Who Will Be the Next James Bond?

Have you heard, they are looking for a new James Bond? Yes, this iconic franchise has hired Quebec filmmaker Denis Villeneuve (Dune 1& 2, Blade Runner 2049, to name but a few) to direct the 26th movie version of the famous, but fictitious secret agent. It’s well known that Ian Fleming based his main character on a real World War II spy, Sir William Stephenson. However, another spy of that era, Major Bill Greenaway, may have had some influence on Fleming’s imagination as well, as the author also worked for British Intelligence during the war.

Greenaway was a fly-fishing champion who used his skill to infiltrate the Nazi High Command. He pretended to be the representative of a British tackle company and taught fly-fishing to Herman Goering.

Fleming himself was a keen hunter and angler. He was good friends with Charles Englehardt Jr., owner of Lorne Cottage on the Cascapedia and based the character “Goldfinger” on him. Less known, but of great interest to fly-fishers is that Fleming helped draft a memo that compared deceptive tactics used in warfare to fly-fishing techniques (“Trout Memo, 1939”).

All facts points to Fleming having based at least some of his Bond character on Greenaway. In real life the fly-fishing champ took photos of a large number of Messerschmitt 109 fighter planes as well as other military equipment, using a camera hidden in the headlights of his car. The smuggled film was used by Winston Churchill to help convince his government of the dangers of the German military buildup. Later Greenaway bought a boat to smuggle 90 refugees (and himself) back to England.

He is a hero, but because of his “secret agent” status, perhaps less celebrated than others. Yet among Journal readers (and editors) he is still held in high esteem. After the war he moved to Nova Scotia, Canada, where he spent his days fishing for Atlantic salmon and between 1957 and 1967, he and his wife Cora wrote dozens of stories for the Atlantic Salmon Journal. Click here (ASJ, March 1958) to read one his most in-depth articles on fly-fishing, live release and how to make a 900-foot cast! An excellent profile of Greenaway by Don MacLeanwas published in the Journal in the Spring issue of 2009 (click here).