The Man with the Golden Typewriter

by Bloomsbury Publishing

  While in Jamaica Fleming had a lapse in spirits. Pondering his ever weaker health, he wrote to Dikko Hughes that Bond had ‘had a good run, which is more than most of us these days. Everything seems a lot of trouble these days – too much trouble. Keep alive.’ When Hughes remonstrated, Fleming replied, ‘Dikko, I promise. Don’t worry. I’m not worrying any more. Down with death.’ Despondent or not, Fleming managed to pull it off once again. You Only Live Twice was, like its predecessor, a splendid book and with its vivid set pieces – including a torture chair set above a volcanic vent, which Bond subsequently blocked to destroy Blofeld’s castle – showed his imagination running at full throttle. The obituary, too, provided fans with their first full explanation of Bond’s origins. After the box-office success of Dr No he could not have poised 007’s latest adventure more perfectly.

  The screen version of Dr No had boosted Fleming’s standing to such an extent that he and his creation had become household names: in June he was invited to appear on the prestigious radio programme Desert Island Discs; in Oxford a group of enthusiastic undergraduates had founded a James Bond Club; and across the Atlantic the Harvard Lampoon published a spoof Bond novel called Alligator which was so successful that it sold an astonishing 100,000 copies. Nor was there any sign of the acclaim abating, as, barely had the dust died down from Dr No, than Eon was on to the next one, From Russia with Love, which started filming in Istanbul that spring. Fleming, who flew there as an observer, was fêted with due reverence; but he must have reflected on the difference between this visit and his last. Back in 1955 he had been an intrepid reporter, roaming the darkened streets as all around him riots raged. Now he was a frail figure who struggled slowly over the cobbles, pausing every now and then to rest on a shooting stick.

  In July came Percy Muir’s exhibition, ‘Printing and the Mind of Man’, or, to give its full subtitle, ‘A display of printing mechanisms and printed material to illustrate the history of western civilisation and the means of literary multiplication since the fifteenth century’. Fleming’s contribution amounted to forty-four volumes, the largest showing by any private collector, and one of which he was immensely proud. An even greater accolade came when he was invited to be a member of the Committee of Honour. In a telegram to Percy Muir he wrote, ‘A THOUSAND CONGRATULATIONS ON YOUR WONDERFUL CATALOGUE AND PARTICULARLY ON HAVING ELEVATED OUR COLLECTION TO THESE FANTASTICALLY PROUD HEIGHTS STOP I TRULY BLUSH WITH EMBARRASSED DELIGHT AND WITH WARM MEMORIES OF THOSE DAYS WHEN YOU TOOK ME BY THE HAND STOP GRUESS DICH GOTT IAN’.

  What was more, his collection having languished for so many years in storage, he now had a library to put it in. That month he, Ann and Caspar moved into their new home, Sevenhampton Place, where one of Fleming’s first acts was to install a wall of shelves. Here he arranged his first editions, each in a black box stamped with the family crest of a goat’s head, and with labels colour-coded according to subject. Despite Ann’s valiant attempts to make it a home, Fleming was never entirely happy with the place. The surroundings were unkempt and overgrown, with a lake whose mists he said encouraged mushrooms on his clothes.

  A bright spot in his life was a Studebaker Avanti – left-hand drive, spanking new and freshly delivered from America – which he had put through its paces earlier that year on a drive to Lausanne to interview Georges Simenon. But even this wasn’t enough to shake off a gathering sense of mortality. As Ann wrote, he was in a state of ‘permanent angry misery’, and it was perhaps his own gloom more than anything else that cast a pall over Sevenhampton.

  Professionally, he was a model of diligence. Despite instituting what he proudly described as ‘the Fleming three-day week’, he continued to pepper C. D. Hamilton with article suggestions for the Sunday Times and even found time to knock out a Bond short story, ‘Property of a Lady’, for Sotheby’s house magazine The Ivory Hammer. The plot was simple. On finding an undercover spy in the department, M sends Bond after her paymaster. Her payment, it seems, is to be financed by a Fabergé egg, one of the few still held by the Soviets, which has been smuggled into the country and is due to be auctioned at Sotheby’s. Bond scours the auction room and as the hammer falls at £155,000 spots the final bidder. Although it was perfectly well written, Fleming felt the piece wasn’t up to standard and refused to accept any money for it.

