Short History Of... - Ian Fleming

Episode Date: April 21, 2024

Ian Fleming’s most famous creation, James Bond, is a cultural icon. To paraphrase one critic, Bond is someone men want to be, and women want to be with. Although many attitudes expressed in the Bond books are out of kilter with modern ideas, Bond remains one of the most enduring fictional characters in history. But what is the story behind his creator - Ian Fleming? What inspired Fleming to write the ultimate spy novels? Did his success bring happiness? And how much of his own character did he lend to James Bond? This is a short history of Ian Fleming.  Written by Dan Smith. With thanks to Edward Abel-Smith, author of ‘Ian Fleming’s Inspirations: The Truth Behind the Books.’ Get every episode of Short History Of a week early with Noiser+. You’ll also get ad-free listening, bonus material, and early access to shows across the Noiser network. Click the Noiser+ banner to get started. Or, if you’re on Spotify or Android, go to noiser.com/subscriptions. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It's August 1941 in the glamorous Portuguese coastal resort of Estoril, about 15 miles from Lisbon. In the intimate lounge bar of the exclusive Hotel Palacio, two men sit in plush armchairs. They're both smartly dressed, one in his 50s, the other in his 30s. The younger man knocks back the last of his martini, and the pair get to their feet. They walk across the bar's distinctive checkerboard floor and out into the warm evening. A gentle breeze rustles through the trees as they pass the hotel's imposing white stone facade,

along the promenade and through the carefully manicured courtyard to the nearby casino. When they arrive at its entrance, the younger man shakes a cigarette from a pack he's had specially made for him back in London. He fits it to his long, ebony cigarette holder and lights up. A doorman steps aside and ushers them into the casino. A jazz band is in full swing as patrons dine and dance. Gambling tables stretch in every direction. But this is business as well as pleasure. The elder of the two, John Godfrey,

is director of British Naval Intelligence, a man who trades in finding out the enemy's secrets while protecting those of his own country. The younger man is his personal assistant, and it is his contacts who have persuaded him that a night at the casino is worthwhile. While the Second World War rages across Europe, Portugal has maintained its neutrality. Lisbon and Estoril are luxurious havens for spies, places where they can carry out their business of espionage in comfort and relative safety, meeting informants and making exchanges. Godfrey's assistant has been told that there are always German spies in the casinos. The pair make their way to a

baccarat table and lay down some chips. A tuxedoed croupier deals a hand for the newcomers and one for the house. The house wins. The young man shrugs and puts down more chips. The same result. And again. It seems like it's not his lucky night. Smoke swirls from his cigarette and he puts in an order for another drink.

He glances at the other players. Not spies, he determines, probably just well-to-do locals. But an idea creeps into his head. With a glint in his eye, he leans over to his boss. Imagine, he says, as he subtly gestures, if all these fellows were German agents. What a coup it would be to clean them out entirely. The croupier deals, and the young man loses again. But maybe it's not all such bad luck, because this idea of rinsing enemy spies at the Baccarat table will change the

course of his life. A little more than a decade from now, the Estoril Casino will be reimagined as the Casino Royale in a book of the same name. Its central character will be the greatest spy of them all, James Bond. As for Godfrey's assistant, the name is Fleming. Ian Fleming. James Bond is a cultural icon. The epitome of a particular sort of masculinity.

A man who enjoys the finer things in life, but who's prepared to risk everything to defeat the bad guys. To paraphrase one critic, Bond is someone men want to be and women want to be with. It is, of course, a rather chauvinistic generalization. But then the world of Bond is regularly chauvinistic. The attitudes expressed in the books about class, race, and sexual politics are often strikingly out of kilter with modern ideas. But behind one of the most enduring fictional characters in history is Bond's creator, Ian Fleming. Born into privilege, he was involved in the worlds of finance, journalism, defense, and espionage before Bond was even a twinkle in his eye.

Although his early career seemed to falter before it began, his inventive mind became a potent weapon for the British in the Second World War. So what inspired him to write the ultimate spy novels? Did his success bring him happiness? And how much of his own character, with its determination, quirks, and flaws, did he lend to the most famous product of his imagination? I'm John Hopkins. From Noisa, this is a short history of Ian Fleming.

It's the 20th of May, 1917, three years into the First World War on a farm near the River Somme in northern France. As German artillery fire rains down, a British major is struck by shrapnel. There is nothing that can be done to save him. His name is Valentine Fleming, a married father of four and the Conservative Member of Parliament for Henley in Oxfordshire. Back home in England, his death is marked by an admiring obituary in the Times written by none other than Winston Churchill. an admiring obituary in the times written by none other than Winston Churchill. But that is little consolation to his second oldest child, Ian Lancaster Fleming, who is eight days from his ninth birthday when he loses his father.

