Joan Leigh Fermor

Joan Leigh Fermor (5 February 1912 – 4 June 2003) was an English photographer, and wife of author Patrick Leigh Fermor.

She was born Joan Elizabeth Eyres Monsell in Dumbleton, Worcestershire, the second of three daughters of Bolton Eyres Monsell and his wife Sybil (née Eyres). Her father was Conservative Member of Parliament for Evesham from 1910 to 1935. He served as Conservative Chief Whip from 1923 to 1929, and First Lord of the Admiralty from 1931 to 1936. He became Viscount Monsell in 1935. Her brother, Graham, inherited the viscounty on her father's death in 1969. Her family home was Dumbleton Hall in Worcestershire, inherited by her mother. She was educated at St James's School in Malvern and before travelling in Europe, attended finishing schools in Paris and Florence

She dabbled with several possible careers. She was a talented photographer of landscapes and architecture, with pictures published in Architectural Review and Horizon. She married John Rayner, features editor of The Daily Express, in 1939.

In the Second World War, she was commissioned to photograph buildings that were likely to be bombed. She also worked as a nurse at the start of the war but then trained in encryption, and worked in the British embassies in Madrid and Algiers before being posted to Cairo, where she first met her future husband Patrick Leigh Fermor in 1944. He was then an SOE officer famed for his part in the kidnapping of General Kreipe from Crete. Although still married to Rayner, Patrick and Joan quickly fell in love. Her marriage to Rayner was dissolved in 1947. She and Patrick remained close companions (although not exclusively) and were married in 1968, by which time Patrick had published several books. Her private income allowed him to concentrate on his writing.

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