This is to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the passing of Ian Fleming, without whom there would be no James Bond. He was born in Mayfair, London in 1908 into a wealthy and influential family who started the merchant bank Robert Fleming & Co, his father being MP for Henley 1910 and a friend of Winston Churchill until dying on the Western Front 1917; he also lived as a child in Braziers Park, Oxfordshire and was of Clan Fleming of Scottish ancestry, his father owning an estate at Arnisdale, Inverness-shire close to Glenelg. He was schooled in Durnford, Isle of Purbeck in Dorset and Kitzbuhel, Austria, also attending Eton in Berkshire and Sandhurst Military Academy in Camberley, Surrey, also universities in Munich & Geneva. On failing the entry requirements for the Foreign Office he joined Reuters as a journalist and covered a show trial of British engineers for espionage in Russia. Just prior to World War 2 he was recruited into British Naval Intelligence where he excelled, shortly rising to the rank of Commander – his younger brother Michael died at Normandy in the Oxfordshire & Bucks Light Infantry, and he also had brothers In the Grenadier Guards & the Lovat Scouts and Seaforth Highlanders. In 1939 he lived in Ebury Street, off Fleet Street, Central London; in the later war years and he had a flat at Athenaeum Court, Piccadilly. After the war he retired to a house he had built on Jamaica in St Mary Parish called Goldeneye (a type of duck), where he created James Bond 007 (named after the author of a book on birdwatching), the first novel Casino Royale being published 1952, followed by eleven novels & two short story collections published between 1953-66; he also wrote Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. Bond of course is now on 26 films, with seven actors having portrayed him in a successful global franchise. Also in the late 1940s he moved to a bachelor flat Montagu Place, Marylebone – close to the Rothermeres (he had a long affair with Ann, wife of Lord Rothermere, the latter had been refurbishing their mansion Warwick House, St James’s, overlooking Green Park). Around 1950 Fleming moved to Hay’s Mews, Mayfair and wrote the books on winter breaks at his villa on Jamaica. On marriage to Ann their first home together was a flat in Chelsea overlooking the Thames; in the mid-50s they moved to 16 Victoria Square, Westminster where Fleming lived for the rest of his life; also after the books were successful, he rented offices in Mitre Court, just off Fleet Street; in the 60s they bought a house in the village of Highworth, near Swindon but although Ann planned & renovated, he hated it. He died in Canterbury, Kent of a heart attack after a golf match, and his remains are interred at St Andrews, Sevenhampton (nr Swindon), Wiltshire. In 1995 his gold-plated Royal typewriter was auctioned at Christie’s for £50,000, so the most expensive typewriter ever. The Lilly Library at Indiana University houses a collection of Fleming’s manuscripts, first editions and rare collected books.
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