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Corfu

T HE spirit of the Durrells—both Lawrence and Gerald —lives on intensely in Corfu, nursed by a succession of

locals, expatriates, wandering schol-ars and visiting naturalists. For the past few years, the flame has been kindled by Gerry’s widow, Lee, parti-cipating in an annual series of Durrell studies. My wife, Anne, is bidden, joined by me, to explore the architect- ural legacy.

When I meet Lee under the spread-ing lime trees that shade the cafes along the graceful arcade of the Liston, she is carrying the latest edition of My Family and Other Animals, with a new introduct-ion by Simon Barnes: ‘Much the best thing that has been written about the book,’ she says. Mr Barnes explains the book as a story of paradise lost ‘as every paradise is’. Like many, he first read the book, living it and loving it as a boy—‘Gerry among the rockpools, Gerry climbing the swaying branches’—enthralled by the freedom to explore accorded to Gerry by his family.

Lee explains that it was Lawrence and his first wife, Nancy, who urged the family to come to Corfu. Nancy was an artist and taught Gerry to draw, just as Lawrence encouraged his writing. Gerry was a successful author by the time he wrote My Family, his sixth book, published in 1956. In it, Nancy is written out to keep the family together under one roof.

The Durrells first lived at the Villa Agazini, which Gerry named the Straw- berry Pink Villa. There, he met his lifelong mentor, Dr Theodore Steph-anides. Today, a holiday let stands in its place, but it was too small, said Gerry, for Lawrence’s many house guests, so the family moved to the Daffodil Yellow Villa on the coast road, north of Corfu, where Lawrence

could have his Bohemian friends to stay. Today, it’s owned by an Athenian

businessman and is immaculate, although no longer yellow.

When news came that Aunt Her-mione was about to descend on them, the family rapidly downsized, moving south of the town to the Snow White Villa beyond the airport. It stands secluded on a hill thick with spread-ing trees and sentinel cypresses. It belongs to an absentee landlord and there has been talk over the years of acquiring it as a Durrell study centre.

We arrive to find it’s a private ani-mal sanctuary surrounded by rescue horses, dogs, cats and countless chickens. It is a true belle au bois dor-mant. The roof of the house needs attention, but, otherwise, it’s a jungle- like retreat, mercifully spared from encroaching development.

In contrast, the white villa at Kalami, where Lawrence and Nancy

moved in early 1936, is now a smart and elegant taverna with a lovely terrace on the sea. Lawrence’s evoca-tive description in Prospero’s Cell is painted on the wall: ‘A white house set like a dice on a rock already venerable with the scars of wind and water.’

You can rent an apartment above the taverna as we did 25 years ago. Across the road is a shop stocked with reprints of most of the Durrell books run by a Czech girl who had come to Corfu after reading My Family and never left. Even when Lee signs her well-thumbed copy, she finds it hard to believe she’s talking to Gerry’s widow.

My Corfu paradise and other animalsMarcus Binney joins Gerald Durrell’s widow on a magical tour of the island that inspired a great literary classic

My Family and Other Animals by Gerald Durrell (above) continues to draw devoted readers

Some 14 years ago, the Irish liter-ary and music critic Richard Pine founded the Durrell School of Corfu with a library of 4,500 books. The school ran a lively series of annual symposia, mostly on Lawrence Durrell themes: India, travel writing, trans-lations, borders and border lands that brought together Greeks and Turks, Israelis and Palestinians. The Iraqis, we were told, read powerful poetry on the destruction of Bagdad.

The school also offered an annual week-long course based on a Gerald Durrell theme, organised by David and Alexina Ashcroft. With the Greek

StayThe White House VillaThe top floor, where the Durrells lived, is available to rent and features Lawrence’s desk. The villa sits on the water’s edge and offers incredible views and a jetty. Sleeps 8 www. corfu-kalami.gr/accomodation_white_house.html

Stay Villa AlexinaA striking Vene-tian manor house, this villa is the home of the hosts of the tour, David and Alexina Ash-croft. It is a haven of comfort and tranquility on the edge of a village.Sleeps 6/8 (three bedrooms)www.villa-alexina.co.uk➢

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Corfu

economy in trouble, the school closed in 2014, but the Gerald Durrell Week continues under the wing of the Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust, Gerry’s ‘ark’ for endangered species in Jersey, of which Lee is honorary director. This is a busy, blissful week of nature studies and walks and read-ings from My Family.

