The Man with the Golden Typewriter (35 page)

During his convalescence at the London Clinic and later at the Dudley Hotel, Hove, he was forbidden a typewriter lest he strain himself by writing a new Bond. Undeterred, he ordered pen and paper and embarked on a children's story based on the bedtime stories he told his son Caspar. It was about a magical car called ‘Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang'.

A famous racing car, long since abandoned in a scrapyard, Chitty is rebuilt by the indefatigable tinkerer and inventor Commander Caractacus Pott. When Pott takes his family on an outing to the Kent coast, Chitty reveals hidden secrets. She not only flies, but swims and drives under her own command if the Potts are in danger. When the Potts uncover a secret cache of weapons in France, they blow it up. And when gangsters take the Pott children hostage, meanwhile pondering a heist on a famous Parisian sweet shop, it is Chitty that saves the day. Underpinning the book was Fleming's favourite mantra: ‘Never say “no” to adventures. Always say “yes” otherwise you'll lead a very dull life.'

His initial suggestion for an illustrator was Wally Fawkes, whose cartoons appeared in the
Daily Mail
under the nom de plume Trog. But the
Mail
refused to allow their star cartoonist to work for an author whose books were serialised regularly in strip form by the rival
Daily Express
. As an alternative, Cape approached the illustrator Haro Hodson, but after a few trials Fleming thought his sketches were not quite right. Finally, they appointed the acclaimed artist John Burningham, whose
Borka: The Adventures of a Goose With No Feathers
had won the Kate Greenaway Medal in 1963.

But this was in the future, and in the meantime he found himself with another bit of Bonderie on his hands. To help launch the
Sunday Times
' new colour supplement, due out in 1962, C. D. Hamilton asked him to write a short story featuring 007. ‘The Living Daylights', which Fleming dashed off that October, saw Bond in Berlin, providing cover for a defector who was being pursued by a Russian assassin, codenamed Trigger. The assassin, it transpires, is a woman whose cover is as a cellist in an all-female orchestra. ‘There was something almost indecent in the idea of that bulbous, ungainly instrument splayed between her thighs,' Bond reflects. ‘Of course Suggia had managed to look elegant, as did that girl Amaryllis somebody.
¹
But they should invent a way for women to play the damned thing side-saddle.' When the moment comes, Bond fires not to kill but to disarm.

By late 1961 the film deal he had signed the previous year was catching fire, with an extraordinary amount of pre-production publicity that included far-fetched plans for new editions of
Dr No
put forward by Harry Saltzman. And his US sales had received a massive boost when, earlier that year, an article in
Life
magazine had listed
From Russia with Love
as one of President J. F. Kennedy's ten favourite books. By any standards it had been an extraordinary time. And yet, there was his health.

In 1961
Queen
magazine published an article titled ‘Six Questions'. The first was: ‘What do you expect to achieve in the sixties? Are you
aiming at any particular quality or quantity of work?' Fleming, one of several contributors, replied: ‘One can never expect to achieve anything – even less if one is in the fifties and living in the sixties.

Since I am a writer of thrillers I would like to leave behind me one classic in this genre – a mixture of Tolstoy, Simenon, Ambler and Koestler, with a pinch of ground Fleming. Unfortunately I have become the slave of a serial character and I suppose, in fact, since it amuses me to write about James Bond, I shall go on doing so for the fun of it.'

TO WILLIAM PLOMER

From Goldeneye, February 1961, ‘Friday, perhaps'

My dear Wm,

Thank you a thousand times for your sparkling & hilarious letter which had both of us rolling in the Bougainvillea. I am much relieved that you could stomach Kuwait. I felt almost ashamed at asking that you should read it & sub it. But I was so fed up & overstuffed with the subject that the M.S. had come to nauseate me. My main concern was to make it look as little as possible a P.R.O. job & from what you say I may at least have been successful in that. Of course it will get a majestic pasting from the Arabists who will get it for review but to hell with them! I'm tired of their snobbish coterie & have been for years.

