Last night Artemis Cooper talked about The Broken Road by Patrick Leigh at an event arranged by the wonderful Toppings Bookshop in St Peter’s Church Ely.
The lack of photographs from PLF’s legendary walk across Europe in the 1930s was raised. He appears not to have taken a camera with him (he seems to have relied on sketching) and there is virtually nothing in his surviving papers. Despite the publicity that attended the publication of the first two books in the trilogy covering the walk, and the recent biography, nothing has emerged from obscure albums and archives in Europe. It is hard to believe that some of the people he met, and often stayed with for extended periods, did not take at least some informal snaps. A great pity.
Photo: Artemis Cooper, St Peter’s Church, Ely, 29th November 2013