PADDY SWIMS THE HELLESPONT - Presentation Annotated Typescript Account of Patrick Leigh Fermor's 70th Birthday Swim

Headlined 'Notes on the Hellespont 13.x.1984' and written ten days after the event, each of the six typescript pages has one or two additional notes in Leigh Fermor's hand to this copy: so the name of Nuri Birgi is glossed at the foot of the page as:' Ex-Ambassador in London'. The final leaf has a map of the great swim with additional clarification in blue ink. The seven leaves have been stapled together, numbered on the original script in Paddy’s hand. There is also an earlier generation of corrections in Paddy’s hand which are reproduced by the photocopy. At the top of the first sheet Paddy has addressed this particular copy to the American academic: 'Heyward Cutting from Patrick Leigh Fermor' with a little cloud and the writer's characteristic seagulls floating around the greeting which is dated 'Kardamyli 28.7.1988'.

This narrative offers a gripping account of the great travel writer's decision to undertake the four hour swim, accompanied by his wife Joan above the water and the sound of submarines below: 'I began to notice a strange fluctuating and hissing noise... I mentioned this a few days later to Nuri Birgi, in his charming wooden palace on the Bosphorus, and he said "Don't you believe it! It's Russian submarines, I often hear them here at Scutari.' Inspired by Byron’s example Paddy spread word of his feat far and wide among friends but this text is believed to be unpublished.