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Where Bond was born

Lucy Fleming

Wednesday, 16th April 2008

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

It was 1943. The BOAC Stratocruiser was on its way from Jamaica back to London, probably via Nassau, Bermuda and Shannon. A naval commander turned to his friend and said: ‘When this blasted war is over I’m going to live in Jamaica. Just live in Jamaica, lap it up, swim in the sea and write books.’ And he did. The man was Ian Fleming. He’d been there representing Naval Intelligence (he was assistant to the DNI, Admiral Godfrey) for a conference about the U-boat threat in the Caribbean. It rained incessantly but he fell in love with the island.

In 1946 Ian bought 15 overgrown acres on the north coast near the small port of Oracabessa. It had been a donkey racecourse and on the site where the banana dumpling stall (which doubled as the betting shack) had been he built a low concrete house that he returned to every year for the next 18 years until he died in 1964. He drew the plans of the house himself and decided to call it Goldeneye (Oracabessa meaning Golden Head, and after a wartime operation he had been involved in). Earlier ideas for names had included ‘Shamelady’ or, as one of his friends suggested, ‘Rum Cove’.

The house had enormous glassless windows (the idea was to feel outdoors) and quite spartan facilities. There was a small private beach. The first paying guest was Ian’s friend Noel Coward, who said that it was ‘a perfectly ghastly house, no hot water, pictures of snakes plastered all over the walls’. Later he said it was ‘the happiest two months I ever spent’.

Ian Fleming was my uncle; this being his centenary year and, as March winds did blow, I felt it was time for my first visit to the house that Noel Coward had called ‘Golden Ear Nose and Throat’. We stayed for a few nights at the timeless and really delightful Jamaica Inn, where the stunning periwinkle-blue and white suites surround a perfect beach. The remarkable Mary Phillips runs it effortlessly like a country-house chatelaine; the croquet lawn, polo down the road and Shadow, the panting black labrador, adding to the feeling of scant change since the hotel was built in 1950. The colonial atmosphere is welcome and the hotel staff are charming and funny. Mary’s father, I discover, was Ian’s lawyer.

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Peter Winskill

April 18th, 2008 5:13pm

"Goldeneye", Fleming's home, brings to mind a visit I made in 2001 to nearby "Firefly", Noel Coward's house. I spent an enchanting morning exploring the wonderfully maintained gardens and sloping lawns, and the tiny house - not so well maintained - but still fascinating. Two aging grand pianos back to back taking up most of the mminisicule sitting room. Noel's books and yellowing sheet music lying in a rickety bookcase. A tiny table on a back patio where a plaque on the wall tells us Noel entertained the queen mother and Princess Margaret to lunch, and never before seen (by me) verses in the inimitable style describing the occasion. No signs of a kitchen so I expect he had the servants bring it in from elsewhere. Noel's bedroom and the shower carried a pathos for me. (Is that grammatical?) All very simple and with a rickety colonial air about the place and little of the elegance which one would have expected from the Master which made it even more magical. There wasn't another soul there to supervise or follow me - in case I or the less scrupulous should decide to walk off with "momentos". Two smiling staff members at the gate offered me a visitors book to sign. What a wonderful and magical day - and memory - that was.

robin mitchinson

May 9th, 2008 5:29pm

Is it not possible that Ian Fleming named the house 'Goldeneye' after the bird of the same name, a blackbird with large golden eyes, racous chatter, and a very gregarious nature? Incidentally, the opening shots in 'Dr No' were filmed at the Liguanea Club in Kingston (still extant); a wily Club Secretary, when asked which room Sean Connery occupied (none, actually) was wont to indicate whichever was vacant or hard to let!

Lawrence Dugan

May 10th, 2008 9:25pm

This article started me re-reading Ian Fleming after about twenty-five years. I bought a copy of "Thunderball" and I am almost finished the book. It is absolutely first-rate, a beautifully written adventure novel,and a strange combination of suspense, natural description (the Caribbean) and cold war espionage.