Earl Moxam, Senior Gleaner Writer

Sean Connery playing the iconic role of Ian Fleming's James Bond. - File

The world will this year be marking the centenary of the birth of Ian Fleming, author of the James Bond series, and Jamaica is to play a starring role in the celebrations.

This will involve a series of activities, with some executed in Jamaica under the auspices of the Jamaican Government and others, organised and staged in Britain and elsewhere by the Fleming family and the British Government.

One activity, an exhibition on Fleming at the Imperial War Museum in London, will see a recreation of Fleming's study at Goldeneye, his home in St Mary, Jamaica, being mounted as part of exhibition.

No doubt

Terry Charman, senior war historian at the Imperial War Museum, is in no doubt about the pride of place that Jamaica should and will take in the exhibition.

"We start off with Jamaica, with Fleming's study at Goldeneye - his writing desk, chair, typewriter and paintings of the beach that Fleming did as well as one by Sir Noel Coward, Fleming's old friend," Charman told The Gleaner.

According to Charman, it was Fleming's friend, the actor Coward, who encouraged him to write his first novel, Casino Royale, which he did at Goldeneye.

"There are some sculptures, photographs, pictures of Goldeneye. The exhibition also features quotes of Fleming saying how much he loved the island and the people and how he fell in love with it," he said.

The importance of the island to Fleming and the James Bond series was also emphasised by Lucy Fleming, the author's niece, when she spoke at a Jamaica Tourist Board (JTB) reception in London this week.

She quoted the author himself, who said: "Would these books have been born if I hadn't been living in the gorgeous vacuum of a Jamaican holiday? I doubt it."

Ian Fleming first travelled to Jamaica for a conference on the menace of German U-boats during the Second World War when he fell in love with the island. He came back and built Goldeneye near Oracabessa, St Mary, in 1946 and from that base did much of his writings over the last 18 years of his life.

Fleming, whose birthday is May 28, died of heart failure on August 12, 1964.