Ian's family background is comfortable. His Scottish paternal grandfather, Robert, is a self-made man who earned a fortune in finance. His maternal grandfather is a baronet. Ian himself was born on the 28th of May 1908 in the exclusive London enclave of Mayfair, and his family live in a series of spectacular properties, most notably a Jacobean revival-style mansion on the sprawling Joyce Grove estate in Oxfordshire. But that privilege hasn't necessarily led to happiness for Ian so far. He has been attending Dunford Preparatory School in Dorset since he was six.

It's the sort of establishment that believes in classical education and the good dose of beatings. Each morning, the children are made to strip off and take a dip in the sea, and Ian cannot abide the place. Edward Abel Smith is author of Ian Fleming's inspirations, The Truth Behind the Books. is author of Ian Fleming's inspirations, The Truth Behind the Books. He was very homesick. He despised the rules. He didn't get on particularly well with any of the teachers and also was badly bullied by the other children. In 1921, aged 13, he moves to Eton, perhaps the most famous school in the country, alma mater to numerous prime ministers. His older brother Peter is there already,

making a name for himself as a talented wordsmith. Ian makes a splash too. He flies to first place in the college steeplechase race and dominates in the junior mile and half mile, the hurdles and long jump. Twice he's awarded the cup as the overall school games champion. He is also a skillful golfer, the sport that he plays most throughout his life, and one he will eventually have Bond pursue as well. But he's less of a star in the classroom. His academic achievements pale in comparison with those of his brother. And although Ian considers the Eton curriculum largely irrelevant, he does show an early interest in writing.

In 1925, a college magazine publishes his first known work of fiction, a short story entitled The Ordeal of Carol St. George, though it fails to cause much of a ripple. As a teenager, however, Fleming has other priorities. He is besotted with the opposite sex, and is aided in his pursuit of them by striking good looks. Even a broken nose, sustained when colliding with the brother of future Prime Minister Alec Douglas Hume in a football match match somehow only adds to his handsomeness. His record of unauthorized absences, misuse of motor vehicles, and illicit romantic liaisons

stretches the school's patience to breaking point. His worried mother, Eve, now pregnant by her lover, the celebrated painter Augustus John, decides to remove him from the school before he is thrown out. He leaves Eton a term early to prepare to join Sandhurst Military College, ahead of what Eve hopes will be an illustrious career in the army. But soon, his eye for the ladies intercedes again. army. But soon his eye for the ladies intercedes again. He met a beautiful woman, a young lady called Peggy Barnard at the Sandhurst sports day. And he asked her out and she turned him down because she was going to see another man. So in a slight state of rage, Fleming went up to Soho, where he drunk a huge amount and then ended up contracting gonorrhea from a prostitute. Now, this was activity not fit for an army officer, so he was dishonourably discharged from Sandhurst in 1927.

The despairing Eve comes up with a new plan for her wayward son, a career in the foreign office. The first step is to send him to a school in Austria to improve his language skills. There he lodges with the author Phyllis Batone and her husband. She nurtures Fleming's nascent literary aspirations, and he spends much of his free time climbing and skiing. Later, he'll refer to his stay here as that golden time when the sun always shone. From Austria, he goes first to the University of Munich to further polish his German, and then to Switzerland and Geneva University to do the same with his French. Here, he takes up a temporary posting at the League of Nations,

the precursor to the United Nations. All the while, he maintains a string of girlfriends, gaining a reputation as a womanizer. Attending a ball in Geneva, 22-year-old Fleming spots a slim, dark-haired woman laughing with her companions. Before long, they are introduced. Just 19 years old, she is fluent in French and English and has a poise and independence he finds irresistible. This, he becomes convinced, is the real thing. Her name is Monique Ponchon de Botton, and within a few months the couple are engaged to be married. In September 1931, Fleming reluctantly leaves his Swiss idyll to return to London to sit

the Foreign Office exams, the culmination of three years of preparation. But it's highly competitive, and Fleming fails to achieve the marks necessary for a job offer. Eve has no doubt where the blame lies. She takes against Monique, putting her down at every opportunity, and even refusing to heat her room when she comes to visit the Flemings at Christmas. The strain begins to show, and the couple call off their engagement. The strain begins to show, and the couple call off their engagement. Nonetheless, down the line, Fleming will choose the name Monique for the mother of his fictional spy. Determined to come up with a new plan for her son, Eve utilizes one of her society connections, the general manager of the Reuters news agency.