  Celebrity was taking its toll. From Russia with Love premiered on 10 October 1963 and was so eagerly anticipated that people queued around Leicester Square to gain admission. But for Fleming it was an ordeal. He insisted his doctor be present in the cinema and having arranged an after-party at his London home, Victoria Square, retired early, leaving his guests to face tables heaped with caviar.

  There was a light-hearted moment at the end of the month when Fleming received an irresistible invitation: to present awards at the Romantic Novelists’ Association annual dinner. But when it came to the speech he asked Evelyn Waugh to write it for him. This was the same Waugh who – himself approaching death – had visited the Flemings at Sevenhampton and written to a friend, ‘Old Thunderbird [. . .] wishes to end his life and is determined to have his final seizure on the golf course or at the card table. Ann will be disconsolate.’

  TO WILLIAM PLOMER

  Plomer, who had lived for several years in Japan during the 1920s, was happy to supply Fleming with tips and recommendations before he embarked on his research trip.

  11th September, 1962

  My dear Wm,

  A thousand thanks for the Japanese gen and I have already got the excellent Mariani Book. Will get the Horned ones.

  I have no idea how Bond in Japan will turn out, but I have in mind an absolutely daft story in which Blofeld meets his match. The only trouble with killing off one’s villains is that one has to invent new ones. However.

  I was indeed rather low when I saw you, but this is largely because I am feeling tremendously stuck in an over mink-lined rut and I need to be booted off across the world in the old style.

  However, I think I have the secret and I will report to you further in due course.

  The main thing is to have your oaken shoulder available when necessary.

  Anyway, the last thing I want to do is to heap more dung on the beetle’s back and correspondence on this subject is therefore closed with the reflection that if one prays for the boot one very often gets it from the wrong quarter in the wrong place, so I must be careful.

  In December 1962 Fleming came across a newspaper cutting that read, ‘Mr. Ian Fleming won the Lord Strathcona and Mount Royal Challenge Trophy for the best collection of vegetables in the amateur class’. He wasted no time sticking it on a postcard, and with a stamp that bore the motto ‘National Productivity Year’, sent it to Plomer with the words, ‘So please treat me with more respect in 1963!’

  TO WILLIAM PLOMER

  From Goldeneye, 22nd February, 1963

  My dear Wm,

  End of term report. I have completed Opus XII save for 2 or 3 pages and am amazed that the miracle should have managed to repeat itself – the 65,000 odd words that is, & pretty odd some of them are! Since it is set in Japan, every day I have heard you chuckling wryly (I know! Stand in corner!) over my shoulder & God knows what Arthur Waley et al will have to say. Lafcadio Hernia1 – & you can say that again! But I think even you will glean some Japanese esoterica &, after all, when was it the last English novel about Japan was written? Just to give you an advance frisson, Bondo-san is about to pleasure Kissy Suzuki, the Ama girl, after she has stimulated his senses with toad’s sweat – a well-known Jap aphrodisiac, as of course you know. But you have to take a long hike through Japan before this & similar mayhem are portrayed & I fear that only the soundest addicts of Japoniserie will stay the course. It is called “You only live twice”, the first line of a haiku in the manner of Basho, 17th century itinerant poet whose works will be, I assume, on your bed-side table. Anyway, the Contemptible work is completed & will be submitted to honourable task-master shortly after my return.

  Otherwise
no news except far too much death & brooding bad conscience at not sharing the ghastly winter all our friends have been through. It must have been like this for those who were away during the blitz. I do hope you have breasted your way through without damage or too much dismay. Here it has been a shameful 80° throughout & perhaps the steadily best weather we have ever had. Haven’t you arrived at the age when you should winter abroad? Your bed is permanently turned down here & TLC awaits you always.

  Just had a long letter from Michael so please pass on the Contemptible Book news to him & save me an extra chunk of reportage.

  “Any message to William, Darling?”

