 |
My
own connections with Kent have gone back as far as I can remember; my
family on my late father’s side came from Staple near Canterbury, and I
spent many happy school holidays exploring this beautiful ‘Garden of
England’ with my family, and in later years would discover even more of
its unique and special charm with the help of my oldest friend. Having
been initially awakened to the James Bond character at the age of 11 in
1962 when my Dad took me to see the first 007 film Dr. No, it
wasn’t until the release of Goldfinger in 1964 that I fully
discovered Ian Fleming’s novels and began reading them voraciously with an
enthusiasm for books I’d never experienced before. Tackling the novels in
the order they were published, it wasn’t until I reached Fleming’s third
Bond novel, MOONRAKER, that I became aware the author had used Kent as a
setting for his story, as he would again later in the series.
Ian Fleming loved the Kent countryside and his first country residence was
aptly referred to as ‘the first house in England’ – White Cliffs Cottage
(1951-1957), because of its dramatic positioning at the foot of the cliffs
directly on the sea front at the north end of the beach at St. Margaret’s
at Cliffe in East Kent, north-east of Dover. Should the occupant have been
devil may care enough to sit in the lounge with the windows open on a
stormy day, the incoming sea spray would soon have had them battening down
the house’s distinctive lime green shutters (now painted yellow). Fleming
purchased White Cliffs Cottage from his good friend Noël Coward, who
eventually decided to move in December 1951 as the increased number of
motor cars after World War II brought more day trippers and tourists into
the area celebrity spotting. Coward complained that St. Margaret’s Bay had
become, “a beach crowded with noisy hoi polloi!” |
