Anyone who has sent me an email knows that I am notoriously slow in responding and the same sometimes goes for displaying material sent to me on the blog. I have actually been “saving” this item for a suitable occasion since it was sent to me by the ever patient Alun Davies in February 2014. Alun has probably forgotten about this now, but I thought that now really is the very best time to publish this as many of you will have a little more time on your hands if confined.
Please do also read the comment below by Chris White (co-author/editor) of Abducting a General for further information about this draft, and the others.
You can read the pdf document here – Abducting a General by PLF – typed July 2005
Alun emailed me as follows:
I had an email from Chris P*** this week asking me to send him a copy of Paddy’s personal account of the kidnap of General Kreipe. Paddy had sent it to me in 2005 when I first told him we were going to walk the route. I had his rather rough notes typed up in Cardiff and sent a copy to Chris P*** at the time. Chris has apparently lost it – and needs a copy as someone is (you may well know this) publishing another book about the Kreipe story and Chris wants to ensure that they have Paddy’s version. [Ed – I expect this is Chris White’s Abducting a General: The Kreipe Operation and SOE in Crete
]
In any case as it is on my screen this evening I will send you a copy – just in case you have not seen it before.
Best wishes
Alun
]You can read the pdf document here – Abducting a General by PLF – typed July 2005
Patrick Leigh Fermor 
Though I’ve read the account in ‘Abducting a General,’ it was interesting to read this draft, typos and all. I spotted one funny note, Paddy using the phrase ‘the woods were full of nightingales,’ (or maybe it was the trees), which also appeared memorably in the trilogy, outside the room where he was having a romantic tryst (which one, I am too lazy to go look up).
Thanks Tom
This will be good for people in our locked down state to read…..
Just to say that as the person who was fortunate enough to edit ‘Abducting A General’ for publication this version comes with some major caveats:
1: It is a typed up version of the first handwritten draft, and the typist struggled with PLF’s writing at times, so there are many misspellings and misreadings;
2: It does not contain the multiple rewrites and amendments PLF subsequently added, and which are contained in the final published version. In the PLF archive there are 4 typescript versions full of his additional handwritten amendments. When I edited them all I started with the principle that we should keep all of these additional multiple amendments. PLF had clearly picked up each typescript version at different times and amended it separately from the others so I had to bring all these different amendments into the one version. So the PDF version has been multiply amended and rewritten (maybe 200 times?) by PLF. It was a quite a challenge sorting it all out paragraph by paragraph!
3: The final published version of ‘Abducting a General’ is still in print and also very cheap second hand via Amazon, and with it you get photos, PLF’s reports and the walkers guide…..
Best wishes
Chris