Joshua insisted that we spend an extra day in Delphi and why not? It was an excuse to head once again to the village on the other side of Mount Kochran, Desfina. My father and I always disagreed about this.
Back in 1931, my family was told by David Cochrane’s companions from Oxford, with whom he had gone to Greece, that they were walking from Delphi and had become separated that fateful day when David disappeared. Particular testimony came from a young man from Leamington Spa. However, when I last visited Desfina, old women who were young girls when this happened insisted that David had been staying in Desfina alone while his companions holed up in Delfi. And that he used to go out walking alone each day along what is now the Kochran trail but one day did not come back.
The trail leads down the side of Mount Kochran to the valley floor from where one would climb back to Delfi. But there is a fork in the trail before the descent on the Desfina side and if you take the left fork you end up at the top of Mount Kochran with its spectacular views of Delfi. That is what David must have done and what I did a few years ago though not going too close to the edge. I said I believed the old ladies. My father said he believed the chap from Leamington Spa. Greats man, public school, Oxford, must have been a fine chap. We will never know who was right.
Driving to Desfina takes a while as by road, going round the mountains, it is 20 miles from Delphi but as you approach the village there was a sign to warm our cold and black Ulster hearts. My father never saw it in person but now Joshua has.
From there to the village and to the graveyard which I was aware that I had not investigated in detail before, as I had done in Delphi. Where was David buried? Nobody in my family knew. All that they were told was that he was buried “locally”. So was that in Delphi, the administrative centre of the area, or in Desfina given that it was villagers from there who found the body as they collected snails and, I assume, brought it back with them?
Again, I doubt we will know. In Greek graveyards, bodies are dug up after about thirty years to recycle the grave. The bones are then put in a charnel house in a named box. But after another thirty years, those boxes are emptied and the dust scattered to make room for more boxes. Joshua and I wandered around the Delphi graveyard but the oldest graves were from the 1980s. We then wandered around the charnel house as you can see below but the oldest boxes are from folks who died in the 1960s. The dust of David is, I fear, long gone. Joshua and I discussed where it has gone but how David’s soul is in heaven. I think he gets it.
I have one enquiry out regarding the burial and will try another but I am minded to believe that the trail is now cold.
