Article by Graham M. Thomas According to Robert Harling, the main topic of conversation when he first met Ian Fleming at a party in 1939 was typography; Fleming mentioned that he subscribed to Typography, a magazine that Harling edited. ‘I’ve been a subscriber to your magazine with its singular title from its very first number,’…
Article by Graham M. Thomas It was 1999 when I last visited the island of Kyushu in southwest Japan. Literary007 was then just but a faint twinkle in an eye. Now in 2017, I decided to make a return visit in an attempt to retrace Fleming’s and Bond’s own journeys across the island. Within the…
This week finds Graham M. Thomas stranded on Crab Key Island, yet life won’t be too bad with these items to keep him company… 001. You Only Live Twice Two reasons, the first that it would allow me to remember and picture Japan as the story is largely a travelogue, but second it is the…
Article by Graham M. Thomas (The author first visited Hong Kong in the 1980s, lived there during the 1990s, and still returns from time to time.) Almost sixty years ago, Ian Fleming set out on a world tour. Not to promote his books but because he had been asked by his employer The Sunday Times to…
Article by Graham M. Thomas Who else could have co-founded Alcoholics Synonymous but Richard Hughes (aka Dikko Henderson), after he had moved from Tokyo to Hong Kong. And when Ian Fleming flew in to the colony (as it was then) in November 1959, it was natural that on his first night in town, his friend…
Article by Graham M. Thomas The dedication in You Only Live Twice reads, ‘TO Richard Hughes and Torao Saito BUT FOR WHOM ETC…. Richard Hughes and Torao ‘Tiger’ Saito were two friends of Fleming’s. Both were journalists, both had accompanied Fleming on his travels through Japan, and both had now been metamorphosed into characters in…
In the original typescript to Ian Fleming’s You Only Live Twice, held at the Lily Library in Indiana, there is a very interesting “Author’s note” prefixing the manuscript. Fleming wrote that on his second visit to Japan, he followed “as closely as prudence would allow, in the footsteps of James Bond.” He was accompanied by the…
Article by Graham M. Thomas Is there a more thrilling city than Tokyo? Today it would certainly come near the top of many people’s bucket list and, from a personal perspective, it comes top of mine. After all I lived there for five years and although home is now in south-western Japan, a visit to…
Herbert O. Yardley seemed Fleming’s kind of man – gambler, code-breaker, rascal and whistle-blower. On the anniversary of his death, Graham M. Thomas delves into his incredible story. *** In early 1959, Ian Fleming contributed a three page preface to a book on how to win at poker: ‘The Education of a Poker Player‘ was a…
We are thrilled to welcome Graham M. Thomas in from the cold, who is the author of Fleming, Bond, and Connery in Japan: The Japanese Story of You Only Live Twice. Graham’s first hand knowledge of Japan coupled with his love of Bond has produced a fascinating account of the legacy of Bond in Japan. What inspired…
Artistic Licence Renewed 