The name’s Bond

The news report entitled “The name’s Bond” [ FT402:27]

reminded me of something I came across while researching a book, The Jurassic Coast. A notable family in the area of the abandoned village of Tyneham on the Dorset coast were called Bond. In the 1999 James Bond film The World is Not Enough,

Pierce Brosnan (playing Bond) mutters the phrase used as the film’s title, explaining that this was his family’s motto. The real Bond family, whose family seat is at Holme Priory in Dorset, does indeed have this very motto. Ian Fleming – who went to Durnford School near Langton Matravers for a few years from the age of seven – mentions this in his 1963 book On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. He would no doubt have heard about the locally prominent Bond family and learned of the motto.

In an article in the Daily Telegraph (30 Oct 2008), Nick Britten revealed how the current owner of Holme Priory, William Bond, has a diary from his ancestor Denis Bond that tells of an earlier John Bond who was a spy for Sir Francis Drake. Apparently it was John Bond who adopted the motto “The world is not enough” from King Philip of Spain, who had originally used it. Perhaps one of the many sources of inspiration behind the famous fictional spy?

Incidentally, Bond Street in London was named after a member of this same family, the 17th century landowner Sir Thomas Bond.

Paul Harris

Folkestone, Kent