Kenyon does a piece on the connection of my neighbourhood (Durham Region/Whitby/Oshawa) and Ian Fleming/Bond..Camp X was in Whitby on the shore of Lake Ontario.. read about it:
http://www.campxhistoricalsociety.ca/index1.htm
Kenyon's article:
GTA's disappearing Bond with Ian Fleming
Nov 14, 2008 04:30 AM
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Kenyon Wallace
Staff Reporter
Like a spy that vanishes into the night, leaving behind a half-full martini glass or perhaps even a kiss, GTA landmarks that some say inspired James Bond creator Ian Fleming are disappearing, leaving behind only fingerprints of the world's greatest secret agent.
When Quantum of Solace opens today in theatres across the city, moviegoers may be unaware of the GTA's place in James Bond mythology.
While some believe Fleming named his intrepid spy after James Bond, the American ornithologist, the author of 12 best-selling Bond novels never revealed the true source of one of pop culture's most recognizable names.
Which brings us to the GTA.
Camp X
A few empty fields near Lake Ontario and a lonely monument are all that's left of Camp X, a top-secret paramilitary training installation built on the Whitby-Oshawa border and open from 1941 to the fall of 1944.
Fleming is believed to have visited Camp X in 1942 while serving with British naval intelligence. The training exercises Fleming witnessed at Camp X, including hand-to-hand combat and simulated assassinations, are the same ones seen in many of the Bond films, according to Lynn-Philip Hodgson, author of the book, Inside Camp X.
Joe Gelleny was just 20 years old when he arrived at Camp X in 1942 – the same year Fleming visited. Now 85, Gelleny recently published a book about Camp X and his subsequent deployment to Hungary as a British spy.
When asked if the skills he learned at Camp X made him the early equivalent to James Bond, Gelleny replies sheepishly, "Well, yes."
Gelleny says most, if not all, of the men he served with are dead now.
"I'm the last one, as far as I know."
Sinclair House
On the grounds of Camp X sat a charming white farmhouse, now long gone. It was the site of a crucial test to determine if agents could kill in cold blood and deserved licence to do so. It was here that Fleming failed such a test.
According to a November 1966 Oshawa Times article, T.G. Drew-Brook, a wartime Canadian representative of British Security Co-ordination, said Fleming was tested in a mocked-up hotel corridor at Sinclair House. Fleming was given a loaded revolver and was ordered to kill a "dangerous enemy agent" in one of the rooms. But when Fleming got to the door, he couldn't go through with the assassination.
Fleming failed the test, but it may have given him a good catchphrase – "licence to kill."
Genosha Hotel
On the corner of King and Mary Sts. in Oshawa sits the empty shell of the once-luxurious Genosha Hotel. Built in 1929, its bar and billiards room were popular with British officers running the nearby Camp X in the early 1940s.
According to Hodgson, parking was at the rear of the hotel and the only way to get to it was to turn down a small street running parallel to the back of the hotel. That street's name? Bond St.
"For me, there's all these subliminal messages Fleming was getting while he was here in Canada," Hodgson says.
Now a heritage building, the Genosha Hotel is being redeveloped to provide retail space and house students from the University of Ontario Institute of Technology.
St. James-Bond United Church
Yes, there really was a church in Toronto with that name, at the corner of Avenue Rd. and Willowbank Blvd. It was torn down in the summer of 2006 and remains a hole in the ground.
Visitors to Camp X were encouraged to stay elsewhere when the camp was at capacity. The Genosha Hotel and the Blue Swallow Inn, then within walking distance, were popular alternatives.
But Hodgson thinks Fleming elected to stay with friends who had a house on Avenue Rd. just opposite the church.
"Each morning a staff car from the camp would come into town to pick Fleming up. He would be sitting out on the front porch having a cup of tea waiting for them, and directly across the street from him was a great big sign with the name of the church," Hodgson says.
"He must have seen it."
Kenyon writes for The Toronto Star now
