Biography

Large, male-dominated families are part of my make-up. My mother’s grandparents produced a family of nine – two girls and seven boys. Of the latter, five became soldiers, one a sailor, and Harry, the odd man out, Resident of the Ilorin Province of Nigeria (of which he wrote the official Gazetteer). Decent, dutiful men, they were wiped out by World War I, either physically or emotionally. As a result, that part of my family has been more or less extinguished.

My father’s side, the Flemings of Dundee, proved more resilient. They also suffered in World War I, but when my grandfather was killed, his young widow, Eve, showed herself both tough and determined. She was left with four boys (the “shiny boys” as Augustus John called them,) and in 1926 gave birth to a daughter. The youngest son, Michael, was killed in World War II. The three other boys and the daughter, Amaryllis, were each remarkable in their own way. Here are those boys, photographed on the same day in about 1942, when they happened to be on leave simultaneously.

Peter (1907-71), traveller and writer. His two most famous books, Brazilian Adventure (1933) and News from Tartary (1936) have been continuously in print since they were published. “No modern writer can equal Peter Fleming as a story-teller,” wrote Harold Nicolson.

Ian (1908-64), journalist and novelist, creator of James Bond.

Richard (1910-77), my father, a man so unassuming that few would ever have supposed him to be one of the ablest international bankers of his time.

Amaryllis (1926-99), offspring of Augustus John and my grandmother, Eve. Am, whom we all loved, built herself a reputation throughout the world as a cellist.

There is a substantial body of literature on these Flemings, dealing in particular with Ian’s life and the Bond phenomenon. John Pearson’s biography was the first to come out, in 1966. Andrew Lycett’s Ian Fleming (1995) is probably the best on background and all the racy detail. The centenary of Ian’s birth this year (2008) produced nothing to supercede Lycett. It did, however, occasion a spectacular exhibition at the Imperial War Museum. Among the Fleming artefacts shown was my father’s Christmas stocking.

Duff Hart-Davis wrote Peter Fleming, a Life (1974). My brother Fergus Fleming wrote Amaryllis Fleming (1993), which catches beautifully her humour and sensuality.

My parents had nine children: six boys and three girls. Daniel, the eldest, died in infancy, in January 1940. My great-aunt Kathleen sported an enormous red handkerchief at the funeral to cheer everyone up. (In addition to everything else, it was snowing.) I was born in 1944 – number four, behind Daniel and two sisters.

My schooling was commenced by Miss Malins, a governess we shared with neighbours. She wielded power via a blue, oval crayon which she would jab into our ribs if ever we faltered over, for instance, the subjunctive of pouvoir. As a result we never did falter. By the time I went to boarding school at the age of eight, I was ahead of the game. And since the education I received at Abberley was excellent (the headmaster allowed me to go fishing), I remained ahead of it.

Age Four. Note the tie pin	Age eight

However (which as Thomas Gage observed is one of the most ominous words in English), things went downhill thereafter. I went off the boil; did as I was told and no more. By a whisker I got into Oxford and by its twin I got a second in Modern History. Accountancy was reckoned the thing for chumps like me, so for a salary of £600 a year, I signed up as an articled clerk.

I am grateful to this period in my life for a knowledge of double entry. The Glaswegian book-keeper in one of the firms whose accounts my eye would slide negligently over, unwittingly made me a generous gift: that of his surname, Doig, as the narrator and hero of my Russian Revolution novels. With the qualification, obtained with difficulty, I was able to get a job with Angus & Robertson, an august Australian publisher with an office in London. Maybe those are sufficient rewards for the ten or so years of accountancy. But now I wish I had spent them doing something flashier, something I could use to full effect in my books.

From about the age of ten, I was always dickering with words. In pauses during my career as an accountant, I tried three or four ideas for popular accounts of everyday goods. The closest I came to being published as with A Social History of Tea. But none of them came to anything, which was undoubtedly a blessing in disguise.

And it all had to stop when I started a one-man publishing/bookselling business, got married and had children.

The short history of these years says only that twenty-four hours a day are too few. Then suddenly, at the age of fifty, my marriage broke up, free time became available and I started work on my first novel, The Temple of Optimism.