Fleming begins a six-month trial, but soon proves his worth and is taken on permanently. In early 1933, he is deployed to Russia to cover the high-profile trial of six British engineers wrongfully accused of espionage. He even seeks an audience with Stalin himself, and though he receives a letter of refusal, it is signed personally by the Soviet leader. By the time his Moscow posting finishes, Fleming has been accepted into the fraternity of foreign correspondents. He has also seen up close the Soviet way of doing things, a knowledge he would exploit

in years to come. Back in London, Fleming follows a diversion into the world of finance. He had quite a lavish lifestyle at the time, and he frankly couldn't afford to continue with this lifestyle with the salary that he had. So he decided to follow his grandfather into banking and joined a company called Cullen Co. in 1933, and then soon moved on to Rowan Pittman in 1935, where he was a stockbroker and quite infamously was described as the world's worst stockbroker. And though that might be overstating the case, Fleming suddenly becomes known for being keener on the affluent lifestyle of a stockbroker than doing the job itself.

Then, in 1939, comes a curious interlude. For reasons not entirely clear, but probably linked to his stint in Russia, Fleming is approached by the Foreign Office. He returns to the Soviet Union under the guise of being a Times journalist. His real purpose, though, is to provide intelligence reports. In short, Fleming is a spy. And now a new door is about to open. It's the 24th of May, 1939, just two days since Germany and Italy signed the so-called

Pact of Steel, drawing the two fascist states closer together and raising the prospect of a European conflict. Fleming is in Mayfair for a lunch date at the Carlton Grill, having been summoned by the brother of one of his city colleagues. He enters the restaurant and is ushered to a table. There, his contact introduces him to another man, a stern-looking gentleman in his early fifties. This is Rear Admiral John Godfrey, the person who has been in charge of naval intelligence since the beginning of the year. Over lunch, Godfrey reveals that he is looking for a personal assistant. He wants someone of Fleming's age who can speak multiple languages, knows how the city works, and is

adaptable. And he's been told by another mutual friend, the governor of the Bank of England, that Fleming could be just the man he's after. So Fleming kind of fit the bill there. The two men got on famously over lunch and within a week Fleming was recruited into naval intelligence as a lieutenant and personal assistant to Admiral Godfrey. and personal assistant to Admiral Godfrey. Fleming is soon promoted to commander, the same rank that he will in due course bestow upon Bond. He works amid a small team in Room 39 at the Admiralty Building in London,

serving as gatekeeper to Godfrey, filtering which documents his boss needs to spend time studying. He notices that the most secret material comes in files designated with a double O prefix. And the reason the two men got on so well is that Fleming refused outright to call him sir, wouldn't stand on ceremony at all. And when other admirals would send reports or requests and memos over to Godfrey, Fleming would always be the one to read them first. And on several of them, he would write not of enough accordance or something along those lines, and then send them back. So he certainly rubbed people

up the wrong way within the Admiralty, but for Godfrey, he was absolutely essential. By now, Fleming is several months into a love affair with socialite Anne O'Neill. But it's complicated. Anne is married to the aristocrat Lord Shane O'Neill. Shane O'Neill. Not only that, but she's also involved in a further affair with the media magnate son of Viscount Rothmere, who is himself married to someone else. Back in Room 39 of the Admiralty, Godfrey is regarded as a feather ruffler, and by extension, so is Fleming. Their drive to push through their ideas is not always popular, but there is no denying that Fleming hits the ground running. One of his earliest achievements is a now legendary memo.

He wrote what became famously known as the Trout Memo, so soon after war was declared. A memo was released by Godfrey, which is believed to have been written in part, if not entirely, by Fleming. And it contained 51 ingenious ways of introducing ideas into the heads of the Germans. And there were some absolutely far-fetched and slightly bizarre ideas in there that could have only been created by a fiction writer, such as filling tins of food with explosives and putting cooking instructions on the side in German, and then leaving those at sea in the hope that enemy vessels might find them

and decide to cook them. But probably the most famous of the Trout Memo was idea number 28, which was to dress a corpse in a military outfit, putting fake false papers in his pocket with the hope that the enemy might come across it and believe what was written. And that was picked up by Giles Jomley, a 25-year-old intelligence officer, who in April 1943 used the idea in what was called Operation Mincemeat, which is one of the most celebrated and well-known espionage missions of the war.