David is an energetic Cornish farmer who ran The Mudchute, a pio-neering urban farm and community park on the Isle of Dogs. The Ash-crofts have bought a handsome 16th- century Venetian manor house with a glorious view across to the moun-tains of Albania and equipped it with bedrooms available all year.

David takes guests on energetic walks into the hills and along the beaches. The scenery in the north of the island is still cloaked in thousands of immensely venerable olive trees planted centuries ago by the Vene-tians, gloriously unspoilt and rising to the 2,972ft peak of the Pantokrator. Guests walk in Gerry’s footsteps, inspired by his descriptions of how ‘the myriad holes in each tree provided sanctuary to a dozen different crea-tures from Scops owls… to squirrel dormice’, or look into the roots for ‘centipedes as long as a pencil or toads with silvery skins blotched with green so they looked like those medieval maps of the world where the continents were all misshapen’.

Tutors on the course have included David Bellamy with his botanist wife, Rosemary.

Another regular is Chunky, the botanist David Shimwell, who knows Gerry’s books by heart and produces delightful readings for every expedi-tion. The 30 or so people on the trip form a cast as varied as those in a Durrell book, including a hotel con-cierge from Belarus, an Australian on a long European tour hoping to teach environmental studies, a bespoke saddle fitter from New England and a sniffer-dog trainer from Yorkshire with a passion for springer spaniels. He and his wife came with two sons, one expert at catching butterflies and the other often found with a pet toad in his pocket.

Peter Sutton, a biologist, was ecstatic at having just rediscovered a tiny fish thought extinct, the Epirus riffle dace, which has iridescent blue scales. Dan Danahar came with a suit- case full of butterfly nets and parti- cipants of all ages leapt about ancient

NEED TO KNOWGerald Durrell Week is a seven-day package and includes transport around the island by boat and road, field trips, and lectures by leading experts. Num- bers are strictly limited. Prices are £480 for a single and £780 for a couple. Further information can be found at http://geralddurrellscorfu.org Note: The package doesn’t include accommodation or flights (the Binneys flew easyJet)

Stay The Kassiopia estate

Positioned on a headland close to the seaside town of Kassiopi, this immaculate estate features Atolikos House and Cassiopeia House, which can be hired together or separately. With huge terraces descend-ing to the sea, a beautiful infinity pool and a private jetty, this is the ultimate villa for hire in Corfu. Cassio- peia House sleeps up to 14 and Atolikos House sleeps up to 6: www.kassiopiaestate.com

StayGrecotel Corfu ImperialAlthough it’s a fair drive from the Gerald Durrell study centre, the hotel’s position on the tip of a private peninsula on the east coast is ample consola-tion. With a pool and beauty spa, local cuisine and views from all rooms and villas, this hotel is ideal for couples and families alike.Rooms from €180 a night. www. corfuimperial.com

pital standing empty. Spiros Giourgas, a popular doctor and fount of know-ledge about the island, has an old photograph that shows it was origin-ally three times larger.

More handsome still is the British Garrison Church—the finest of its kind—built in the form of a Greek Doric Temple. Corfu is an island of music and, in the castle, one of the barracks is a music school with sono-rous notes floating out of the win- dows. Better still is to stand outside the handsome premises of the Corfu Philharmonic Society and hear the orchestra, founded in 1840 under British rule, rehearsing for a concert.

David has a finely tuned tour of the town that ends with a drink at a popular local restaurant, Chryso-malis, hung with faded photographs of the Durrell brothers and their Corfu friends.

tracks, catching swallowtails and green underwings, on the hills covered in yellow broom and Jerusalem sage.

Almost every house and taverna has a glorious sea view as the coast road winds round a continuous series of enchanting coves. With Lee, we went to the taverna on the cove at Kouloura where she and Gerry had filmed the opening scene of The Amateur Naturalist.

Corfu Old Town is now designated a World Heritage Site. It’s a maze of arcades and alleys like Venice, but still bears the scars of ferocious German bombing in 1943. There are still ruined properties, many of them belonging to Jewish families forcibly deported, never to return. The Venetians built two stupendous fortresses: the Old Fort retains a Brit- ish barracks that might be at Chatham and an imposing British Naval Hos-

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