Recipents of the annual William Stanley Moss awards. Rethymno, Crete, 2024

Summer in England (such as it was this year) is well and truly over. We have misty and quite cold mornings with the grass soaked full with dew. I have been very busy for the last couple of months and now have some time to get back to the blog.

You will recall that in June I asked for donations to support the continuation of the annual William Stanley Moss awards which is the brainchild of Billy’s daughter Gabriella Bullock. Many of you were generous enough to donate and Gabriella is very grateful. Perhaps I could ask for one more push from those who were unable to give at the time; every few Pounds will help.

You can make a donation via PayPal by followingthis link.

Gabriella and Hugh have recently returned from Crete after this year’s awards. She wrote to me with a report and a message of thanks you you all.

Dear Tom,

Please forgive the delay in writing to you, I’m sorry it has taken rather too long. The material I was awaiting from Crete has now arrived, so here we go!

Firstly I want to say how dumbfounded I am that, of the many truly deserving causes you could have chosen to ask your readers across the world to support, you have chosen the really rather meagre prizes that we set up in my father’s name. It is such an unexpected, incredible honour – and such an overwhelmingly wonderful feeling to have your huge endorsement of my endeavour… I am lost for words.

But Tom, I hardly know how to put this – your website has been such a glorious thing, dedicated to Paddy – and in his lifetime it was called “The Greatest Living Englishman” – I’ll never forget telling him about this, and how covered he was in surprise and pleasure and modest confusion… You CAN’T re-dedicate it – it is his, and should be his, always! He’s way too special to share his website with anyone, let alone my father. He is the legend! The idea for the kidnap was all his – and what about the rest of his extraordinary life? Enough that he now shares a photograph on the staircase of the Special Forces Club with my father – but this – it mustn’t happen – please trust me… They may not say so, but I’m sure his legions of devotees among your readers feel the same, however generous they may be.

When we decided to support the University of Crete, it was in the hope of reaching out to the whole of Crete – and I do like to think that the idea would have had Paddy’s blessing… Two prizes are awarded annually to students of the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Crete. One is awarded by the Department of Philology and one by the Department of History and Archaeology – it is all tirelessly overseen by the tutors and heads of the departments involved. I hadn’t foreseen this, but I can only say that these prizes are just as much a gift to me as to the students – they have given a very special dimension to my life! Small as they are, they bring a wonderful connection to a wonderful university – world class – and every year I am struck by the prize-winners, always so impressive and so delightful, and I am grateful for the unique opportunity I have to meet them. I love the way that, although the prizes are such a reminder of what happened in long-past wartime, they are all about the future.

This year’s prize-giving took place earlier this month in Rethymno. As well as the prize-winners, their families and friends and their tutors, the Dean of the Faculty and the Heads of Department were there, and gave memorable speeches. I too gave a short speech – which of course centred around you, your generosity and your extraordinary gesture…

Then came the prize-giving itself. This year there were three prize-winners:

1) Aikaterini Yakimtsouki-Magaraki (MA student in Philology) MA in “Classical Studies”. The title of her dissertation was “Medicine as a rival to Philosophy”.

2) Antonios Digalakis (PhD candidate in History and Archaeology), PhD thesis entitled “”Painting in ‘naturale’: The Ionian Islands in mid-17th – mid-18th century”. He was awarded the prize for the thesis chapter entitled “Cretan Painters on the Ionian Islands”.

3) Minas Chouvardas (Postgraduate student in History and Archaeology), MA in Ancient History. Title of MA Dissertation : “The Towns and Small Communities of the Aegean Islands and their Relationship to Athenian Hegemony’. He was awarded the prize for an extensive chapter entitled “Island Hegemonic Aspirations and the Prehistory of Athenian imperialism in the Aegean”.

These last two shared the Department of History and Archaeology prize.

Then each of the prize-winners gave a speech – thoughtful and philosophical in true Cretan fashion, whether long or short, in English or in Greek. Antonios also made the point that the prize money would enable him to visit art works and consult art books, especially in Italy. Aikaterini has sent the text of her speech:

“I am honoured to be the recipient of the William Stanley Moss award and I would like to thank the committee, my professors for their support in times of uncertainty and instability, my precious friends and my family. I would also like to thank Mrs Bullock for offering young people an incentive in our academic and professional journey. I hope that I will continue to explore the perplexity of the Greco-Roman antiquity focusing on scientific thought of the time and on the interaction of the Greeks and Romans with foreign cultures. But what matters most is that I follow my dreams with integrity. And this is the legacy that Major Stanley Moss left. Thank you.”

With the ceremony over, we set off for a wonderful evening and meal together at a restaurant on the sea front – everyone eager to learn more – and of course I was besieged with questions about you and your website… and many glasses were raised…

What can I say? Thank you …!