The memo cements the reputations of Godfrey and Fleming for maverick thinking, and the out-there ideas keep coming. Fleming is a regular visitor to Bletchley Park, a requisitioned country estate that now serves as the centre of British attempts to crack the codes used by the Axis powers. He becomes familiar with the establishment's leading characters, like the brilliant mathematician Alan Turing. In the autumn of 1940, Bletchley is dealing with masses of intercepted communiques sent by the Germans using the so-called Enigma machine. But the genius of the Enigma machine

is that the code it uses forever changes. To keep up, you must have the latest code books. Fleming devises a plan known as Operation Ruthless. He knows that small, speedy German vessels patrol the English Channel, ready to pick up stricken German pilots shot down in air raids over Britain. He approaches the Minister for Aircraft Production and secures a fully functional Heinkel 111 aircraft of the type used by the German Air Force. Five British commanders are supplied with German uniform and instructions to fly the craft over the channel. Fleming puts himself forward as one of the five, but he is considered more valuable away from frontline action. The aircraft is to tag onto the end of a German convoy on its return from a raid,

and then to ditch into the sea. Then, when one of the German rescue boats arrives, the five will commandeer it and sail it to Britain, complete with its codebooks. The mission is all set to go when Bletchley intercepts a new message. It seems that the German command has decided to immediately divert its rescue boats from the channel. Operation Ruthless is called off. Fleming is disappointed, but he has plenty of other irons in the fire. He is, for instance, busy in the United States, where he works alongside Colonel William Donovan, better known as Wild Bill. Donovan is variously a soldier, lawyer, diplomat, and intelligence agent, and serves as a confidant

of America's President Roosevelt. Although the extent of his contribution is contentious, Fleming spends a lot of time with him discussing a new U.S. intelligence gathering organization, which will one day evolve into the Central Intelligence Agency, or CIA. Around now, he ends up in the casino in Estoril, where he imagines cleaning out German agents in a game of baccarat. Fleming is also a key figure behind Operation Golden Eye, a plan to be implemented in the event of fascist Spain

aligning with the Axis powers. And it's here that he gets to flex that ingenious imagination once again. It's the 14th of July 1942, on Romney Marsh in southeast England, a stretch of wetland by the Thames estuary where the river meets the North Sea. Inside a tiny wooden hut, 28-year-old Bruce Cooper peers through binoculars out of a thin slit in the wall. A notepad lies to one side of him, where he scribbles details of whatever shipping he spies sailing in the estuary. Now he leans towards a bulky wireless set. After turning various dials, he taps out a message in Morse code to his handler. It takes all his concentration to ignore the distractions in the hut, because Cooper is not alone. In fact, there are six operatives squeezed inside. One burly man lies behind him on the floor, huffing his way through a series of press-ups as part of his exercise routine.

In another corner, someone else boils a kettle, clinking mugs as he prepares to make everyone a cup of tea. They have been stuck inside these four walls for 59 days straight It's an extraordinary test of endurance Privacy is a thing of the past Even now Cooper hears the loud snores of one of the others resting up while off duty Some are more seasoned to the deprivations than others Among Cooper's colleagues is George Murray Levick, who was on Captain Scott's expedition to Antarctica

some 30 years ago. Certainly things here aren't as bad as the cruel winter he spent marooned in a cramped ice cave. But still, two months in a hut on Romney Marsh isn't anyone's idea of a holiday camp. But they're here to do a job. Cooper is certainly not complaining. When he has finished his message, he gratefully sips his freshly brewed tea and then picks

up his binoculars, eyes fixed once more on the tidal waters beyond. It is Fleming he can thank for being crammed in this cell. Because these hard weeks on the marsh are practice for an operation codenamed Tracer, Fleming's brainchild. Part of Operation Golden Eye, Tracer is an outrageous scheme that, all being well, will never actually come to pass. In the event that the British territory of Gibraltar in the Mediterranean falls to Germany, In the event that the British territory of Gibraltar in the Mediterranean falls to Germany, Cooper and the rest of the men will be sealed into a cave.

Just 45 feet by 16, it will come complete with a 10,000-gallon water tank and sufficient supplies to survive a year. From their hideout, they will observe enemy movements in the Strait of Gibraltar through slits in the cave wall and report back via a wireless set. But should a year pass without the British reclaiming Gibraltar from Germany, the Gang of Six know their destiny is to die inside the cave. A vessel laden with cargo now glides past the hut, her captain sounding a thundering horn as she goes. Cooper taps out a final message on his wireless.

His stint on watch is about to end. Best of all, tomorrow the training exercise finishes. Mission accomplished. All there is to do then is wait and see if he is called upon to do it for real. In fact, Hitler loses interest in Gibraltar as a strategic asset, and the mission is stood down. But Fleming does squeeze some value out of Tracer, using it as the basis for a future short story, A View to a Kill. Despite its factual roots, though, it's a tale that one disgruntled newspaper reviewer will describe as too far-fetched, even for James Bond.