The new Bond is very odd & heaven knows what you will think. I am a 23 year old French Canadian girl & writing rather breathlessly which comes, deceptively I suspect, easy. Bond is just today about to rescue her from an ugly predicament!

Good misprint in the Gleaner – about a wedding “Not to be sartorially outdone, the bridegroom wore an orchid in his bottomhole”.

A. sends much love in which I join.

TO MICHAEL HOWARD

From Goldeneye, dated ‘Saturday'

Dear Michael,

Thank you very much for your newsy letter & your father's splendid puff in the S.T. Good news about the subscription but it still leaves you with the well-packed shelves in the warehouse! If you get some early copies, would you send me one. My secretary has my movements – Nassau & then N.Y.

Bad news about Graham Greene particularly as he is a friend & stayed in this house the whole of Nov. I'm afraid we must come clean and apologise.
²
Would you ask Anthony Colwell
³
to do this,
at my request
, enclosing brochure & quote from cutting? I'm rather upset as I think I raised this point in my first letter about his draft blurb.

Got a very nice letter from Wm. & he seems to have been able to stomach the book. About a blurb – I v. much doubt if I can manage this before I get back as my mind is too much elsewhere. But why the hurry? It has only just gone to the Sheikhs!

Rather surprised about Courtaulds. What are the arrangements & what the reward?
⁴
I was asking Booths £5,000 for the privilege – not that they were willing to pay it – but Courtaulds is a £50,000,000 company. They should definitely not trade on my handiwork whatever publicity my books get. And I shall also want many dozen shirts made to measure from their stuff! Would you ask Elaine Greene of M.C.A. to get in touch with them and screw them good and proper. And please rush me copies of their copy. I won't alter unless it is too ghastly – but no point making a fool of the chap. I do
wish I had been consulted about all this. You know I was very much against the project.

Paul Gallico will be too long for N&T [
Now and Then
] but we may put it to some other good use.

OK for 29th in Scotia.

Don't at all like the idea of Face to Face.
⁵
I am no good at that sort of thing & dislike being eviscerated.

Just finishing The Spy who loved me. It will be about 55,000. Absolutely no idea what it's like but it wrote rather easily which is a bad sign I expect.

TO C. D. HAMILTON, ESQ., Thomson House, 200 Gray's Inn Road, London, W.C.1

19th April, 1961

My dear C.D.,

Although neither of us knew it I am afraid I was in the middle of a rather major heart attack this time last week. One never believes these things so I sat stupidly on trying to make intelligent comments about the thrilling new project [the colour supplement] about which I long to hear more. However, a thousand thanks for noticing my trouble so quickly and for shepherding me away when the time came.

Alas, this is going to mean at least another month in the Clinic without moving and then two or three more behaving like an old man. But after that I hope I shall be quite all right again, though I shall never be able to pack quite so much into my existence as I have foolishly been trying to do.

Anyway all is well and I am splendidly looked after, and in a week or two when I am allowed to see people I do hope you will come by and tell me more of these exciting plans.

As I am not supposed to be writing I will ask my secretary to sign this and send it off. In the meantime thank you again for taking me firmly by the hand!

TO WILLIAM PLOMER

From ‘Shrublands', April 1961, Sunday

My dear Wm,

I have been here for nearly a week, condemned to four more, & then 5 months inactivity. Heart! I think telling all those funny stories in Glasgow
⁶
was the last straw!

Now, forgive me for adding one more pat on the poor dung-beetle's back but this is going to stop me doing much work on “the S who L'd me” and as I have grave doubts about it would you be an angel & read it in its present, not bad, typescript – but entirely privately – & then tell me what you think. You see, there is an excellent opportunity to kill off Bond, appropriately & gracefully, & though when it came to the point in the story I forbore, I feel, and have felt before this address, that the time has come.

If you would read it, would you be an angel & call here on Wed a.m. if you can manage (sleep in p.m.) & I will explain more & give you the shovelful to take away.

