While doing some semi-related research, Richard Augood stumbled across the following press clippings from the society page titled ‘La Vie a Bucarest – Chronique Mondaine’, in Le Moment, the main french-language newspaper of Bucharest at the time. Richard was kind enough to send them to me to share with you all.

According to Wikipedia , Le Moment was a French language daily newspaper published from Bucharest. The newspaper was founded in 1935 by Alfred Hefter, and was in serious financial difficulties and about to go under in 1939. The paper eventually ceased publication in 1940.

This snippet comes from the edition of 12 January 1936 and you will notice that Balasha Cantacuzene was also there. Quelle surprise!

Le Moment mentions Patri(c)k Leigh Fermor 12 January 1936

and this is from the same section of the same publication’s 9 May 1936 edition:

Le Moment mentions Patri(c)k Leigh Fermor 9 May 1936

Richard comments:

What’s notable is that PLF seems to have had absolutely nothing to do with the large and active British community in Bucharest at the time. He is never mentioned in any of the numerous newspaper articles of the time that relate to them, often with lengthy lists of names.

Richard found them on a site called Arcanum, which is a Hungarian repository of thousands and thousands of scans of newspapers from Hungary and Romania. He hasn’t actually searched the site for any mentions of other characters who crop up in The Trudge, as he is busy researching something quite different (Olivia Manning-related) and he just stumbled across these by chance.

Arcanum is a paid site, and he has offered to look anything up and run a few queries. Dear readers, do you have any suggestions? Add them to the comments section.