Also in 1942, Fleming delivers onto Godfrey's desk his vision for a new intelligence unit. The plan is to send frontline troops every time a German naval facility is attacked, sweeping it to secure intelligence assets, like materials related to Enigma, before they can be destroyed. The idea receives authorization, and 30 Assault Unit is born, taking part in raids in Europe and North Africa right through to the war's end. The unit is involved in Operation Overlord, which begins with a mass landing of troops in Normandy, France in June 1944. It's the pivotal step towards securing the liberation of Western Europe. Despite a professional life to be proud of, Fleming's private life is more chaotic. In March 1944, an old flame from his days in Austria, a model by the name of Muriel Wright,

is killed by shrapnel in an air raid over London. The news hits Fleming hard. Although it is years since their relationship, it is as if he starts to idolize the memory of her. He is perhaps driven by guilt. She was one of the many women he treated less than well, so badly in fact that her brother once paid Fleming a visit, threatening to horsewhip him. But despite her untimely end, she'll later be immortalized in his descriptions of several of the legendary Bond girls, those female characters who serve variously as love interests, companions, or nemeses in Bond's fictional adventures.

A few months later, in October 1944, his lover Anne's husband is killed in action in Italy. She makes plans to marry her other lover, who has by now succeeded his father as Lord Rothermere. But the evening before the big day, she meets Fleming for dinner, and he restates the strong feelings he has for her. She later reflects that if Fleming had proposed that evening, she would have accepted. But he doesn't, so she marries Rothermere instead. With the war drawing to a close, Fleming accepts a position with Kemsley News, present, so she marries Rothermere instead. With the war drawing to a close, Fleming accepts a position with Kemsley News, who owns several newspapers including the Sunday Times.

As foreign manager, he operates a network of overseas correspondents, a job with echoes of the one he has just vacated in naval intelligence. He negotiates his terms of employment so that he can take two months off each year, time he intends to spend in Jamaica. He had first visited the Caribbean island in the war for a naval conference. It rained as heavily as anyone could remember, and the humidity was unbearable. But after the grey and drizzle of London, of the rationing and years of shortage, the blooming fauna and the fresh produce of Jamaica captured his imagination. And he stayed with a good friend of his there called Ivor Bryce, whose second wife Sheila

owned a stunning estate there called Bellevue Estate, which overlooked Kingston. And Fleming famously said to Bryce that when the war was over, he was going to move to Jamaica where he would live, swim and just write books. And that was one of the early references to him wanting to become an author. But he was true to his words. He has plans to build himself a Caribbean home. In 1946, Bryce locates a large tract of land on the north coast of the island at the top of a cliff, overlooking a private beach the size of a cricket pitch and the wide open ocean beyond.

Fleming pays £2,000 for it and sets about designing a property. It's a simple affair, basically furnished with blue painted stone floors, no hot water, nor glass in the windows. He decides to call it Golden Eye, after the wartime operation in which he was so involved. All the while his affair continues with Anne in England and in his ramshackle island hideaway. Anne in England and in his ramshackle island hideaway. In July 1948, she discovers she is pregnant, and a month later she goes into early labour, delivering a baby girl who lives only a few hours. The world at large assumes her husband Lord Rothermy is the father, but it is in fact Flemmy.

And although they cannot express their shared grief more widely, the trauma brings them closer together. But their relationship has a streak of mutual destructiveness. Both keep up a roster of alternative lovers, and Fleming, at least, seems innately opposed to the idea of turning his back on the single life. to the idea of turning his back on the single life. By the end of 1951, Anne is pregnant again by Fleming. After years of prevaricating, he at last decides he is ready to settle down. Anne begins divorce proceedings from Lord Rothermey and the long-term lovers plan to marry once it is finalized in early 1952. once it is finalized in early 1952.

By mid-February, wedding plans are in full swing and Fleming is eager for some sort of destruction. He finds it in the form of the typewriter that sits on his desk at Goldeneye. Tapping away at the keys, within just a few hours he has amassed 2,000 words. Not bad for a morning's work. It's a habit he falls into easily, and which he keeps up for the rest of his life.

He would always write his books from his desk in Jamaica and would write them at an extreme pace, which he had learned in his earlier career as a journalist. So writing was in his blood. He has had the notion of writing a novel for a while now, one that merges his real-life experiences with unbounded imagination. His idea at the Estoril Casino inspires the plot of his first book, which he calls Casino Royale. He has a long-running £100 bet with his brother, Peter, by now a well-established author, that he, Ian, can write a bestseller.

And he has promised another colleague that he intends to produce The Spy Story to end all spy stories. Each morning he returns to his typewriter, the tap-tap of the keyboard ringing out for three hours, and another hour in the evening. While Anne sits out in the garden, painting, he needs to produce those 2,000 words before he allows himself to stop. By mid-March he has a manuscript of over 60,000 words. Its lead character is a secret agent, codenamed 007. In one early draft, the spy introduces himself as James Secretan. But the name doesn't stick, and Fleming searches for something a little more everyman. He hits upon James Bond, a name he borrows from the author of a favorite handbook, A Field Guide to the Birds of the West Indies.

