Pursue James Bond in a coach with new Kent route

You would hardly expect James Bond to travel by National Express. However, if in his next film he were to take that company's 007 coach service from London Victoria to Deal in Kent, he would at least follow much of the route that Ian Fleming had him drive in the 1955 novel Moonraker, on roads that Fleming himself regularly took to reach his beloved "White Cliffs", the bolt-hole at St Margaret's at Cliff that had previously belonged to Noel Coward - reports the Telegraph.



This particular east Kent coastal village lies slightly closer to the A258 Dover to Deal road than neighbouring Kingsdown, which along with St Margaret's Bay is assumed by Fleming aficionados to be the setting for much of the gripping action in Moonraker, the third Bond book.

The title refers to an atomic rocket that the villainous Sir Hugo Drax is suspected of building on the cliffs between Dover and Deal - probably on the very spot where, during the war, Fleming had seen a "Rotor" early-warning system - and this is why 007 so urgently drives down from London to what is now called "white cliffs country" in his elephant's-breath grey 4.5-litre Bentley convertible.

In Fleming's words, as the driver of "the fastest, genuine four-seater in the world that could top 120mph with ease, Secret Agent Bond could activate and respond to its very full set of instruments and be confident that there was no faster or more stylish way to speed through a Britain still in the grip of some lingering austerity." Bond races down to Kent by a route that includes several places now served by the daily 007 National Express coach service.

One is Canterbury, into one of whose suburbs - Bekesbourne - Fleming moved in 1957, upsetting his wife Ann, who found that life in this new abode was scarcely better than her previously windswept existence at White Cliffs. Although the 18th-century, eight-bedroom house at Bekesbourne rejoiced under the grand name of the "Old Palace" and the locals gave her husband the rather Bondian title of "Commander" because of his secret wartime work, Ann considered it a wretched building that was too close to the railway.

From Canterbury, Bond took a short cut by taking the "old road" to Dover, which he thought reachable in a mere 15 minutes... National Express coach drivers take precisely twice as long. Fleming tells us that Bond "concentrated on his driving as he coasted [sic] down to Dover", as indeed does every coach driver as he or she makes the spectacular final steep descent into this gateway to Britain.

Just like today's Walmer- or Deal-bound 007 coach passengers, Bond then climbed "out of the town again, past the wonderful cardboard castle and motored slowly along the coast road", where "the ruby spangled masts of the Swingate radar station rose like petrified Roman candles to his right".

Apparently Coward discovered that living at White Cliffs distracted him from writing, but Fleming found his sojourn so inspirational that he penned many of his Bond books during the six years he lived there, after first renting a house near to Coward in 1949 and 1950.

Bond stopped short of where the coach now terminates at Deal, since his high-speed dash from London ended at St Margaret's Bay. As one critic has pointed out, this location is central not only to Moonraker but to Fleming's own story. It was in 1952, five years before he moved to Canterbury, that White Cliffs became available and the author had been unable to resist its scenic location, maritime interest, beguiling tranquillity and Cowardian "provenance". With its red roof and distinctive lime green shutters, it became Fleming's bolthole and retreat for weekends and holidays. Its idyllic location is at the north end of St Margaret's beach, atop the distinctive chalk cliff referred to in the village's unusual name.

The view from White Cliffs sounds remarkably like that from a vantage point in Moonraker, from where Bond is described as "gazing over the whole corner of England where Caesar had landed two thousand years before". To Bond's left lay "a carpet of green turf bright with small wild flowers. This sloped gradually down to the long pebble beaches of Walmer and Deal... As far as the eye could see the Eastern Approaches to England were dotted with traffic plying towards a home port or towards the other side of the world. It was a panorama full of colour and excitement and romance." Of these splendours, National Express passengers travelling from Dover to the site of Julius Caesar's landing at Walmer or journey's end at Deal can glimpse only the maritime traffic, as Fleming's favourite stretch of the Kent coast remains hidden, a few fields away.

Happily, Fleming describes this gateway to England so beautifully, you can clearly imagine its coastal and rural charms. His favourite month was May, so now is not a bad time to enjoy this memorable landscape.

# You can now plan your own memorable drive through the British countryside with the new routefinder service.

# For details of all National Express coaches, including the SH007 London/Deal service, go to www.nationalexpress.com.

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