Ian Fleming’s Letters – The Man, Not the Legend

A recent, unexpected, book purchase has been The Man With the Golden Typewriter, a selection of Ian Fleming’s correspondence taken from the years he was writing his James Bond novels. The correspondence is divided into chapters, each one dealing with a separate novel or collection of short stories, and are listed in chronological order with an extensive introduction setting the context for each chapter. There are also separate chapters dealing with letters to Geoffrey Boothroyd (later immortalised as Q), Raymond Chandler and some of his friends in the US when he was trying to get an American publisher interested. It’s all very interesting.

But… there’s always a “but” somewhere with books like this and my biggest one is the repetitive nature of the correspondence. The overwhelming majority of it is to his publishers, Jonathan Cape & Co, and various members of the staff, and whilst I expected this, after fourteen or so chapters it does get a little monotonous. It was interesting to see how much opposition there was initially to even publishing the first novel – Casino Royale. Fleming really had to fight to get a good deal for his books and until the publication of Diamonds are Forever, it seems to have been a constantly uphill battle to get the books marketed fairly.

It has taught me an awful lot of what goes into the publication of a novel and how much work authors really have to do to get heard. I’m not always sure that I have that kind of tenacity, but clearly Fleming very much believed in Bond and really worked hard to get his books out there.

There is, however, also a lot of correspondence with well-meaning readers who have written to correct a factual mistake, ask a question or even simply to say how much they enjoyed the novels. These are quite fun, because they are very much of their time – mid to late 1950s. I find myself reading them in a cut-glass BBC voice, it seems to suit the language. And I must admit to admiring Fleming’s good grace in admitting his errors and his clear delight in hearing from readers.

If there’s one thing about it all that really grates, it’s the tone of the letters and the language that Fleming used. I don’t get a lot of his jokes (he clearly seems to think they’re hilarious) and I find his attitudes towards a lot of the people he writes to condescending and patronising. I’m prepared to concede that this is how things were in the 1950s, but to modern eyes it does jar a bit. I do find myself wondering if Fleming actually believed much of his own publicity.

I’m pleased I read the book, and I think it has added to my appreciation of the Bond novels, but I’m not sure I’d recommend it unless you were a particular aficionado.

My Kind of Taxi Firm

Let’s face it, we’ve all been in situations where we’ve needed to make a quick getaway. That blind date, for example, who looked absolutely gorgeous but has a laugh like a blocked sink – or bears an uncanny resemblance to a Photofit last seen on Crimewatch. I do believe it’s essential that every girl of any age should have the numbers of a couple of reliable cab firms in the mobile telephone of her choice. Any reputable cab firm will, if asked, provide either a female driver or further information about the driver they are sending to set a woman’s mind at rest (e.g. the name of the driver or the registration number of the vehicle). A substantial amount of their business is transporting lone females, and they really do not want a reputation as a firm that a girl simply cannot rely on.

That said, I do wish a few of them would use adverts like this. I would seriously put this firm’s number at the top of my list. Who wouldn’t? If they’re prepared to take you wherever you want without asking difficult questions – like “shouldn’t we inform the constabulary?” or “is that blood on your frock?” – then they are definitely a firm to be counted on. Although I’d make sure I packed a change of clothes and a passport before I called them, just to be on the safe side.

Diamonds – And Diamond Smuggling – Are Forever

These days, diamonds seem to be everywhere. There are few jewellery displays, if any, that don’t feature at least one substantially sized diamond. Indeed, recent news reports suggest that ever larger diamonds are being unearthed, with three large stones recently coming up for auction*. And these days, most people understand that diamond smuggling is a lucrative, if dangerous trade.

Before Ian Fleming wrote Diamonds are Forever in 1956, this aspect of the diamond trade was much less well known. Diamonds were mined in Africa and appeared in jewellery from Los Angeles to Geneva. What happened in between barely registered with many people. In fact, it wasn’t really until the passing of the Kimberley Accords – dramatized in the film “Blood Diamonds” – that the murkier side of the diamond trade was fully exposed.

The main problem with Diamonds Are Forever is that Fleming glamorises the world of the diamond smuggler – he has to, even Bond has certain standards – although he does link the diamond smuggling with wider criminal activity. The Spang Brothers are instrumental in illegal gambling, fixed horse races, violence and intimidation. It’s just that Fleming pays no attention to the African side, where the stakes are considerably higher. I do wonder if this is a slightly colonialist perspective; the African end of the pipeline is only of importance because of what it produces, whereas the Western end of the pipeline contains the ingredients for a cracking thriller.

