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Explore the books of Bond creator on tour of Kent
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Ian Fleming
Current Bond actor Daniel Craig
Author Ian Fleming would have been 100 years old on Wednesday had he not died on August 12 1964 in hospital in Canterbury, following a heart attack suffered on Sandwich Golf Course.

Most famous as the writer of 12 novels and nine short stories featuring super spy James Bond, he also wrote the children’s classic Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.

He lived for some time at a house in St Margaret’s Bay which he bought from his friend Noel Coward, before moving to Jamaica when the money from the Bond books started flowing.

Bond fans can celebrate the 100th anniversary of the birth of his creator Ian Fleming by visiting the landmarks in Kent which provided the backdrop to his novels.

The author, born exactly 100 years ago on Wednesaday, lived for many years in St Margaret’s Bay and used locations across the county for scenes in his cherished secret agent books.

To mark his centenary his fans can embark on their own 007-style adventure exploring the settings James Bond battled villains including Sir Hugo Drax, Goldfinger and Blofeld.

Instead of outer space – as in the film – the White Cliffs of Dover was the base of Drax in Moonraker, while Charing Hill was the scene of a car chase rather than Venice in the movie - where Roger Moore raised an eyebrow in a gondola.

Also in the novel 007 is busy negotiating “the bottlenecks of Ashford and Maidstone” in the only story set entirely in the UK – actually just Kent and London.

Villainous Goldfinger had his base in Thanet in the book – and most famously Bond took him on at golf at Royal St George’s near Sandwich.

Fleming kept the description of “the greatest seaside golf course in the world” but for some reason changed its name to Royal St Marks.

The secret agent with a licence to kill arrives in Kent from London “through the dainty teleworld of Herne Bay” as he has a silent prayer to the US pilots then based at Manston to be careful with their nuclear payloads.

The village of Pet Bottom in east Kent is mentioned as the childhood home of 007 in an obituary written by secret service chief M in You Only Live Twice – when he thinks the agent is dead.

It reads: “…. the youth came under the guardianship of an aunt, since deceased, Miss Charmian Bond, and went to live with her at the quaintly-named hamlet of Pett Bottom near Canterbury in Kent.

“There, in a small cottage hard by the attractive Duck Inn, his aunt, who must have been a most erudite and accomplished lady, completed his education for an English public school…”

The Duck Inn exists and was Fleming’s local for a while. He actually wrote some of You Only Live Twice, which involves ninjas, arch villain Blofeld and a castle of death while in the pub.

Fleming lived for a time in the village of Bekesbourne nearby but his most famous home in Kent was at St Margaret’s Bay, where the red tiled house he bought from Noel Coward can still be seen half way up a cliff. It is not open to the public.
POSTED: 25/05/2008 06:00:00

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