Forgive this whiff of miscellaneous grapeshot & fear not for my health which in fact is quite excellent & will become far better for this very necessary little jog in the ribs from the Holy Man.

P.S. No primroses from Bob Howard, please!

TO MRS. VALENTINE FLEMING, Grosvenor House, Park Lane, London W.1.

24th April, 1961

Darling Mama,

Forgive me dictating this but they still refuse to let me do any writing.

I adore the splendid anthurium and its buds are already showing a fine form. It was a terribly clever idea as it's such fun seeing how it changes every day and thank heaven it will outlast my three or four more weeks in this dump.

As for caviar and smoked salmon, they just about keep me alive!

Next week I shall be allowed to have an occasional visitor, so please come in and tell me that you have found yourself a good expensive maid to look after you.

With stacks of love.

TO THE RT. HON. CHRISTOPHER SOAMES, C.B.E., M.P., Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, Whitehall Place, London, S.W.1.

24th April, 1961

My dear Christopher,

You may have seen from the public prints an exaggerated account of a mild malaise that is keeping me away from the bridge tables. (By the way poor old Dovercourt passed on in the next room last Saturday!)

Now the point is that I am condemned for the rest of my life to three ounces of hard liquor per day, and since I have to be really rather careful about it I wish to concentrate on the purest and finest liquor obtainable in England. This vital piece of information will be known in your Ministry – i.e. which is the finest refined spirit, gin whisky or brandy on the market at any price.

Do you think you could possibly extract this vital piece of information on the absolute understanding that this is for my private information only?

I am so sorry to bother you with this picayune enquiry, but it is just conceivable that you also may be interested in the reply.

TO MICHAEL HOWARD

To keep Fleming's mind busy Michael Howard sent him one of Cape's latest –
Mad Shadows
, a tale of dysfunctional family life by the twenty-year-old Canadian author Marie-Claire Blais.

24th April, 1961

Thank you very much for the charming note and I can assure you that I shall be firing on all cylinders again before too long. Meanwhile I am writing a children's book, so you will see that there is never a moment, even on the edge of the tomb, when I am not slaving for you.

I read the Canadian prodigy last night and was macabrely fascinated. I suppose this is the sort of best fairy story our children will all be reading in the future.

As always a beautifully produced and jacketed book, again the jacket so good it deserved an author to it!

Hope you are not getting too stuck with Thunderball. Do please let my secretary know from time to time how you are getting on with it.

TO HUGO PITMAN, ESQ.,
⁷
Willmount, Ballingarry, Thurles, Co. Tipperary

25th April, 1961

Dearest Hugo,

Thank you for your lovely letter which was just the glass of champagne I needed.

My doctors are delighted with me and I think I only have another two or three weeks here before being allowed to go down to Brighton to sit in one of those blasted shelters and look at the yellow sea.

After that I shall gradually get back into commission and the only difference in my life will be that you and I have to have lunch on the ground floor of Scotts instead of the first!

With much love to you and kisses for any women who may be around you!

TO THE REVEREND LESLIE PAXTON, Great George Street Congregational Church, Liverpool

In between letters to family, friends and editors, Fleming found time to rebuke a vicar in Liverpool, who had recently lambasted Bond as the epitome of worldly vice.

25th April, 1961

Dear Mr. Paxton,

I see from the public prints that the Sunday before last you preached a sermon against the leading character in my books, James Bond, and, presumably by association against myself.

Now, having had a Scottish nonconformist upbringing and considering myself at least some kind of sub-species of a Christian, I am naturally very upset if it is thought that I am seriously doing harm to the world with my James Bond thrillers.

Would you be very kind and let me have a copy, if you have one, of your sermon, so that I may see the burden of your criticisms and perhaps find means of mending my ways if I feel that your arguments have real weight behind them.

I can, of course, myself see what you might mean about my books, but it occurs to me that you may have put forward profounder arguments than those which are already known to me.

Forgive me for troubling you in this way, but I am sure you will agree that the prisoner in the dock should at least know the burden of the charge.

FROM WILLIAM PLOMER