The Ian Fleming map of Britain
16-May-2008 • Literary
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1 Dundee Fleming had a proud Scottish heritage: his grandfather, Robert, was raised in Dundee, before moving to London to create the merchant bank Robert Fleming & Co.
2 Perthshire Two associates thought to have been the inspiration for Fleming's creation have Scottish roots. Diplomat, politician and war hero Sir Fitzroy Mclean's ancestral home is in the Isle of Mull in the Hebrides, while SAS-founder and Scottish laird David Stirling hailed from Perthshire.
3 Argyll The high-tension boat and helicopter chases in From Russia With Love were set in Turkey, but filmed in the less tranquil waters around Argyll.
4 Fettes, Edinburgh After his expulsion from Eton, Bond moved to Fettes school, Tony Blair's alma mater. It also happened to be a stop on a young Sean Connery's milk-round.
5 Scott's, Coventry Street Fleming was a regular at this restaurant during his time at the Admiralty. Now in Mount Street, Scott's is thought to be the inspiration for Bond's un-named venue for dressed crab and black velvet.
6 Reuters, Fleet Street On failing his Foreign Office exams, Fleming joined Reuters as a journalist. He eventually settled down as a stockbroker for Rowe and Pitman in Bishopsgate, until the outbreak of the Second World War.
7 Green Street, Mayfair Fleming was born here on 28 May, 1908.
8 Boodles, St James Street Fleming joined the club, whose members were given freshly ironed newspapers, in 1944, and remained a member until his death. M's club, Blades, the scene of several meetings and backdrop to Bond's card game with Sir Hugo Drax in Moonraker, is modelled on Boodles.
9 Room 39, Whitehall When the Second World War broke out, Fleming was recruited by Naval Intelligence to work in the Admiralty's Room 39. He went on missions throughout Europe, America and Africa, co-ordinating special operations for the Allies. By the end of the war, Fleming, codename 17F, had been promoted to commander.
10 Ebury Street, Belgravia Fleming bought a flat from Oswald Mosley in 1934, on Ebury Street, Belgravia, where Moonraker villain Sir Hugo Drax would also live. In the book, Bond chases Drax down Ebury Street, all the way onto the A20 to Dover, on which he loses his Bentley.
11 Carlyle Mansions, London Fleming moved into the Chelsea apartment building in the early 1950s, and it was here that he penned the first Bond book Casino Royale. Henry James and T.S. Eliot had also lived at Carlyle Mansions - aka Writers' Block - before him.
12 Bletchley Park, Buckinghamshire His wartime work brought him to Bletchley Park where Alan Turing cracked the Enigma Code. Fleming had earlier cooked up his own code-breaking attempt, 'Operation Ruthless', without any joy.
13 Swindon Fleming bought Warneford Place, outside Sevenhampton (his final resting place), with his wife in 1959. He had the 16th-century manor pulled down, creating a modern home in its place. It was here that Fleming enjoyed his last and wealthiest days, living to see the first two Bond films released, and writing Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. He is buried with his wife and son in St James Church, Sevenhampton. The Swindon connection has even survived Fleming's death: in 1984, Roger Moore shot scenes for A View to a Kill in the Renault Building, and in 2000, the Motorola factory was transformed into a hi-tech oil station for The World is Not Enough.
14 Bath The real home of George Scaramanga, a sworn enemy of Fleming's from Eton. Fleming vented his hatred by immortalising his rival as Bond's icy nemesis. Lois Maxwell, the original Miss Moneypenny in the Bond films, lived in nearby Frome.
15 Durnford School, Dorset While a boarder at his prep school near Swanage, Fleming became captivated by adventure stories by John Buchan, Sax Rohmer and Robert Louis Stevenson.
16 Braziers Park, Ipsden Fleming spent much of his early childhood at this 50-acre estate in South Oxfordshire, and his father, Valentine, was the Conservative MP for Henley.
17 Pinewood Studios, Bucks Oliver Twist and many Carry On movies had already been shot there, yet Pinewood's legend was sealed by its connection with the Bond films. Blofeld's volcano hide-out in You Only Live Twice was constructed here, with more steel than it took to build the London Hilton Hotel. Pinewood's gargantuan, 59,000 sq ft stage built for The Spy Who Loved Me, was rebuilt in 2006, after a fire during filming for Casino Royale.
18 Eton Overshadowed by his elder brother, Peter, in everything but athletics, Ian became only the second boy in Eton's history to become Victor ludorum (Champion of the games) two years in a row. A less successful sports-field incident saw his nose broken by Henry Douglas-Home, brother of the future PM Alec, in a football match. Bond also attended Eton, but was expelled for a fling with a maid.
19 Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst Fleming enrolled at Sandhurst after Eton, but hated the physical training and left. His family packed him off to study in Austria, Munich and then Geneva, so he could improve his languages, before taking the Foreign Office entrance exams.
20 Enton Hall, Witley When Fleming's 60 cigarettes and bottle of gin a day began to catch up with him, he visited this health-hydro retreat in Surrey. It features in Thunderball as 'Shrublands', where a reluctant Bond is packed off by M. Rest and recuperation had a better effect on Bond than his creator, who was forced onto another course of heart medication immediately after checking out.
21 The Duck Inn, Petts Bottom James Bond's 'obituary' in You Only Live Twice reveals that he was raised by a maiden aunt in Pett Bottom, Kent, near the Duck Inn pub. The Duck was actually a favourite of Fleming's in his later years, and his regular seat in the garden now has a plaque.
22 Royal St George's Golf Club, Sandwich, Kent In the last 25 years of his life, Fleming regularly played rounds at St George's. Like Bond, he was an avid golfer, and the golf-match scene between Bond and Goldfinger at 'St Mark's' was inspired by St George's.Fleming collapsed with a heart attack on the course in 1964, and died in Canterbury Hospital, aged 56. His reported last words, to the ambulance attendants, were, 'Awfully sorry to trouble you chaps.'
23 St Margaret's Bay, Dover St Margaret's Bay was a favourite retreat of English high society in the 1930s. Henry 'Rolls' Royce and Peter Ustinov had houses there, as did Noël Coward, who played host to Daphne du Maurier, Katharine Hepburn and the Flemings, among others. Coward was a witness at Ian and Anne's wedding in Jamaica, in the early 1950s, and sold them his St Margaret's house. Some say Fleming may even have come up with the codename '007' because that was the number of the London to Dover, National Express coach.
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