For your eyes only Article.

ThunderpussyThunderpussy Behind you !Posts: 63,792MI6 Agent
http://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news/andrew-king-for-our-eyes-only-tracking-bond-in-ottawa

Andrew King: For Our Eyes Only, tracking Bond in Ottawa:
In 1960, author Ian Fleming published his eighth novel featuring the fictional British Secret Service agent James Bond. The novel was called For Your Eyes Only and it was a collection of five short stories based on script outlines he had created for a failed CBS Bond television series.

For Your Eyes Only later became the basis of the 1981 film of the same name starring Roger Moore, but like many of Fleming’s Bond novels, there is little reference to the original story in the film adaptation. This story is no exception, since most of the original novel takes place here in Ottawa.

The original book version uses locations in Canada and Vermont, most notably Ottawa as Bond prepares for a mission to execute an ex-Gestapo agent, Von Hammerstein, whom Fleming based on the actual Gen. Baron Kurt Von Hammerstein-Equord of Hitler’s Third Reich.
Fleming characteristically writes his Bond novels in great detail, using his own experiences as a British OSS operative during the Second World War to give his stories an element of realism. In For your Eyes Only, Bond’s exploits throughout Ottawa and Quebec are thus carefully outlined in researched detail by Fleming, which allows us to re-trace Bond’s 1959 mission exactly as it would have happened in the nation’s capital and to visit the very same places today that are mentioned in the novel.

Fleming has Bond arrive in Canada via Montreal’s Dorval airport, since Ottawa’s Uplands airport would not be open for jetliner traffic until 1960. Bond drove a rented Plymouth, as the book states, “along the broad Route 17 from Montreal to Ottawa and trying to remember to keep on the right of the road.” The 417 as we know it that connects Ottawa to Montreal would not open until 1975.

After his arrival in Ottawa, Bond most likely would have checked into a nearby motel along Montreal Road, which was part of Highway 17. Fleming often put Bond in motels on his missions to North America since they were a relatively new form of accommodation in the 1950s. Popular at the time was The Parkway motel located along what is now Rideau Street, and is now an Econolodge Motel.
Fleming then describes Bond’s going to the headquarters of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police which, according to research, would have been in 1959 the Department of Justice building beside the Parliament Buildings. Bond describes it as “a massive block of grey masonry built to look stodgily important and to withstand the long and hard winters.” This building still exists as offices for members of Parliament.
Bond enters this building and makes his way to the RCMP commissioner’s office, which is located on the third floor.
Contacting officials at the building, I was able to locate the area Fleming referred to, and in typical Fleming accuracy, determine the former RCMP commissioner’s office was in fact on the third floor.
It’s now occupied by Chris Alexander, Canada’s Minister of Citizenship and Immigration. Alexander’s office was kind enough to allow us in to view the room in which Fleming had Bond meet with Col. Johns from the RCMP who later gives Bond his mission dossier. Exactly as Fleming describes in the novel, there is waiting area and a main office where Bond is given a list of items he’ll need for his mission on the Quebec-Vermont border. These items include clothing, weapons and maps that will lead him to his target at Echo Lake which, in fact, is an existing lake, exactly where Fleming describes it.
Bond’s Ottawa shopping list includes the purchase of used hunting clothing.
“This is a list of what I reckon you’ll need and the address of a big second-hand clothing store here in the city.” At the time, the nearby (and still operating) Irving Rivers Surplus and Used Clothing store in the ByWard Market, which opened in 1950, would most likely be the place where Bond picked up his mission equipment, including a khaki shirt, brown jeans, hiking boots and an aluminum flask, which he later fills with bourbon and coffee.........

Full article in link, an interesting read with some nice photos of the old motel Bond stayed at ?
"I've been informed that there ARE a couple of QAnon supporters who are fairly regular posters in AJB."

Comments

  • AlphaOmegaSinAlphaOmegaSin EnglandPosts: 10,926MI6 Agent
    Apparently the original Draft of 'From A View To A Kill' was going to be about Hugo Drax's Ill fated Mission.
    1.On Her Majesties Secret Service 2.The Living Daylights 3.license To Kill 4.The Spy Who Loved Me 5.Goldfinger
  • BarbelBarbel ScotlandPosts: 38,077Chief of Staff
    Yes, that's right. It's a good idea but fitting Bond in may have been a problem.
  • The Domino EffectThe Domino Effect Posts: 3,638MI6 Agent
    Excellent piece...and I appreciate that the Ottawa Citizen caption writer saw fit to award Ian Fleming with a knighthood. Very kind of them! :D
  • ThunderpussyThunderpussy Behind you !Posts: 63,792MI6 Agent
    :)) Well we all really think he Should have had one ! {[]
    "I've been informed that there ARE a couple of QAnon supporters who are fairly regular posters in AJB."
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