BOND, BROSNAN, BOOKS AND ROUNDABOUTS...



Dust-jacket design by Stefan Dreja

I once borrowed a book from my local central library, and - against a multi-coloured panoply of flowers in a sunken roundabout - sat reading it as a glorious mid-'70s hot summer sun shone down upon me.  The book was JAMES BOND In The CINEMA by JOHN BROSNAN, and a year or two later, I was able to obtain my very own copy from GRANT'S BOOKSHOP just outside Glasgow's Central Station.

Sean Connery as James Bond

The book was published in 1972 and covers the first seven movies in the series, DR. NO to DIAMONDS Are FOREVER.  It's an extremely entertaining and engrossing read, capturing the mood of the films perfectly, although there are a few minor discrepancies in the description of events.  However, Brosnan originally hailed from Australia, where Bond movies were heavily edited in line with the country's strict censorship laws, so that no doubt accounts for some of the occasional and inconsequential (relatively speaking, of course) inaccuracies in matters of detail.

Before the age of videos and DVDs in which a viewer can watch and freeze-frame a movie at his leisure and to his heart's content, the only way to 'relive' a film was to go and see it again at the cinema (this was before the Bond back-catalogue had been sold to TV), buy the soundtrack LP - or to immerse oneself in the pages of a book such as this devoted to the subject.  Brosnan's book is lavishly illustrated with over one hundred stills, virtually all supplied by UNITED ARTISTS themselves.

Honor Blackman as Pussy Galore

I was so impressed by this book that I bought another copy several years later direct from the publishers, The TANTIVY PRESS.  Now I have a pristine copy, plus my well-thumbed original which I can delve into whenever the fancy takes me.  And, whenever I do, I'm right back in the darkened gloom of my local cinema (middle seat, back row) on a Saturday afternoon in the early '70s - where I was fortunate enough to see all six of SEAN CONNERY's 'official' EON Bond blockbusters on the largest screen in Scotland in the first purpose-built cinema in the U.K. since the second world war.

  

Or I'm back in that sunken roundabout on a glorious sunny day a few years later, reading the book for the very first time.  Little did I know then (how could I?) that ten or so years afterwards, I'd be lettering some of the same author's NIGHT ZERO/BEYOND ZERO scripts (illustrated by artist KEVIN HOPGOOD) for 2000 A.D.  I never got to meet John Brosnan or to talk to him, but I remember asking editor ALAN McKENZIE to tell him how much I'd enjoyed his book and some of his movie reviews in DEZ SKINN's STARBURST magazine. 

Back of dust-jacket

Sadly, although that sunken roundabout still exists, the flowers and the wooden bench (one of several) I sat upon are gone, and the roundabout itself is in a dilapidated condition.  However, my memories of that day are as sharp and as clear as they ever were, and - should they ever be in danger of fading (like the colours of those long-vanished blooms) - John Brosnan's superb book is only an arm's reach away.

The roundabout (where I first read the book) in its glory days