Clock inscribed to Noel Coward, Cole Lesley and Graham Payn.

£16,250 · Offered by Shapero Rare Books

Signed

Festival of Britain influence mid-1950's oak mantle clock, customised by Fleming to incorporate the regimental badge of the Intelligence Corps and given by Ian and Ann Fleming to the Coward household at Blue Harbour, Jamaica. Inscription reads: 'From London with love' [Stencilled in white gouache, then signed in autograph] 'Ian - Ann / Blue Harbour / For / Noel / Coley / Graham' The recipients were Noel Coward, Cole Lesley and Graham Payn. Lesley was Coward's secretary and Payn his long time partner. The three of them had been instrumental in trying to cover up the increasingly intense relationship between Fleming and the then Ann, Lady Rothermere, and the clock would have been given by the now married Flemings as a joke to recognise their role in this subterfuge. Coward documented these sometimes farcical episodes in his diary: 'There have been great carryings on about Lady R and Commander F. She arrived in a blaze of Jamaican publicity and announced that she was staying with me. So when a Life photographer arrived here we had to send Little Lad [to Goldeneye] chaud pied to fetch her.There then began a very natty high comedy scene in which she kept forget-ting she was a house guest and asking us what we had been doing all the morning etc. We then all traipsed over tto Montego Bay for a night and Elle et Lui discreetly (i.e. indiscreetly) had breakfast together on the balcony of his room! After this I descended upon them both and gave them a very stern lecture indeed. I must

• Binding: Hardcover

Found via Rare Books Intel, a search across rare-book dealers, auction houses and marketplaces worldwide.