Here are some good stories about Commander Ian Lancaster Fleming.
He married Anne Geraldine Mary Charteris, the daughter of Captain Hon Guy Lawrence Charteris and Frances Lucy Tennant.
She had already married twice; first to Shane Edward Robert O'Neill, 3rd Baron O'Neill, son of Captain Hon Arthur Edward Bruce O'Neill and Lady Annabel Hungerford Crewe-Milnes.
After that marriage came a second, to Esmond Cecil Harmsworth, 2nd Viscount Rothermere, son of Harold Sidney Harmsworth, 1st Viscount Rothermere and Mary Lilian Share.
Commander Fleming wrote his first James Bond novel, Casino Royale, at his estate, Goldeneye, in Oracabessa, Jamaica.
He had the time to write the book, because following World War 2, when he became foreign manager in the Kemsley newspaper group, which owned The Sunday Times, his contract allowed him to take three months' holiday in Jamaica every winter.
He had the motivation (it has been suggested) because Ann was chums with the likes of Noel Coward and Evelyn Waugh, and Fleming felt a book might be a useful entree into such a circle.
It is material this fabulous the makers of Fleming: The Man Who Would Be Bond had to work with.
The Man Who Would Be Bond is a BBC America mini-series, that dramatises (quite a lot, possibly) Fleming's military career.
The four part series began on Prime last Friday.
It began with a Fleming quote: ''Everything I write has a precedent in truth.''
That clearly, if The Man Who Would Be Bond is to be believed, includes Bond's keen interest in the pleasures of the flesh.
The show begins with a Bondesque scene of Fleming and the gorgeous Ann at Goldeneye, as he writes Casino Royale.
It quickly spins back 13 years to show Fleming, soaked in martinis behind a veil of cigarette smoke, having plenty of rough sex with the young ladies of the 1930s.
It all looks really terrific, though some of his pick-up techniques might get him get him in trouble these days.
Fleming's early career was as a sub-editor and journalist, covering events in Moscow during the Stalin era.
The Man Who Would Be Bond shows his later attempt at becoming a stockbroker, but his dissolute lifestyle gets in the way.
His slightly frightening mother gets in touch with Winston Churchill, and before you can say ''Pussy Galore'' he is being recruited by Rear Admiral John Godfrey, Director of Naval Intelligence of the Royal Navy, as his personal assistant.
Despite the material, The Man Who Would Be Bond doesn't quite hit the mark in a show that lays on just a little too much flash and derring-do.
It is, however, entertaining enough for a quiet Friday evening.
- Charles Loughrey
