For Your Eyes Only: Ian Fleming and James Bond

London’s Imperial War Museum has a major exhibition starting this week celebrating 100 years since the birth of author Ian Fleming and his most famous creation, James Bond 007. For Your Eyes Only: Ian Fleming and James Bond, on from 17 April 2008–1 March 2009, looks at Fleming’s life and how his earlier experiences led to the creation of the world’s most well known secret agent.

Ian Fleming was the son of a Conservative MP who was killed fighting in World War One. The young Ian went to Eton, Britain’s top public(private) school, and then on to Sandhurst the UK’s equivalent of West Point. He worked as a journalist for Reuters then tried his hand at banking and stockbroking before World War Two broke out and Fleming got a position as assistant to the Director of Naval Intelligence Admiral John Godfrey, who become the model for M in the James Bond novels.

Fleming had close contact with the intelligence services of Britain’s wartime allies and travelled widely. After the war he worked for six years as the Foreign Manager for the Kemsley newspaper group before starting work on the first James Bond novel Casino Royale at the villa he’d designed and had built in Jamaica, Goldeneye, in 1952.

All the Bond books were written at Goldeneye and as part of the For Your Eyes Only exhibition his writing desk and chair will be on show along with lots of other Fleming personal items from his Naval Intelligence days, his time writing in Jamaica as well a whole host of memorablia from the Bond movies such as Rosa Klebb’s shoes, a Aston Martin DB5, Halle Berry’s bikini and daniel Craig’s blood covered shirt from Casino Royale. The exhibition will examine how Fleming’s life, he was well known as a gambler, heavy drinker and womanizer, influenced the Bond character and the on going legacy of the James Bond industry.

Tickets to For Your Eyes Only cost £8 although the rest of the Imperial War Museum is free to enter. Its open daily from 10am-6pm and is located on Lambeth Road, about ten minutes walk from Westminster Bridge. Map