BRITAIN-CHITTY CHITTY BANG BANG Ian Fleming's only children's novel celebrates 50 years
Record ID:
528144
BRITAIN-CHITTY CHITTY BANG BANG Ian Fleming's only children's novel celebrates 50 years
- Title: BRITAIN-CHITTY CHITTY BANG BANG Ian Fleming's only children's novel celebrates 50 years
- Date: 31st January 2015
- Summary: VARIOUS OF ORIGINAL MINIATURE CHITTY MODEL BY BURNINGHAM ILLUSTRATOR, JOHN BURNINGHAM, AND GRIMOND ENTERING OFFICE ROOM AND WALKING TOWARDS MODEL (SOUNDBITE) (English) SIR IAN FLEMING'S NIECE, KATE GRIMOND, AND ILLUSTRATOR, JOHN BURNINGHAM, SAYING: GRIMOND: "Look, there it is." BURNINGHAM: "Like the remains of a Christmas dinner. Thirty years ago or something." (SOUNDBITE)
- Embargoed: 15th February 2015 12:00
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- Topics: General
- Reuters ID: LVA3WCD5NA8W0MU2PYUTK3LO3X33
- Story Text: He's best known for inventing literature's most famous spy, but Ian Fleming was also a children's author - of one novel to be exact.
The adventures of Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang, a magical car, its owner Commander Caractacus Pott and Truly Scrumptious are, in fact, written by the same man who brought the world James Bond.
The 52-year-old Fleming wrote "Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang" while recovering from a heart attack in hospital. He wasn't allowed a typewriter, the instrument he'd traditionally use to write his Bond scripts, so wrote the entire story down by hand.
"I don't think it is widely known that that's the fact and, but he did write it a couple of years before he died, and, for his son [Caspar]," Fleming's niece, Kate Grimond, told Reuters Television.
"It is not widely known and it has a sort of, it has adventure in it and it has charm but it's different from the Bond books," she added.
One thing both stories have in common though, is Fleming's passion for cars.
Cars feature prominently in all of Fleming's 007 adventure, while the children book's hero, Chitty, is based on a real racer from the 1920s.
It was built by Count Louis Zborowski, an English racing driver, who used old Zeppelin parts to create the torpedo shaped engine and even used it to race at events on the circuit at Brooklands, England, amongst others.
"He loved cars. He absolutely loved cars," Gimond said.
"When they were trying to find an illustrator for Chitty and eventually found John Burningham he was very keen that the dashboard looked terrific and the car should look exciting for small children. But he was interested in cars. He described them beautifully in the Bond books," she added.
Then still in his twenties, Burningham had received some acclaim for authoring and illustrating his first picture book "Borka: The Adventures of a Goose With No Feathers".
When he was tasked with the job of giving Fleming's metal hero a face, Burningham created a miniature model of Chitty which he would then use to illustrate the story.
He completed his work late in 1963 and was able to show his imagining of Chitty to Fleming.
"I met him just once. And I was expecting him to make all kinds of requests," Burningham recalled to Reuters during an interview at his studio in North London.
"Actually he made two: One I think was to change the sign on a petrol pump outside a garage. And the other was he wanted me to put a tabac sign in Paris, one of the pictures of Paris. And I keep looking at the pictures and wondering if I ever did it or not. I just don't know," he added.
"I've only found out very recently that he liked the drawings. I mean I never heard anything from anybody really as to whether he did or not. Because he died very very soon after that," he said.
Fleming didn't live to see the book published, dying on August 12, 1964; the day of his son Caspar's 12th birthday.
"Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang" eventually came out in three volumes, the first published in October 1964.
A second followed a month later, while the final one came out in January 1965.
Three years later a musical film based on Fleming's book followed, with a script written by fellow author Roald Dahl. The film's theme song "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" also received an Academy Award nomination.
"Ian just sort of thought of a wonderful glamorous car and wanted it to fly and have adventures and that took off. And then of course later the film came and that perpetuated the whole sort of romance and excitement of Chitty," Grimond said.
There's also been a musical adaptation and, more recently, three sequels have been published - all written by British author Frank Cottrell Boyce - showing that, 50 years on, the legacy of Fleming's children's novel remains very much alive.
"I mean now the roads are all jammed with cars and it's not what it was to go charging off to Paris or whatever it is in a car," Burningham said.
"But it has, Ian had that sort of ability to write, you know, to write a very good, all the ingredients for an adventure," he added.
Fleming's book is now being commemorated with the publishing of an anniversary edition of the novel.
A standard edition containing all three volumes is available for 125 pounds ($188), while a limited special edition of 50 copies which also contains two signed prints by the illustrator, is available for 600 pounds ($903). - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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