For Your Eyes Only...

What better way to spend a rainy Wednesday than learning about the man behind one of our culture's most iconic spies. Today I visited the Imperial War Museum (www.iwm.org.uk) and its special exhibition For Your Eyes Only, a look at the life of Ian Fleming, author of the James Bond novels. My plan at the moment is to write my research paper on Ian Fleming and his famous series, so I started out my research here.
The museum is pretty extensive, with displays on both World Wars, the Holocaust, Espionage, and post-World War conflicts. They have an art gallery with art inspired by various wars and conflicts, and a really neat area called Children's War which talks about how World War II in particular affected Britain's children -- from air raids to rationing to the evacuations. I read a really touching letter they had on display that a soldier wrote to his daughter in case he didn't come home from the war (which he didn't). He told her that he was proud of her; to be a good big sister; to be a "ray of sunshine" to her mother; to try out all kinds of fun thinks in life like dance and swimming and games and sports; to be careful with boys, but to find a loving man one day who might make up for not having a father. My favorite warning about boys: "only believe half of what they say, until you find the right one." The whole thing made me cry.
Anyway...back to Ian Fleming. It was a fascinating exhibit which started out right at the beginning, painting a picture through words, images and artifacts of a man with a personality not unlike his fictional hero. He was adventurous and rakish, a partier and a womanizer. I really enjoyed seeing the connections between Fleming's life and his stories from people he knew to places he'd been. For Your Eyes Only also had a lot of interesting and fun displays from some of the James Bond movies, like a coat worn by Sean Connery, a rocket-pack that Bond used to escape in, Daniel Craig's bloody tuxedo shirt, and the leather door to 'M's office in the first several films. There was so much to see -- letters, manuscripts, spy gadgets, film props, and photographs. And as a childhood fan of the movie Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, I was delighted to find out that Ian Fleming wrote the short story that the movie was based on for his son Caspar in 1961; it was published in 1964.

Photo was taken from www.iwm.org.uk