The Scottish connections of James Bond creator Ian Fleming - and his grandfather's claim as Scotland's richest man

Daniel Craig playing James Bond - the quintessential British spy created by Ian Fleming. Picture: PADaniel Craig playing James Bond - the quintessential British spy created by Ian Fleming. Picture: PA
Daniel Craig playing James Bond - the quintessential British spy created by Ian Fleming. Picture: PA
James Bond books have now been rewritten to remove ‘offensive’ text to mark the 70-year anniversary of Casino Royale

In March 1962, Ian Fleming, the creator of James Bond, had just visited the set of 'Dr No' – the inaugural film based on his novels, at Pinewood Studios in Buckinghamshire. The author's first encounter with the new 007 was far from a revelation. Fleming later confided in his agent the actor "couldn't speak the Queen's English ... he's not my idea of Bond at all, I just want an elegant man, not this roughneck".

The man in question was, of course, Sean Connery. The Edinburgh-born actor later claimed Fleming was unhappy with a "working-class Scot" in the role. "What was it he called me, or told somebody?” Connery said. “That I was an over-developed stunt man. He never said it to me. When I did eventually meet him, he was very interesting, erudite and a snob – a real snob."

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The irony, despite Fleming's initial horror, was that he was eventually so impressed with Connery's portrayal and the final movie that he gave Bond a Scottish father from the Highlands and a Swiss mother in his next book, ‘On Her Majesty's Secret Service’. He even flirted with the idea of making the character a full Scot, but reneged, although he did have him educated at Fettes College in Edinburgh when You Only Live Twice was published in 1964.

British spy writer Ian Fleming at his home, Goldeneye, in Jamaica. Picture: Getty ImagesBritish spy writer Ian Fleming at his home, Goldeneye, in Jamaica. Picture: Getty Images
British spy writer Ian Fleming at his home, Goldeneye, in Jamaica. Picture: Getty Images

The question is less about why Connery impressed Fleming so much and more about why Fleming did not make Bond Scottish to begin with. As one biographer said, "Scotland was stitched into Ian Fleming's fabric as it was into James Bond's".

Fleming, by his own description, was "Presbyterian and Scotch". Born in Mayfair, Fleming was thoroughly anglicised, but his family hailed from Dundee. He put "Scottish" as his nationality when he briefly worked for the League of Nations in Geneva and "Born May 28th, 1908, of Scottish parents" on his CV. His father, Valentine, even called him "Jocky", and his mother, the English socialite Evelyn St. Croix, would tell him, "Never forget you're a Scot" when he was a boy. His mother often dressed him and his brothers in kilts to maintain their Scottish links and visit Scotland every summer.

Fleming's great-grandfather worked in a Dundee jute mill. His grandfather, Robert, made his astronomical fortune in investment trusts during the late 19th century and was one of the world's wealthiest bankers whose first home was a two-roomed cottage in Lochee.

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In 1880, Robert purchased a property in Newport-on-Tay on the north coast of Fife. In the family home 'Tighnavon', Ian Fleming's father, Valentine, was born. Robert's wife, Sarah Kate, was born in Inverness-shire to an English family. By the turn of the 20th century, the family spent summers at Scottish estates, notably the 90,000-acre deer forest, Black Mount, near Glencoe, in Argyll. The Flemings would go "north in August and September like migrating birds".

Fleming's mother was English, and his father, Valentine, was a Member of Parliament for Henley. His father and grandfather, Robert, were born in Fife and Dundee. Valentine had a shooting lodge built at Arnisdale on the shores of Loch Hourn. In 1917, Valentine was killed during the First World War and is remembered at the Glenelg war memorial close to his house.

Little remains in the family's native Dundee to mark either the conspicuous wealth of Robert Fleming or the eternal Scottish links to Fleming and, by proxy, James Bond. Fleming biographer Nicholas Shakespeare notes in his superb book ‘Ian Fleming – The Complete Man’ that "aside from Fleming Gardens East, West, North and South on the housing estate that he paid for, there is the Fleming Gym, also funded by Robert, where they now perform autopsies – this is the extent of Robert's imprint".

Fleming's Scottish connections are plethoric. British Army officer, writer, politician, and fellow Scot Fitzroy Maclean remains widely suspected of having inspired the Bond character. Geoffrey Boothroyd, a weapons expert in Scotland, wrote to Fleming and told him Bond was "using a ladies' gun". Fleming, like Connery, gifted immortality through a character, "Major Boothroyd" – a service armourer who was the basis for 'Q' in the movies.

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Winston Churchill was Dundee's MP when Robert was establishing his bank. He was a family friend, and Valentine and Philip, Ian's uncle, joined Churchill's regiment. Churchill saw no issue maintaining regular contact with Robert and "looking upon his host's uncouth Lochee accent as if it represented the voice of his majority".

Churchill's 14 years as Member of Parliament for Dundee have likewise fallen out of public consciousness. Churchill, like Fleming and the original book Bond, is seen as a quintessential English gentleman, for good and for ill, with a taste for luxury and fast cars, but with an unshakeable sense of duty.

Fleming died too young at 56 in 1964 to reap the inevitable honours that would have been bestowed. His books were always popular, but the movies made James Bond a rock star. A more natural synthesis would have emerged between Connery's explicit Scottishness and Fleming's family ties in time.

For now, Fleming's affected sense of English snobbery has cast him out from the Scottish public zeitgeist, and his genuine and sincere connections to Scotland have been forgotten.

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In ‘The Man with the Golden Gun’, 007 sends M a telegram turning down a knighthood because Bond identifies himself as "A SCOTTISH PEASANT AND WILL ALWAYS FEEL AT HOME BEING A SCOTTISH PEASANT". Perhaps that says something about how Fleming saw himself deep down, not least as he mused "men are like elephants. They go home to die. Someday ... I guess I'll just go back to Scotland”.

It may be time for Connery to move over as the most famous Scot connected to Bond – that was always Ian Fleming.

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