  “Just passionate love”.

  Back March 17.

  TO JOHN GOODWIN, ESQ., c/o Magdalen College, Oxford

  Following an unfavourable review of Fleming’s books in the Times Literary Supplement John Goodwin, founding President of the Oxford University James Bond Club, sent a spirited rebuttal. Having dealt shortly with accusations of snobbery and sadism he concluded with a perceptive remark about Fleming’s competitors in the field: ‘One small point: if Mr. Deighton created his hero to be “as unlike Bond as possible” he should not be seen with garlic sausage and Normandy butter. Bond lunched off just such a combination en route to Geneva for an appointment with the delightful Mr. Goldfinger.’ Fleming, who counted the TLS as one of life’s necessities, undoubtedly read the letter. Nevertheless, Goodwin sent him a copy to be sure.

  3rd April, 1963

  Dear John Goodwin,

  It was very nice to hear from you at last and thank you very much for springing so entertainingly to my defence in the TLS and also for being such a staunch supporter of James Bond at Oxford.

  Naturally I should like to meet you all very much indeed, but I think this will need a good deal of careful planning and tight security work, or I shall end up dripping with stink bombs and the tyres of my Studebaker supercharged Avanti deflated.

  If you are coming back through London why don’t you ring up and either come along here to my hide-out [Mitre Court] or come for a drink to 16 Victoria Square, and we would try and make a plan for a meeting which would amuse you and your fellow members.

  Incidentally, I shudder to think how your Club will re-act to the April issue of the London magazine!2

  I am much looking forward to meeting you and your Senior Member,3 though if I was not already aware of his eminence I would find his name very suspect! Are you quite sure you haven’t elected a double agent as your President?

  With kindest regards.

  Goodwin pointed out that it was a busy time of year academically, so a meeting might be difficult. At the same time, with some chutzpah, he asked if it might be possible to visit the set of From Russia with Love which was currently being filmed at Pinewood Studios.

  5th May, 1963

  Dear John Goodwin,

  Many thanks for your letter of May 12th and I can appreciate the point of the “workers”.

  I think the best solution might be for us all to meet on one of the outing days of my son Caspar at Summer Fields, and as soon as one is coming up I will write and tell you and see if it will fit in.

  Naturally I would be delighted to meet you all and I am only sorry that our house at Sevenhampton won’t be habitable, I think, until July.

  Anyway I will keep in touch.

  Meanwhile I have stirred up the film producers and I think they will be happy to lay on anything you want so long as you keep in touch with them and find out how long they will be at Pinewood.

  With best wishes for all of you who are preparing for their finals.

  Thanks to Fleming’s intervention, Goodwin had the enviable experience of being collected outside his college by chauffeur-driven limousine and taken to the studio where he posed for photographs alongside Sean Connery and Daniele Bianchi.

  11th October, 1963

  Dear John Goodwin,

  Thank you very much for your letter and I shall certainly contrive to come over and meet your Society during the next few weeks.

  How about, for instance, for drinks on Friday November 1st or November 15th? Please let me know if either of these dates would be any good.

  I am looking forward very much to meeting you all and, as soon as the curtains are up at Sevenhampton Place I hope you will hire a bomb-proof char-à-banc and all come over for a déjeuner sur l’herbe.

  Despite Fleming’s cheerful outlook, the meeting never transpired.

  TO P. MUIR, ESQ., Taylors, Takeley, Bishop’s Stortford, Herts.

  In preparation for ‘Printing and the Mind of Man’, Percy Muir retrieved some of Fleming’s books from storage. He was deeply moved when he unearthed a first edition of The Communist Manifesto. As he wrote to Fleming, ‘I was delighted to see so many of the old friends again and to realize how well we had done all those years ago when we got this collection together. I really do not think that it would be possible to repeat at even something like ten times the price that they originally cost, which I need hardly say is a great cause of personal satisfaction to me.’

  17th April, 1963

  My dear Percy,

  Thank you very much for your letter of April 10th and I enclose the card duly signed.

  I am greatly impressed by the valuation, but I am not in the least surprised and I think one day we would be in a position to sell the whole collection for a great deal of money.