Bond himself is a composite character built from aspects of several real-life individuals Fleming has known. Clues about their identities offer future literary critics unending opportunity for speculation. But Bond also contains a good dose of Fleming himself.

He really created James Bond partly in his own image, taking all of the bits that he liked about himself and the things that he enjoyed in life, such as cars and nice food, alcohol, women, of course, and then sort of blended that with some of the pieces that he wasn't able to do himself. So he always had a chip on his shoulder about not fighting on the front line like his brother or like the men in his assault unit.

So he very much channeled that frustration through James Bond and kind of created the ultimate man in his mind. Bond's boss at MI6, the British intelligence organization concerned with espionage overseas, is called M, and undoubtedly owes a debt to John Godfrey. But others also serve as partial blueprints, including Colin Gubbins, director of the Special Operations Executive, or SOE, which oversaw spying and sabotage operations in occupied Europe. Casino Royale also sees the debut of M's secretary, Miss Moneypenny,

although in the initial draft she is Miss Pettervel. Fleming is modest about the quality of his manuscript, calling it dreadful and oafish. Nevertheless, he shows it to an editor friend in London who passes it on to the prestigious publishers Jonathan Cape. They report that the book is original and interesting, but in need of extensive revision. But any thoughts of that are for the future. First, there is a wedding to get through. First, there is a wedding to get through. It's Monday the 24th of March, 1952, in Port Maria,

a little town on Jamaica's north coast, about a ten-minute's drive from Goldeneye. Birdsong fills the skies, and the ocean laps against the shore. A tall figure in a white suit skips up the steps of the Georgian-era town hall. It is Noel Coward, the dashing playwright, composer, actor, and wit. He is another island resident and one of Fleming's greatest friends in all the world. Theirs is an alliance forged in mutual social snobbery and a love for country and empire. Alongside Coward is Cole Leslie, his secretary and companion, dressed in an identical suit. Their footsteps echo in the almost empty hall, and they take their seats at the front, nodding greetings to the registrar who stands before them and clears his throat. With the guests settled, the bride and groom arrive.

Fleming is dressed in a blue linen shirt and belted blue trousers, an orchid in his buttonhole. Anne is in a curious pale blue cotton dress, hurriedly made to hide her evident pregnancy, and a straw hat to finish off the outfit coward and leslie are the sole guests to witness their nuptials and greet their arrival with a smile the bride who appears to be trembling takes her position before the registrar but as the ceremony begins the source of the unsavory odor in the air becomes obvious. It's the registrar's breath. When the official leans in to ask the couple to make their vows, they both turn their heads away to say their I do's. Coward catches Fleming's eye, and the pair descend into a bout of guffawing.

The ceremony complete, Coward hurries to the entrance to throw handfuls of rice over the happy couple. Then it's a short drive to Coward's island home, Blue Harbor. The friends have hired matching cars for the day, but Coward has mixed them up so that he has tied an old shoe to his bumper rather than that of the newlyweds. It thuds along behind as the vehicles speed off. After a celebratory dry martini at Blue Harbor, they decamp to Goldeneye for the wedding feast. Coward struggles his way through some turtle that Fleming has earlier caught himself, a dish with the texture of an old tire.

There is local black crab too, as well as a cocktail of rum, sugar, orange and lemon skins. But the piece de resistance is a huge cake slathered in vivid green icing prepared by Fleming's housekeeper Violet. Coward tries to hide a smile as Fleming forces down a slice of the slippery gateau. Then, as soon as Violet is out of the way, the two tipsy chums smuggle it outside,

find spades, and set about digging it a grave. Giggling all the while, they bury the remainder of the cake. They hardly notice Anne grimacing from the sidelines. What the future is for this marriage is anyone's guess, but few are convinced that it will be all sunshine and roses. The remainder of 1952 proves busy for Fleming. He has recently taken on the management of a small press that produces

collectible limited edition books. Book collecting is one of Fleming's great passions, and he now founds a journal dedicated to it. All alongside his full-time newspaper work, which calls him back to England for most of the year. He is also redrafting Casino Royale. With this job in mind, he contacts the Royal Typewriter Company in New York and orders up one of their 1947 models. Nothing so unusual about that, except he asks for his machine to be gold-plated. A small gift to himself. It will at least do him good service, being the machine on which

he produces all his subsequent Bond stories. Each January and February for the next twelve years he stays at his Jamaican home and pumps out a new novel. On the 12th of August 1952 Anne gives birth to a son, Caspar, and for a while the Flemings give the impression of contented domestic life. Then, in April 1953, Casino Royale is published. It is generally well received, even if it does not set the world alight. So when Casino Royale was published in April 1953, it sold just under 5,000 copies in its first month, and then 13,000 more sold over the next year. And then when it moved to paperback,

it sold just under 50,000 paperbacks in its first year. So it was certainly successful, but nothing near the kind of dizzying heights that the Bond franchise got to and the books got to towards the end of Fleming's life in the 60s. Even so, sales are encouraging enough to carry on with the series. A year after Casino Royale comes Live and Let Die, which itself is followed by Moonraker, the only of Fleming's Bond novels to be set in the UK.

