The name’s Bond…
The new James Bond film is finally due out in cinemas this week so it is time for an updated Bond-themed blog from the archive.
I first investigated our Bond links back in 2013 and I have since found a few more connections to the enduring secret agent.
Disappointingly, I have not yet come across any references to the insurance of spies — it is obviously the kind of occupation you keep hush-hush when filling in proposal documents. Having said that, our companies did have lots of agents. Our earliest agents were appointed in 1783 by the Newcastle upon Tyne Fire Office and included the excellently named Musgrave Lewthwaite who represented the company in Carlisle. Although these agents were not licensed to kill, insurance agents could sell policies which paid out in the event of murder, such as the one referred to in the advertisement below from 1889.
We also employed at least one person who worked in the secret world of the code breakers in the Second World War. In the early years of the war, Peter Ives, shown below, spent his days as a clerk in Norwich Union and his nights copying intercepted enemy Morse code messages which were sent to Bletchley Park for decoding.
Links to 007 himself are thin on the ground although one of the Yorkshire Insurance Company’s directors, Lord Bolton, actually appeared as Bond in some of the grouse shooting scenes in Casino Royale in 1967. Bolton was a good grouse shot and stood in for David Niven, who played Bond, during shooting scenes, which were filmed on his estate at Wensleydale.
Bond, in the form of Sean Connery, also appeared in a series of General Accident advertisements for home insurance in the 1990s.
A second poster in the series features the scene where Auric Goldfinger has Bond at his mercy and delivers the iconic line “No, Mr. Bond, I expect you to die”.
While I can’t find any links to Goldfinger, we do have some tenuous links to a couple of other Bond villains. The first is to Francisco Scaramanga, the villain in the 1974 film The Man with the Golden Gun. The inspiration for the choice of surname is said to have come from one of Ian Fleming’s classmates, George Ambrose Scaramanga. Fleming had a falling out with George Ambrose and reputedly got his own back by using the Scaramanga surname for one of his villains. Our link comes through George’s grandfather, George Emanuel Scaramanga, who was a director of our company Ocean Marine Insurance in the 1880s and 1890s.
We also have references in the Archive to two actors who played the Bond villain Ernst Stavro Blofeld and also used our offices as film sets (although sadly not for Bond films). In the 1969 film On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, Blofeld was played by Telly Savalas. As you can see from the cutting below, he later filmed scenes for an episode of Tales of the Unexpected in the Surrey House board room of Norwich Union.
In the 1967 film You Only Live Twice, Blofeld was played by Donald Pleasence who was photographed outside General Accident’s Aldwych office in 1969. According to the staff magazine, he was there filming scenes for his role in the comedy film Arthur! Arthur?
Also featured in the same photograph is the actress Ingrid Pitt, best known for appearances in Hammer Horror films, who had an un-credited role as the voice of the Galley Mistress in Octopussy.
Another un-credited Bond actress, Caron Gardner, also has links to Aviva. Best known for roles in the television series The Saint and Department S, she appeared as one of Pussy Galore’s flying circus pilots in Goldfinger. She was a DC motor policy holder and appeared on the front cover of General Accident’s staff magazine in 1972 when she featured in press adverts for Scottish General’s DC plan motor insurance scheme.
Pussy Galore herself, Honor Blackman, also held a motor policy with one of our companies. General Accident’s staff magazine for 1967 reveals another link to a ‘Bond girl’ in the form of Diane Cilento who was married to Sean Connery at the time. According to the magazine, she held a household policy with the company’s Queensland branch.
Although I couldn’t find us insuring any one-man rockets, Commercial Union did insure a contraption called an Effectophone. It was described as “a box about 4ft x 3 ft x 3ft6" containing a contrivance to produce various sounds to accompany pictures on the screen such as rain, gun fire and wind” which was taken from one cinema to another. If Bond films had been around in 1924, when the insurance was taken out, they would certainly have made use of it.
Commercial Union also gives us links to genuine Bond technology through its investment in Airship Industries which produced the Skyship 500 airship. The airship appeared in View to a Kill in 1985 as Max Zorin’s escape vehicle which was eventually destroyed thanks to the actions of Roger Moore as Bond. According to Commercial Union’s staff magazine in 1982, the company’s investment was part of a scheme to invest in venture capital projects and provide support for high risk companies which would otherwise face difficulty obtaining finances.
Commercial Union also insured a vehicle belonging to 007 himself. The Aston Martin originally driven by Sean Connery as Bond in Goldfinger was later owned by one of the company’s agents in Chislehurst Kent.
The agent, who purchased the car after it had been ‘tamed’ to standard DB5 specifications, set about reinstalling the defence mechanisms before selling it on to an American collector. Insurance for the trip to the US was arranged through Commercial Union and the staff magazine was excited to note that the ignition key was on a CU branded key ring.
The extract below gives some details of the car’s special features and states that it was 15 feet long (with the battering rams retracted).
I’ll end with a General Accident advertisement from 1979 which always makes me think of Bond films.
Wouldn’t Jaws have loved that set of teeth?