  You certainly invested quite brilliantly and we were lucky to go into the market when we did and also when you were cruising round Europe so fruitfully.

  What fun it all was.

  TO C. D. HAMILTON, ESQ., The Sunday Times, Thomson House, 200 Gray’s Inn Road, London, W.C.1.

  2nd May, 1963

  My dear C.D.,

  Here are one or two “bright” ideas.

  1. I have just been down to Monte Carlo where I saw Graham Sutherland. He has spent the winter writing up a full account of the whole story of the Coventry Cathedral Tapestry together with very many sketches.

  I mentioned that I thought this might interest you either for the Magazine or the colour supplement. And if you are interested his address is:

  La Villa Blanche,

  Route de Castellar,

  Menton.

  2. One of the exciting wartime stories that I think has not been told is the drama of the cross Channel battle between German and British coastal batteries. With photographs I think this would be very exciting.

  This might be one of the long term projects you mentioned to me the other day and Antony Terry might be the man to do it plus David Devine to research the captured documents in the archives here.

  3. I see I.C.I. in their Annual report refer to a sensational new heart drug. I don’t know if we can get anything out of them about this, but the Chairman I think said it was equivalent in importance to the discovery of insulin as a cure for diabetes.

  4. Gastronomically the least rewarding stretch for any visitor to France is from London to Abbeville, but there are still some excellent restaurants tucked away on or just off this route, and it would be a great service to tourists to give them a gastronomic tour of this route. How about getting Cyril Connolly to do it? I can give him plenty of ideas.

  5. As a “Mostly for Children” feature how about rare pebbles on the English beaches in time for the summer holidays? The Natural History Museum can provide the dope and there are some beautiful colour photographs in a book called, I think, “Pebbles on English Beaches”, published about three years ago. As an example, there are amethysts in Cornwall; Cornelians in Scotland; Amber at various places, and many other semi-precious stones.

  Please don’t bother to acknowledge this miscellaneous haul.

  TO WILLIAM PLOMER

  6th June, 1963

  Wednesday

  My dear Wm,

  Thank you a thousand times for the charming green sheets & though I sense reservations it seems that you have swallowed your gruel with your usual good grace.

  I note your various carps & wi
ll check & correct as instructed. Only one thing. If I start using italics won’t there be too many of them in the text? I thought Capes were inclined to be allergic to them. Would you ask Michael what his feeling is.

  But what the hell am I going to do with Bond now? I am feeling horribly lethargic about him and very inclined to leave him hanging on his cliff in Vladivostok. You must give me a powerful kick in the pants when we next meet at the CX [Charing Cross Hotel].

  Just off to lunch with Allen Dulles! Perhaps he will inspire me. Ever seen him? I doubt his powers to enthuse.

  Whether or not Allen Dulles was of inspiration he clearly had the power to enthuse. As Victor Weybright4 reported on 11 June: ‘You were a hero at the ABA [American Booksellers Association] not only because of your formidable exhibit but because Allen Dulles repeated a half dozen times in the course of his speech how much he wishes the CIA had a half dozen James Bonds! It brought down applause from the rafters by the booksellers who were present.’ Fleming replied that he was delighted to hear ‘that my Agent 008 spoke up so staunchly on my behalf’.

  FROM MICHAEL HOWARD

  10th June, 1963

  My dear Ian,

  As I am temporarily marooned in the country by a ludicrous accumulation of medical misfortunes, I’m afraid this letter will go to you unsigned. But I want to let you know that William, who spent the weekend with us, brought the MS of YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE, which both Pat and I read instantly and simultaneously, each fighting for the next chapter.

  No wonder you were a little mysterious in your monitory announcements that there would be some strange surprises in the new story. This makes a most brilliant diversion for Bond after the Tracy episode. It takes an entirely new tack; but that should upset none of the addicts, who get their full measure of 7777 (will the new number mean changing the trademark?), and I congratulate you most heartily on making such a skilful break from formulae. One novelty I notice with amusement is the almost total absence of branded goods this time. Is this because you decline to boost Japanese exports?