With love,

Gabriella

William “Billy” Stanley Moss, at the wheel of the Crusader, part way to Rarotonga, 1959

In early October I was boarding a plane to Spain to walk a short leg of the Camino Frances from Leon to Santiago de Compostela, when I received an email from John Ewing. We have never met but he was trying to reach Billy Moss’ daughter, Gabriella Bullock, to pass on some items from a trans-Pacific journey completed by Billy in 1959. They have never met, and Gabriella was unaware that this information existed.

Hi Tom,
My name is John Ewing, I sailed with Billy Moss across the South Pacific in 1959. I have quite a lot of information and some photographs of the trip and Bill, which I would like to share with his family. It is likely that your society would have contact details for his very proud daughter Gabriella, I would appreciate your forwarding this email to her so that we may communicate by email.

I was able to put them in touch and I am grateful to John for sharing this photograph of Billy at the wheel of the yacht Crusader, on the way toRarotonga, the most populous island of the Cook Islands. How wonderful is this?!

Please don’t hesitate to get in touch if you have something to share with the blog community of over 1,000 readers. SeeAbout and Contact for details.

In September last year Ireported on the new award established by Gabriella Moss in memory of her father William Stanley Moss which will be awarded annually to the best student studying Philology, History and Archaeology at the University of Crete in Rehtymnon. The inaugural winner was Evi Dimitrakaki who is the granddaughter of Alexandros Platurrahos, a partisan who was actively engaged in the fight against the German occupation of Crete. Gabriella has been kind enough to pass on the text of the emotional speech given by Evi at the award ceremony.

Ladies and gentlemen, Dear friends and family,

I would like to share with you some personal thoughts and emotions, regarding the prize in honour of William Stanley Moss. Due to the nature of the prize and its relation with the Second World War and the fights of Cretan people, I considered to be almost obliged to participate as a candidate, no matter what the outcome would be. You may wonder why… As the granddaughter of one of the partisans, who fought on the Psiloritis mountain during the German Occupation, I think that I had the duty to do so!

Alexandros Platurrahos coming from the village Kouroutes of Amari in Rethymnon, my grandfather, used to tell us stories related with the National Resistance period. He was narrating to us while we were sitting under the lemon tree in the yard of his house almost every summer night. You can imagine two children (me and my brother Giorgos) hanging upon his lips. And later on, imagine two teenagers listening with interest and waiting anxiously for him to finish the narrations of his adventures.

In these stories of course, my grandfather was not the only one to participate. His brother, Giorgis, who was imprisoned and tortured by the Germans, and his younger brother, Haridimos, who fought although he was just sixteen years old, were also acting against the Germans. Furthermore, the women of the family, Popi and Marioleni, were providing the partisans with supplies, such as clothes and food. They were also offering shelter to other partisans at the risk of their own and the whole family’s lives. The members of my family were not the only fighters during the Occupation period. There were a lot of them all over the country!

I think that it’s worthwhile to let you know of one more thing: when I was informed that I was one of the candidates selected for the prize, I felt the same emotion I was feeling when I was a kid, during my grandfather’s narrations. I was informed on the 25th of March, which is my name day, while I was visiting my grandfather’s house in Kouroutes. Was it just a coincidence? Fate? Or maybe God?

Hence, you can understand the particular emotional feeling that overwhelms me just by participating in this contest. This prize is therefore dedicated to him, to his memory and his fights. It is devoted not only to the sacrifices he made, but also to those made by the rest partisans, sacrifices that were never acknowledged for most of them! For those of you that may feel touched, shed tears, or even resent by hearing these words: you know and we all know that their first and only thought was their country and they were never looking after for any kind of appreciation!

They did that not because it was easy or usual. As my grandfather used to say, “Evita (that’s how he was calling me) being and acting as a partisan was very difficult. We fought for the country risking our lives”. He also used to say: “They were extremely difficult times because fear and misery were spread everywhere”. So they were risking their lives without caring to the slightest bit. Their moral honour didn’t allow them to act otherwise! We should at least acknowledge that!

Having in mind as a life model my grandfather Alexandros and each one of us his own Alexandros, it is our duty to stand up and be worthy inheritors of their legacy, their morality and their virtues!

Reaching the end, I would like to thank my supervisor, Associate Professor Ioanna Kappa, who has always been helpful to me during my studies. I also want to thank Professor Elena Anagnostopoulou, since the project evaluated for the prize was accomplished under her guidance during her seminar lectures.

Above all, I would like to thank Mrs Gabriella Bullock who established the prize in honour of Stanley Moss. Not only because of the financial assistance (which is very important for me to carry out my studies), but mostly because in this way she recognizes the fights and sacrifices made by her father and our own people. We are grateful to you and your family, because like your father, who offered the maximum of his powers to the Cretan people without hesitating seventy-one years ago, you are honoring Crete today in your own way! Mainly though, I would like to thank you because due to the prize, you have given me the opportunity (I hope to others as well) to recall that we have the privilege to be proud children of those fighters, proud Cretan, proud Greek!

