Fleming Exhibition Had 129,000 Visitors.

 The organisers of ‘For Your Eyes Only: Ian Fleming and James Bond’, an exhibition held at the Imperial War Museum in London, have revealed exclusively to the James Bond International Fan Club that a massive total of 129,000 visitors attended the event during its 11-month run.

The exhibition, which ran from 17 th April, 2008 to 1 st March, 2009, was mounted to celebrate the centenary of Ian Fleming’s birth and proved to be hugely popular with the public. According to the Imperial War Museum, the total of 129,000 visitors “is an extremely high volume for a charging exhibition”.

There was also a high turn-over of Bond-related merchandise sold in the Imperial War Museum’s souvenir shop. ‘For Your Eyes Only’ analysed the career of Bond author Ian Fleming and also traced the wider cultural impact of his famous creation James Bond on society. It had some rare Fleming material on display, including Fleming’s desk and chair from his Jamaican home ‘Goldeneye’, the actual jacket worn by Ian Fleming on the Dieppe Raid on the French coast in 1942, and the Colt Python .357 Magnum revolver presented to the Bond author by the Colt Company in 1964.

Various movie-related items could also be seen in the exhibition, including the ‘blood-splattered’ shirt worn by the latest 007, Daniel Craig, in his debut EON Bond film ‘Casino Royale’. The EON archive also kindly loaned other iconic Bond props to the exhibition, including prototypes of the now-famous flick-knife shoes worn by Rosa Klebb in ‘From Russia, With Love’.

The lavishly-illustrated tie-in book, ‘For Your Eyes Only: Ian Fleming and James Bond’, by Ben Macintyre, will be released in paperback in the UK on 6 th April.