With each new book, Bond's fan base grows. I don't think Fleming's often given credit for his abilities as an author, but the books are very well written and very engaging and sort of instantly capture the imagination of the readers. Also, they all had, apart from one actually, which was Moonraker, they were all based in part or entirely in very glamorous locations. So Jamaica featuring in a lot of them. And that really gave a sense of escapism, I think, to readers. We're talking after the Second World War, still during a time of rationing and really dire weather,

as always, back in Blighty. So it gave readers sort of a sense of escapism. Diamonds Are Forever comes in 1956, by which time the Flemings' home at Goldeneye is a popular retreat for the powerful and the well-connected. Towards the end of the year, it hosts the British Prime Minister Anthony Eden. The fallout of the Suez Crisis is still settling after Britain, France and Israel allied to attack Egypt with a view to reclaiming control of the valuable Suez Canal.

The operation has received widespread condemnation from the international community, prompting a humiliating end to the invasion and the imminent demise of Eden's premiership. For Fleming, though, the publicity created by Eden's visit raises Bonn's profile still higher. But on the domestic front, things are far from thriving. The marriage for Fleming was not particularly blissful. They certainly had a couple of years of happiness together, but then they both started affairs.

The extramarital dalliances are numerous, but this year Fleming takes up with the divorced Jamaican heiress, Blanche Blackwell. Meanwhile, Anne embarks on a relationship with Hugh Gateskill, the married leader of the UK Labour Party, and official opposition to Eden. Fleming's marriage is wearying, but soon so is his writing. By the time he sits down at his

golden typewriter for the next Bond installment, From Russia with Love, he is tired of his creation. In a note to the famed detective novelist Raymond Chandler, Fleming writes that he is struggling to make Bond go through his tricks. Despite his commercial success, he's insecure about his place in the literary establishment. I think the one thing that he struggled with is his wife Anne was very much a socialite in circles with the likes of Evelyn Warren, for example. And so Fleming was always quite self-conscious about the type of author that he was and the perception that he was a slightly lower-level fiction writer. So I think he had a slight chip on his shoulder about that.

As it turns out, From Russia With Love garners some of his most positive reviews yet. It is his next book, Dr. No, that receives greater criticism. The series has so far covered any number of themes close to Fleming's heart. As well as the daring do, the glamour and romance, there are reflections on Britain and its role in the world, and the complex nature of Cold War politics. Fleming is defiantly patriotic,

but his love of country is rooted in his experiences as the son of a wealthy and well-connected family. He is a product of his education in the private school system, marked by both privilege and cruelty. But he also holds attitudes very much of their time, a chauvinism in relation to class, race and sexual politics. One review is headlined, Sex, Snobbery, and Sadism, and its author describes Dr. No as the nastiest book I have ever read. Bond's sexual aggression and social snobbery and Fleming's recounting of acts of violence are all critiqued.

Other reviewers express similar sentiments. But by his own admission, Fleming never set out to create a paragon of virtue. Fleming was always very open about the fact that Bond shouldn't really be a hero, and he didn't write him to be a hero. He was meant to be, and always has been, a deeply flawed character. His next book, Goldfinger, is already with the publishers by the time of the Doctor No Pylon. But rather than start a new novel, Fleming now adapts a collection of outlines for a television series that never happened into a book of short stories entitled For Your Eyes Only. It might feel like the beginning of the end, but better times are around the corner.

Keeping up the book-a-year schedule, in 1961, Thunderball is published. But it is another event this year that sends James Bond into the stratosphere. It's the middle of March, and the latest edition of Life magazine hits newsstands across America. It features an article in which the handsome new incumbent in the White House, President John F. Kennedy, discusses his ten favorite books. Among them is From Russia with Love. In the US, Fleming becomes a literary superstar overnight. Vast new print runs of his backlist are ordered,

and each title goes on to sell in excess of a million copies. Meanwhile, two film producers, Albert R. Broccoli, known as Cubby, and Harry Saltzman, begin work on bringing Dr. No to cinema screens. Bond has already appeared in an unremarkable television dramatization back in 1954, but this is a project of an entirely different order. Fleming has the suave English actor David Niven in mind for the lead, but in the end it goes to a lesser-known Scotsman, one Sean Connery. As the Bond machine goes from strength to strength, Fleming continues to split his life between England and Jamaica. He has scaled back his duties recently, though he remains a regular contributor to the Sunday Times.

