A pilgrimage to Ian Fleming's grave

The monument marking Ian Fleming's grave

Returning from a holiday on the south coast of Devon (unfortunately I missed the chance to visit the beach at Salcombe; Ian Fleming spent his childhood holidays there and recalled them in the opening chapter of On Her Majesty's Secret Service), I decided to take a detour to the village of Sevenhampton, near Swindon in Wiltshire. It is in this village, in the church of St James (appropriately), that Fleming is buried.

Getting to the church wasn't straightforward. Sevenhampton is hidden away, and a crucial road sign at a crossroads had been knocked down. Eerily, an oncoming car that looked suspiciously like a Bentley 4½ litre fitted with an Amhurst Villiers supercharger - the type of car that both Fleming and Bond drove - passed me. A good sign that I was on the right track, I thought! Eventually entering the village, I had to park the car in a lane, and walk back to the main road before turning down a private driveway, then going through a gate and along a footpath to the entrance into the churchyard. Even before one reaches the church, the tall, pyramidal, monument marking Fleming's grave is clearly seen and dominates the churchyard.

The grave is in fact a family tomb. Plaques on the monument additionally identify the graves of Ann Fleming, Ian's wife, and Caspar, their son. The plaque dedicated to Ann, who died in 1981, offers the inscription, “There is none like her, none,” a line taken from Maud (Part XVIII), a poem by Alfred, Lord Tennyson. The epitaph to Caspar, who died tragically young in 1975, reads, “To cease upon the midnight with no pain,” which is a quotation from Keats' Ode to a Nightingale. 

The plaque dedicated to Ian Fleming is different in a few ways. It doesn't give Ian's full name (the other two provide middle names), it gives the dates of his birth and death (the other plaques record only the years of birth and death), and in addition to the epitaph, includes the words, “In Memoriam”, which the others lack. I'm not sure how significant these differences are, but they are interesting nonetheless.

The plaque dedicated to Ian Fleming

Ian Fleming's epitaph has a classical source. It reads, “Omnia perfunctus vitae praemia, marces,” and is taken from On the Nature of Things (De rerum natura), a six-book didactic poem written in honour of the Greek philosopher Epicurus by the Roman writer Lucretius, who lived during the first half of the 1st century BC. The line comes from book three (DRN 3.955-62), which in part explores the fear of death, and can be translated as, “Having enjoyed all life's prizes, you now decay.” On their own, the words allude to the inevitability of death and the impermanence of life and material things, but also allude to Fleming's intense, somewhat hedonistic, take on life. The phrase also seems echoes James Bond's philosophy, as revealed in You Only Live Twice: “I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them. I shall use my days.”

Within its original passage, however, the line has a rather more negative connotation. 

“Take your tears away from here, wretch, and quell your complaints. Having enjoyed all life's prizes, you now decay. But because what you want is always at a distance, you shun what is at hand, your life has slipped away incomplete and unenjoyed, and death stands by your head unexpected, before you can leave things satisfied and full.” (Translation by James Warren.)

The passage clearly concerns premature death (Fleming was just 56 when he died of a heart attack), but from its Epicurean viewpoint ridicules the notion that the pursuit of pleasure leads to fulfilment. While happiness, according to Epicurus, derives from the absence of suffering, overindulgence can be a cause of pain, and ultimately unhappiness and death.

I don't know who chose the words – it's possible that Ian Fleming had discovered the phrase and requested that it be inscribed on his gravestone, though it seems more likely that the words were chosen by others (perhaps Ann's literary friends) – but the censorious tone of the rest of the passage makes the wording an odd, and not entirely flattering, selection.

I wonder whether a more sympathetic epitaph might have been provided. The tribute offered by William Plomer at Fleming's memorial service (“Don't let us indulge in vain regrets that he didn't live longer, but let us be glad that he lived so intensely”) is a touching alternative. But in a way Fleming had already provided his own epitaph. In chapter 15 of From Russia, with Love, Kerim Bey talks to Bond about the threat of dying from the 'Iron Crab' (that is, a heart attack). “Perhaps," Kerim says, "they will put on my tombstone 'This Man Died from Living Too Much.'” The words could equally apply to Ian Fleming himself.

References:

Lycett, A, 1995 Ian Fleming: The man behind James Bond, Turner
Warren, J, 2006 Facing death: Epicurus and his critics, Oxford University Press

Turbott Wolfe and James Bond

William Plomer's début novel, Turbott Wolfe, had a profound effect on Ian Fleming. Fleming read the book in 1926 as a teenager and was so impressed by it that he wrote a fan letter to Plomer. The two struck up a friendship, and in time Plomer became Fleming's literary editor.  

