LONDON:

The iconic James Bond is supposedly based on Commando Patrick Dalzel-Job who served in 30 AU, but is named after a bird watcher.

Thesun.co.uk reports that Patrick Dalzel-Job was an accomplished linguist, mariner, navigator, parachutist, diver and skier and died in 2003 aged 90. His son Major Iain Dalzel-Job said, “I have copies of reports written by the admirals about my father, which I believe are one of the reasons he was taken to be a part of the Bond story. They said he was a very good fighting soldier, but if he did not agree with orders he would not obey them.”

The Major added, “If my father was an inspiration, he was only a small part. I think James Bond was largely Ian Fleming (James Bond author).”

Fleming, who died in August 1964, once said that the name James Bond came from a book on his desk in Jamaica. He wanted the “simplest, dullest, plainest-sounding name” he could find and discovered it on the cover of Birds Of The West Indies.

James Bond was not an expert on exotic women but an American ornithologist. — HNS