GOLDENEYE: IAN FLEMING'S JAMAICA by Matthew Parkinson (Hutchinson £20) At the height of summer July 1943, Ian Fleming, then the assistant to the Director of Naval Intelligence, flew to Jamaica with his old friend Ivar Bryce to investigate reports that a millionaire Swede — and Nazi sympathiser — had built a secret submarine base on the island. Bryce came away convinced that the trip had been a disaster. They found no evidence of a base and it rained incessantly — so much so that toadstools grew in their shoes overnight. Unbeknown to him, Fleming felt quite differently. He didn’t care about the rain or the toadstools in his shoes. He loved everything about Jamaica, especially its air of romantic decay.
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When Ian Fleming first visited Jamaica in 1943 he was entranced
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After the war was over he asked his friend Bryce to look for a site for him to build a house on
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While visiting a plot, Bryce saw a beautiful naked woman climb out of the water; it was the clincher
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Shortly after moving to his new home, Fleming began writing Casino Royale
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The mixture of action and sensuality he found at Goldeneye proved to be the rock upon which James Bond was built
‘You have never done it before and it might make you feel very happy.’ Like @placeholder, there was something distinctly misogynistic about Fleming’s philandering.