Joan Leigh Fermor

Joan Elizabeth Eyres Monsell, formerly Rayner (5 February 1912 – 4 June 2003) was an English photographer and wife of author Sir Patrick Leigh Fermor.

He was then an SOE officer famed for his part in the kidnapping of General Kreipe from Crete.

She and Leigh Fermor remained close companions (although not exclusively) and were married in 1968, by which time he had published several books.

Connolly described her in 1949 as "very beautiful: tall, fair, slanting eyes, yellow skin".

Their circle of friends included Alberto Giacometti, Francis Bacon, Lawrence Durrell, Stephen Spender, Giorgos Seferis, Nikos Hadjikyriakos-Ghikas and many others.

After suffering a fall, she died in Mani at age 91, and was buried in Dumbleton, where Patrick joined her after his death in 2011.