'From Father With Love' on BBC Radio 4
Written by: Ajay Chowdhury
“From Father With Love” is a new play about Ian Fleming’s relationship with his son, Caspar, will be broadcast during ‘Afternoon Play’ on BBC Radio 4 on Friday, 13th January 2006 at 2:15pm GMT.
The broadcast is a Pier Production and has been written by Mark Burgess and directed by David Blount. In a wonderful touch, husband and wife team, Simon and Lucy Williams will play Ian and Anne Fleming. Lucy Williams is Ian Fleming’s niece.
The play will chart the tender yet distant relationship of Ian with his only child, Caspar. Caspar was on 12th August 1952 in London and went on to Eton and New College, Oxford.
James Bond creator Ian Fleming died on 12th August 1964, Caspar’s 12th birthday. Ian adored his son. When recuperating in the London Clinic from a heart attack, Fleming’s friend, Duff Dunbar, suggested Ian write up the story he would tell Caspar at night. The result was Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, published in 1964 and made into a film produced by Albert R Cubby Broccoli in 1968.
Fleming’s death had a large impact on Caspar who had somewhat of a troubled youth, having been expelled from Eton and leaving Oxford early. Caspar visited Goldeneye in August 1974 where he discovered a whole other side of his father’s life. Ian Fleming’s only son and heir committed suicide by drugs overdose on 2nd October 1975.
Mark Burgess, after having burst on to the UK acting scene as Gordon Collins on the Mersy soap, Brookside went on to write and perform “The Man With The Golden Pen” which toured the UK in 2000-2001.