Fleming only focuses on Africa in the first and last chapters of the novel, each featuring a thoroughly vile Afrikaaner waiting for the helicopter that will ferry the contraband diamonds out of Sierra Leonean jurisdiction. You would be very hard pushed to find a black African referred to in anything other than the most pejorative of terminology. Is this a reflection of the period? Perhaps, but I can’t help feeling it’s also a reflection of Fleming the man.

It would be wrong to suggest that diamond smuggling is a thing of the past. As “Blood Diamonds” demonstrated, it still goes on even if the motivations and participants are slightly different. Wherever high prices can be commanded for a commodity, an illicit trade in it will soon spring up alongside the legal one. Equally, it would be wrong to suggest that Fleming’s portrayal of the diamond trade is entirely accurate. Diamond smuggling is neither glamorous nor easy to walk into (as Bond seems to think it is). The only thing that would damage the trade is the collapse in the price rather than the best efforts of MI6.

* Although at least one of these didn’t meet the reserve price.

Stewarts Lane Cottages

There are no cottages in Stewarts Lane any more; these were demolished to make way for housing estates, industrial units and a large set of railway sidings during the Fifties and Sixties. I still go through that area every day on my commute to the office and I can’t quite marry up this sepia tinged picture with what I see every day. Yet for decades, families occupied this area just to the north of Wandsworth Road in a series of houses that had two rooms on each floor and an outside privy in a tiny paved yard.

My dad – and his siblings – were born and grew up in one of these cottages. He’s dead now, but I don’t recall him ever saying he missed living there, although until the relative end of his life, he never moved far away from his birthplace. He’d seen it change and develop and it didn’t seem to bother him too much. He could still remember the yard, the privy, the tin bath in the front room and the queue for the rough soap and scrub.

Does it both me now, looking at these older photos and comparing it with what it looks like now? I don’t think it does, but I must admit to finding the more recent spate of developments in the area to be much more jarring. I think Dad may just have been better at hiding it than I am.

What the Flappers Did For Us

Most of this will seem pretty obvious, but I think it’s worth spending a moment reflecting on just how trailblazing the dazzling young women of the 1920s really were. An awful lot of what us females take for granted may not have got off the ground without them – whether or not you believe that it’s turned out to be a particularly good thing in the long run. The 1920s really did change the world into something more modern.

First off, there’s the whole underwear issue. For years before the flapper, there were “rational dress movements”, campaigns desperately trying to change attitudes to female dress by showing just how oppressive it was. At one point, they worked out that such fashionable “essentials” as a bustle, crinoline and corsetry not only did untold damage to a woman’s internal organs, it added a stone (2.2kg) to her body weight. Just to get dressed. And it took ages and frequently needed assistants! Fortunately, the outbreak of the First World War went a long way to change things; mass conscription of men meant that women had to enter the workforce to keep the country running, and this in turn meant that what had been “fashionable dress” was shown to be completely impractical. It was the death knell for the bustle and quite a lot of tight corsetry.

This changing silhouette had a further nudge with the likes of Coco Chanel and Paul Poiret. They both began their couture careers by either designing or working with sportswear – the Wimbledon champion Suzanne Lenglen wore a lot of Poiret – which meant that the preferred physique needed to be long, lean and unconstrained. Elaborate corsetry or an overly curvaceous figure meant that the clothes didn’t hang properly and in some cases could cause havoc with a woman’s ability to Charleston.

The fabrics and styles of these new outfits meant that they were relatively easy and cheap to copy, creating a vast ready to wear market and enabling women who couldn’t afford genuine couture to dress fashionably at a fraction of the cost. Alongside this grew a market in cosmetics and hair care products together with a host of printed publications offering advice and suggestions on how to wear the latest trends. Yes, the fashion press as we know it was born, and it was very much the heyday of Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar. Some of those early issues are wonderful reading.

The movies added real glamour to the mix; elegant beautiful women appeared on screens in virtually every major town and city across Europe and America. This growing cult of celebrity meant that studios needed vast publicity departments to ensure that their stars were in the papers frequently and for all the right reasons. It gave young women something to aspire to, and the endorsement of a product by a film star would guarantee its success.

Women dieted, exercised, played sports and believed they had a right to be lovely in ways previously unheard of. This was completely knew in the 1920s – ladies didn’t play sports, and the healthy, suntanned look would have been considered common before then – and although more recent versions of this lifestyle can leave an awful lot to be desired, it seems clear to me that we owe the flappers an awful lot of our modern way of life.