Turbott Wolfe was so crucial to Fleming's career as a novelist that it is not unreasonable to suggest that had Fleming not read the book, Casino Royale might never have been published by Jonathan Cape, and the publication history of the Bond books would have been very different.

In an article published on the excellent Artistic License Renewed site, an art and literary James Bond blog and tribute to Richard Chopping, I discuss the connection between Turbott Wolfe and James Bond, and consider what it was about the novel that impressed Fleming so much.

Click on the link to read the article, Ian Fleming and William Plomer's Turbott Wolfe.

Plomer on Fleming: the view from Fleming's editor

Almost 50 years since his death, the extraordinary achievements of Ian Fleming continue to have huge cultural and historical impact. Some of those achievements were recognised in the many obituaries written about Fleming, but a more personal and generous tribute was paid by Fleming's editor, William Plomer, in an address given at a memorial service on 15th September 1964. Plomer's address offers a fascinating view of Fleming's legacy and the Bond phenomenon at a time when books sales were rocketing and 'Bondomania' was about to strike with the release of Goldfinger. Plomer also alludes to factors that shaped Fleming's writing and world-view. Let's take a look at some of them.

A theme that runs throughout the address is that of Fleming's pursuit of knowledge and well-disposed view towards experts in their fields. Plomer describes, for example, Fleming's “admiration of what was well done”, and mentions later that Fleming was “a great finder-out”. This much is clear to any reader of Fleming's books. Not only did Fleming pack his writing with facts and accurate detail, but he was more than happy to acknowledge the experts who furnished him with the information, among them Geoffrey Boothroyd, who persuaded Fleming to change Bond's handgun, and Robin de la Lanne-Mirrlees, whom Fleming consulted on heraldry matters while preparing On Her Majesty's Secret Service.

Of Fleming's wartime experiences, Plomer says little – presumably there was still much that was officially secret – but he reveals more than is mentioned in the obituaries. The obituary in The Times, for example, almost passes over Fleming's war years entirely, pausing to mention only that Fleming found his experiences “'intensely exciting'”. Plomer's address leaves out some of Fleming's key achievements (such as his setting up of the 30 Assault Unit), but nevertheless alludes to Fleming's ability to cut through the red tape and military hierarchy to get things done. He also hints at Fleming's very significant contribution to the war effort, quoting Admiral Godfrey, who told Plomer that Fleming “'was a war-winner'”.

Intriguingly, Plomer reveals that it was Godfrey who introduced Fleming to underwater swimming, an interest that would be critical to the plots of Live and Let Die, Thunderball and other Bond stories. I had assumed that the interest developed during Fleming's visits to Jamaica and his experiences diving with Jacques-Yves Cousteau off Marseilles in 1953, but in reality Fleming caught the bug closer to home.

More intriguing is Plomer's reference to a book by “a then unknown writer” which Fleming read during his later youth and “turned out to have a lasting influence”. The author is not named, but a possible candidate is Phyllis Bottome, under whom Fleming studied while in Austria in 1927. Fleming credited Bottome for inspiring him to become a writer, and he would certainly have read her novels. Phyllis Bottome's first novel, The Dark Tower, was, however, published in 1916, and it seems unlikely that she would have been unknown even by the time Fleming arrived at Eton in 1921. If we allow some movement in the chronology, another candidate is Geoffrey Household, whose first adult novel, The Third Hour, was published in 1937. Fleming admired the book so much that he sent copies to friends. There may be other candidates, but in any case the book deserves to be required reading for students of Fleming and James Bond.

Much of Plomer's address is taken up by the success of the Bond books and also the nascent success of film series. There is, for example, a reference to fans forming James Bond clubs, a phenomenon, incidentally, verified by a story published in the Daily Express on 1st February 1963, which describes how Joanna Hare, the daughter of Labour minister John Hare and an undergraduate at Oxford University, had been identified by Oxford University's James Bond Club as the university's answer to the “perfect Bond girl”. Plomer also talked of the “cheerful reactions of film audiences”, and the “vast new publics [sic]” that respond to the films. The address alluded, too, to the criticisms that Fleming evidently continued to face concerning the moral tone of his work. In answer, Plomer merely said that readers and audiences found “the atmosphere anything but corrupt”. 

William Plomer's memorial address was subsequently privately printed as a slim volume by the Westerham Press, and copies are available through specialist book dealers. As a window into the world of Fleming at the time of his death, it is essential reading.

References
Chancellor, H, 2005, James Bond: The Man and His World, John Murray
Gilbert, J, 2012, Ian Fleming: The Bibliography, Queen Anne Press
Plomer, W, 1964, Address Given at the Memorial Service for Ian Fleming, Westerham Press