GOLDENEYE

‘Would these books have been born if I had not been living in the gorgeous vacuum of a Jamaican holiday? I doubt it.’

Towards the end of the war in November 1944, Ian attends the Anglo-American naval conference in Kingston, Jamaica, his first trip to the island and the start of a love affair. He stays in the Blue Mountains, Bellevue with good friend Ivar Bryce and encounters stormy season, with torrential rainfall. Bryce is certain Ian’s introduction to Jamaica has been a failure, until he turns to him on the flight to Washington and says ‘You know, Ivar, I have made a great decision. When we have won this blasted war, I am going to live in Jamaica. Just live in Jamaica and lap it up, and swim in the sea and write books.’ By this time, he already has plans, as he confides to his colleague in Naval Intelligence Robert Harling that he intends to ‘write the spy story to end all spy stories.’

True to his word, in 1947 Fleming buys a 14-acre former donkey racetrack on the edge of a cliff overlooking a private beach, just outside the sleepy Northern coastal town of Oracabessa. He sketches out a three bedroom structure with no windows – just traditional Jamaican jalousie blinds to catch the breeze – and sets about building a house. He names it GoldenEye. There are several theories as to the name’s origin: is it from the novel Reflections in a Golden Eye? Or from Operation Goldeneye, the Allied plan he works on in 1940 to defend Gibraltar? Or is it the Spanish translation of Oracabessa to ‘head of gold’? Most convincing of all is the discovery of a strange Spanish tomb in the garden decorated with a golden eye in a golden head. Years later Fleming writes in a letter, ‘When I came to Jamaica, I was determined that one day GoldenEye would be better known than any of the great houses that had been there so long and achieved nothing.’

Tucked in a lush garden, behind tall trees and tropical bush, GoldenEye is a self-made wonderland with its own private beach and pool. Inside, Fleming sits at his wooden corner desk and types 2,000 words a day. At GoldenEye, he swims, relaxes and hosts friends alongside writing his 007 adventures. ‘I have two months off in Jamaica every year. That’s in my contract with the Sunday Times, and I sit down and I write a book every year during those two months, and then I bring it back.’

After Ian’s death, his biographer John Pearson visits GoldenEye. ‘I swam in the bay which Ian did every morning. It was when I was snorkelling over this incredible underwater garden that I truly appreciated the real beauty of GoldenEye. This was Ian’s private dream, the sort of world where Captain Nemo ended up in the Jules Verne books he read as a child.’