And it's at the paper's regular staff meeting in April 1961 but his daily diet of 70 cigarettes and a bottle of spirits catches up with him. Aged 52, he suffers a major heart attack. But from this setback, an unlikely new creative opportunity emerges. Fleming is prohibited from using a typewriter in hospital, so at a friend's urging, he takes up a pencil and paper. He writes down a bedtime story he has created for his son, Casper, involving a magic flying car. The result is Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, destined to become a children's classic and a hit movie. back, destined to become a children's classic and a hit movie.

Meanwhile, the movie adaptation of Dr. No is released in 1962 and does brisk business at the box office. But Fleming's latest Bond novel, The Spy Who Loved Me, is not the instant hit he hopes for. Using the innovation of a female lead narrator, its explicit content and attitudes to consent are unsettling, and it's banned in several countries. Fleming himself vetoes a paperback release, considering it an experiment that has gone awry. He follows it, in 1963, with the more traditionally structured On Her Majesty's Secret Service. It's more warmly received, but his health deteriorates further under the stress of a legal battle. Two screenwriters claim his 1961 novel Thunderball was lifted from the screenplay they all worked on together, but without acknowledgement. The dispute is eventually settled out of court.

The following year is marked by more ill health, including a bout of pleurisy contracted when he's caught in a downpour during a round of golf. That August he is in Kent, in England, to celebrate his election to the captaincy of a prestigious golf club. A few days later, after dinner with Anne and some friends, his wife sees him staring from the bedroom window out to sea, angst written on his face. He orders up whiskey and cigarettes, but at ten o'clock he is rushed to hospital after another heart attack. Three hours later he is dead, at just 56 years old. At his memorial service, Fleming's old friend and editor addresses the congregation. Let us remember him, he says, as he was on top of the world, with his foot on the accelerator, laughing at absurdities,

enjoying discoveries absorbed in his many interests and plans, fascinated and amused by places and people and facts and fantasies, an entertainer of millions, and for us, a friend never to be forgotten. forgotten. In the decades after his death, the cult of James Bond only grows stronger. His books continue to sell in vast numbers, altogether over a hundred million globally. Collectible editions, he would have been delighted to know, go for fortunes. By 2011, his estate's total personal earnings from the Bond novels is valued at £100 million, just ahead of Agatha Christie. After his death, a host of celebrated novelists take on the challenge of adding to the Bond canon, from Kingsley Amis to Charlie Higson. And in 2021, Kim Sherwood becomes the first woman to be given permission by the Fleming estate to write new Bond stories.

To date, there have been 27 Bond movies. Each is a major cinematic event, even the many that cannot claim direct descendancy from any of Fleming's 14 original books. Adjusted for inflation, the movie franchise is estimated to have earned in excess of $20 billion since Dr. No was released. But many of the characteristics and attitudes Fleming incorporated into his Bond oeuvre don't sit easily with modern audiences. In 2023, his novels are reissued to mark 70 years since Casino Royale. Certain potentially racially offensive language is removed,

and though that's met with appreciation from many, others are enraged by what they see as censorship and a rewriting of the past. Though Bond is undoubtedly a divisive character, representing for some a host of socially regressive attitudes, for others he is a creation ripe for rein representing for some a host of socially regressive attitudes, for others he is a creation ripe for reinvention for each new generation. Perhaps Fleming's greatest achievement in a life rich by any standards is to have created something that lives beyond him, for better and worse.

Like Sherlock Holmes or Harry Potter, James Bond has escaped the clutches of his creator to become a cultural icon, the possession of the world. As a legacy, what Fleming was able to do was to create a character who has remained so relevant throughout the ages. And I think a big part of the appeal of the books and then the film is that point of escapism where you know it's always going to be in a glamorous location.

You know that there are always going to be very glamorous actresses and actors involved through the films. And the action sequences are going to be great fun and real kind of nail biters so it's got a great mix of different components that makes it very appealing next time on short history of we'll bring you a short history of the Korean War. It's not a forgotten war in the North. It's an absolutely key part of their ideology and their worldview.

And it still informs a lot about what's going on in Korea. And for the way that North Koreans see the world, the way they treat America, it's not a forgotten war in South Korea either. Both countries have massive war museums dedicated to the Korean War. All school children have to learn about it. That's next time.