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Narrative feature

Ian Fleming: cruel? Selfish? Misogynistic? Nonsense, says his step-daughter

Comparing brothers Peter and Ian Fleming, Fionn Morgan wonders who was the better writer and who the better man

23 August 2014

9:00 AM

23 August 2014

9:00 AM

7 August 1964
4 Old Mitre Court, EC4

Darling Fifi,

A thousand thanks for your sweet letter & for Heaven’s sake don’t think of bringing me back anything from Brazil, except perhaps a Diamond as big as the Ritz if you happen to find one in your back garden.

When from my eyrie beneath the Christ Corcovado I looked closely at this (unusually) typed letter from Ian Fleming I saw that it was ‘dictated in his absence’ and that it must have been sent by the devoted ‘Griffie’, model for Miss Moneypenny.

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Fionn Morgan is the daughter of Ann Fleming (née Charteris) and her first husband Shane, 3rd Lord O’Neill. She was 16 when her mother married Ian Fleming.

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