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Ian Fleming - Cold War Author

By Serena Price


After the end of World War II, in 1945, relations between the United States and the Soviet Union were frost and tense. Up until the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, these years are collectively referred to as the cold war. Ian Fleming, author of the 007 series of spy novels, was probably the most famous cold war author.

Fleming's family came from Scotland. They moved from Perth to Dundee, where Ian's grandfather, Robert Fleming, made his fortune in the financial sector. When the Flemings migrated from Dundee to London in the south, Robert Fleming started an investment bank of his own.

Fleming's father, Valentine, was a barrister and a Member of Parliament. During the First World War, he went to serve with the Queen's Own Oxfordshire Hussars. When he was killed on the Western Front in 1917, leaving four sons aged 10, 9, 6 and 4, his obituary was written by none other than Winston Churchill, fellow officer, friend and future Prime Minister of England. Fleming's mother, Evelyn Rose, was the daughter of a wealthy London solicitor.

Born at 27 Green Street in Mayfair, London, on May 28, 1908, Ian Lancaster Fleming was the second of four brothers. Educated at Eton College near Windsor, Fleming pursued further education in Austria and Germany. Fleming's brother, Peter, was born in 1907. He married actress Celia Johnson, noted for her performance in the David Lean film, "Brief Encounter." His brother, Richard Fleming, was born in 1911 and died of a heart attack in 1977. Michael Fleming was born in 1913 and died at Normandy in 1940, after marrying and fathering four children.

Prior to joining the Admiralty, he spent a career as a journalist at the British news agency, Reuters. While he was working for Reuters, he was fined three guineas (GBP 3.15) for driving an unlicensed car in Oxford. Lawyers explained his absence in court as being because he was at the World Economic Conference. He considered his years at Reuters to be the most exciting time of his life.

During his one month's unsalaried trial at Reuters, Fleming was tasked with updating 500 obituaries. This impressed his then-boss, Editor-in-Chief Bernard Rickatson-Hatt, who described him as meticulous, methodical and painstaking. It was here at Reuters that he learned how to be fast and accurate. At Reuters, if you weren't accurate, you weren't employed.

Fleming later served under the Director of Naval Intelligence in London. It was the experience gained in this role that provided the material for so many of 007's adventures. Fleming borrowed the name, James Bond, from the man who wrote his favorite book on the subject of West Indian birds. Fleming lived in Jamaica for a period of almost 20 years, from 1946 to 1964.

Cold war author, Ian Fleming, most famous for his spy novels, also wrote a children's short story, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. This story was eventually made into a Disney movie. The story was written for his son, Caspar. Fleming suffered a heart attack in Jamaica on the day of his son's 12th birthday, August 12, 1964. The boy never recovered from losing his father at such a tender age and took his own life in 1975.




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