Sir Sean Connery autobiography `Being A Scot` back on, published in October

In this celebrity-obsessed culture, pop stars and models publish tell-all life stories when they're barely out of their teens. At 77, Sir Sean Connery has chosen to take his time. More than five years after he floated the idea of an autobiography, the James Bond star's book, Being a Scot, is complete, The Scotsman has learned. It is due to be published in the autumn.

The book mixes a frank account of Connery's life with an esoteric take on Scotland's history and culture. Over 300 pages long, it draws on 400 photographs from his collection.

According to a publishing brief seen by The Scotsman, it ranges from his childhood in a gaslit Fountainbridge tenement to learning golf from Gert Frobe, his Goldfinger co-star, and weekending with Billy Connolly, "the funniest man alive".

The book's story is a saga in itself. In 2003, Sir Sean pulled out of an agreement with Meg Henderson, a Scottish writer, to pen his memoirs. Later, he cancelled a deal with Beatles biographer Hunter Davies and publisher HarperCollins.

Being a Scot, co-written by his old friend, the film-maker Murray Grigor, was due to be released by Scottish publisher Canongate. After months of working on early chapters, however, Connery and Grigor are said to have clashed with the publisher, Jamie Byng. The book is now to be published by Weidenfeld and Nicolson. "I'm very excited about this book," said publisher Alan Samson. "There's a book called England Made Me. This is really how Scotland made me.

"We can't pretend it's something it isn't. It is not a book of titillating revelations about the women in his life, nor will it be sold that way."

Mr Grigor said: "The book really reflects the life and film achievements of this extraordinary man. It reflects topics of Scottish culture, high and low."

Sir Sean recalls Fountainbridge as a grim industrial no-man's land with the "porridge-like and pungent" smell of Auld Reekie's "huddled chimneys". The family lived at the top of a tenement, opposite McCowan's toffee factory, with the communal toilet four floors down.

The book tells how he became an actor "by accident". Despite what many accounts say, he never won a bodybuilding prize. Instead, Connery was spotted in a contest and was told a show of South Pacific was casting for a chorus line. He was hired, got £14 a week – more than ever before – and "got a taste for it".

He also tells how he was taught golf for the scenes in Goldfinger. "I began to take lessons on a course near Pinewood and was hooked," he writes. "Soon it would take over my life. I began to see golf as a metaphor for living."

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