RSS

Contact us

Friday 4 July 2008

Where Bond was born

Lucy Fleming visits the Jamaican home of her uncle, Ian Fleming

After a couple of days, having unwound in the privacy of the stunning but unimaginatively named Cottage 4, we head along the coast to Goldeneye. I am slightly nervous as I have been anticipating this visit for many years. Will I be disappointed? Will I be surprised? Will I find ghosts?

I don’t find ghosts but I do find Ramsey. He was Ian’s gardener for four years, from the age of 17, and he gives us the conducted tour. He is charming and doesn’t seem to mind (or hear) my interruptions. We start in the garden with the tree that Anthony Eden planted.

‘When he was resting after the Suez crisis,’ I state.

‘When he was restin’ after Suez trouble,’ Ramsey intones. Apparently local taxi drivers were fined if they hooted as they passed the house so that Sir Anthony should not be disturbed. The house is prettier and bigger than I’d imagined, elegant, if simple, with the vast windows facing the sea, and soon we are inside, in a big L-shaped room with one enormous window framing the sparkling views of garden and sea like the best oil painting in the world. Ramsey is showing us Ian’s desk.

‘This is where Commander wrote his films.’

‘Books,’ I squeak, indignantly.

‘Yes, ma’am. This is where Commander wrote all his films.’

But something is wrong. We have pictures at home of Ian writing at a semi-circular desk, in the corner of a room, much smaller than the one we are looking at.

‘Didn’t he write in his bedroom?’ I ask. ‘Away from his guests, facing the wall with the shutters closed so that he wouldn’t get distracted?’

‘Yes. Commander write all his films at this desk.’ Ramsey is resolute. Later I realise that the red bullet-wood desk, familiar from photographs, has just been shipped to London for the exhibition about Ian and James Bond at the Imperial War Museum. Now we are in the main bedroom, which has another gigantic window, and I can see where Ian would have woken each morning, the view laid out before him, and I understand why he loved it so. I stand for a moment where the desk would have been, imagining Ian, his six-fingered typing producing 2,000 words a day. His incredible imagination whisking Bond at breakneck pace from M’s office round the world to adventure and danger, saving the girl and, quite often, the world from some wonderfully evil villain. Fourteen books, one a year; each book finished in six weeks. The rather large palm that has replaced the desk didn’t help, but I had my moment to thank my uncle for his hard work and much-loved creation.

More articles from: Lucy Fleming | this section

Print this article  |  Email to a friend  |  Permalink  |   Comments (3)

Post this entry to:   del.icio.us | Digg | Newsvine | NowPublic | Reddit

Advertisement

Spectator Business | Apollo Magazine

Corporate | Advertising | Privacy | Terms

Spectator, 22 Old Queen Street, London, SW1H 9HP

All Articles and Content Copyright ©2008 by The Spectator | All Rights Reserved