Fleming named Bond villains after school bullies

James Bond’s criminal mastermind enemies Blofeld and Scaramanga were named after prefects who terrorised Ian Fleming’s nephew at school, a member of the Blofeld family has said. It was previously thought that Blofeld was named after John Blofeld, brother of cricket commentator Henry, because he drank at the same members’ club as Fleming in the Fifties.

However, John’s son, the author Tom Blofeld, has suggested a new hypothesis that ties together the cat-stroking supervillain and The Man with the Golden Gun baddy, Scaramanga. Looking at pictures of former pupils at his old school, Sunningdale Prep, Tom Blofeld discovered his father pictured in the same class of 1947 photograph as a “rough-looking type called Scaramanga”.

Four years later, in the class of 1951, was Fleming’s nephew. Blofeld said it was his belief that the younger Fleming stayed during the school holidays with his writer uncle. “And one day when Uncle Ian peered up over his G&T [gin and tonic] long enough to ask his nephew how he was getting on at school, he was told that it was perfectly ghastly because two prefects, Blofeld and Scaramanga, were making his life a misery.”

Using their names as enemies of James Bond was therefore Fleming’s way of “taking revenge on behalf of his nephew”, according to Blofeld. The new Bond film has provoked rumours of the return of Ernst Stavro Blofeld, since its title, Spectre, alludes to the sinister global terrorist organisation led by the criminal genius. Actor Christoph Waltz has denied that his character, Franz Oberhauser, is an alias for Blofeld.