case with creative types, as you can see, but clearly there was a specific issue Bob was chasing down. There are a couple of words I can’t decipher- can you?

The reasoning behind this article is two-fold. The first has already been stated. But if you’re not English and have never heard of John Humphrys or if you’ve never read the Leigh Fermor book, you could view it as a mini visual guide to the west coast of the Deep Mani, with four short videos to follow, filming Areopoli, Limeni, Mezapos, Tigani and finally Vathia to hopefully inspire you to create your own footsteps!

It probably makes sense at this stage to offer the opportunity to first listen to the radio broadcast itself to give the trip a proper context.

Man of the Mani

And before we embark on the trip south, Patrick’s house needs to get a mention as John spent some time there talking with his housekeeper, Elpida as well as meeting Irini Geroulanou from the Benaki Museum in Athens. I recently met Irini and had a lovely chat, to such an extent that the whole story of the house and the relationship with the Benaki warrants an article of its own. Hopefully this will appear in a future edition but for now here are just a few photos of this astonishing and beautifully restored building (which you can visit through the Benaki Museum- details HERE). During the summer, the tours are every Monday at midday.