Thank you all for your attention!

The original story of the award is foundhere.

Gabriella Bullock (Left) and guests at the inaugural awards 21 July 2015

In July, Gabriella Bullock, one of “Billy” Moss’ daughters, travelled to Crete with her husband Hugh to present the inaugural prize in Billy’s memory at theUniversity of Cretein Rehtymnon. The annual William Stanley Moss award is open to graduate students of the Faculty of Philosophy studying the subjects of Philology, History and Archaeology.

Gabriella is funding the award from royalties of her father’s books as an expression of gratitude and debt to the Cretan people on behalf of her father. She described the whole experience as ‘very moving, very dignified and warm and emotional for everyone.’

The ceremony on 21 July was attended by the Metropolitan of Rethymno and Avlopotamos the Reverend Nicholas Nikiforakis, the Rector Euripides C. Stephen, the Dean of the Faculty of Philosophy Lucia Athanassakis, the Dean of the School of Education Anthony Chourdakis, the Chairman of the Department of Literature Angela Kastrinaki the President of Department of History and Archaeology Antonia Kiousopoulou, Emeritus Professor Anastasios Nikolaidis, Professors of academic departments of the University of Crete, Foundation staff and students.

Gabriella and Hugh went on to deliver talks in Anogeia and Patsos where they met many relatives of those who worked with Billy and Paddy in those desperate days of the war.

The pennants from General Kreipe’s car

Discovering the full details behind a particular story or event is often tricky with clarifications, enhancements, or downright contradictions emerging sometimes many years after the event. Fortunately we have not had to wait so long for some further detail to be added to the story I ran last year about what happened to the pennants on General Kreipe’s car at the time of the kidnap, and their subsequent discovery many years later.

‘Billy’ Moss’ daughter Gabriella Bullock readArtemis Cooper’s account of how the pennants were found after so many years in a trunk in Paddy’s house at Kardamyli. Gabriella then wrote to me to ask me to pass on the full story behind their (very fortunate) re-discovery in Ireland some years before and how they were passed by her mother (Sophie Moss née Tarnowksa) to her. It sounds like we are very lucky to have them at all.

Gabriella’s account starts during a recent visit to Crete …

In Rethymnon we met the delightful people who run theFolklore Museum. This is where the pennants from the General’s car are now housed, in accordance with PLF’s wishes. We found that they were very interested in the story of how the pennants were randomly and luckily rediscovered, and this leads me to think that the story definitely has a place on your website

In the early 1950s my family lived in Co. Cork, Ireland, but moved back (supposedly temporarily) to London in 1954. My parents intended to return, and left many of their possessions in the safe-keeping of various Irish friends or in store. My father never did go back to Ireland; indeed, in 1957, eight years before his death in 1965, my father also left England never to return. As things turned out, however, it was also many years before my mother went back, and all that had been left in storage was lost.

A number of years after my father’s death my mother bought a cottage near Cork, and thereafter divided her time between London and Ireland. I was staying with her at the cottage one summer in the late 1970s when a friend of hers announced that she had a trunk belonging to us which she wanted to return; it had been sitting in their attic since the 50’s.

A battered tin trunk duly arrived with my father’s name, rank and regiment painted on the outside in white. My elder sister has it now and it is, without doubt, the one described in the first chapter of our father’s book A War of Shadows, even down to the grains of sand:

“an old letter, a scrap of notepaper smeared with the sweat of one’s hip-pocket, the rain-spattered pages of a diary, an operational report written in the bloodlessly forbidding vocabulary of a headquarters’ clerk – these relics, discovered in a tin trunk which still creaks with grains of sand when you open the lid…”.

My mother opened and unpacked it, and said to me, “I think you’d better have these”. Amongst the things inside it were my father’s original diary, already entitledIll Met by Moonlight, in remarkably good condition and perfectly legible, and the two German pennants.

It was a heart-stopping moment. My mother gave these things to me, and I gratefully and unthinkingly received them. I was in my mid-twenties then. The diary I still have. As for the pennants, they were much prized, and adorned a wall in my house for nearly 15 years.

But one day about 17 or 18 years ago, when I was re-readingIMBM, it dawned on me for the first time that in fact since it was Paddy who had taken them as trophies from the General’s car, they were rightfully his. So I gave them to him. This was in the early 90’s. Paddy was completely astonished, and moved, to see them again, so unexpectedly, after 50 years! He was awfully pleased, and after his death they were donated to theFolklore Museum in Rethymno, in accordance with his wishes.

And now they are back in Crete, which is absolutely as it should be.

With best wishes,

Gabriella Bullock

Further reading:

The Kreipe pennants

Articles about the kidnap in the Ill Met by Moonlight category