Bond, Goldfinger, and a die-cast Aston Martin DB5...
Bryce Main
Multi-genre author, mostly Crime fiction. Scottish. Been writing longer than I’ve been wearing big boy’s trousers.
The brain’s a funny old thing. I was under the impression that any memory I had before my teenage years was lost to me forever.
It was as though my declining little grey cells had conspired to make my time in short trousers a country I could never revisit.
All the toys, all the adventures, all the skinned knees and busted bones…all the cowboys, all the Indians, all the G.I. Jo’s and illicit cigarettes…all the butterflies in my gut, the tingles in my groin, and the music in my head…all gone as though they had never existed.
It was as though I was born, I blinked, and when I opened my eyes again, it was 1969 and I was eighteen.
But it wasn’t. It was now and I was seventy and watching a programme on the telly about the cinematic history of James Bond and his legendary car.
And then and a soft breeze kicked up between my ears and a hole appeared in the fog that, over the years, had made its home there.
And I remembered my die-cast metal gold Aston Martin DB5.
Goldfinger edition. Precision built 1:46 scale. Complete with ejector seat, rotating number plates, retractable bullet-proof rear shield, extending front over-riders, and pop-out machine guns.
Along with a set of instructions hidden in a secret compartment.
The coolest, and most famous Corgi product release of all time. Or even longer.
And I had one.
I must have been about eight or nine.
But I was definitely 007.
With a licence to kill. Or at lease bruise quite substantially.
Danger was my middle name (along with Joseph).
Who gave the DB5 to me and what happened to it afterwards are both shrouded in mystery.
Like a secret trapped in time, never to be revealed.
But, for a brief moment, I had in my grubby little mitts on the most iconic partner a secret agent could ever wish for. And we played a deadly game. Until tea.
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As I went to sleep later that night, I wondered what other memories the hole in the fog would reveal.
Or whether my declining little grey cells would make me just another forgetful old bastard once again, come morning.
So, before I closed my eyes, I picked up the notebook and pen I keep on my bedside cabinet…opened it on a blank page…and scrawled DB5 in the top right-hand corner.
Before the hole in the damned fog closed up again…
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The above is an extract from my as yet unpublished (and mostly unwritten) book Ad Interruptus.
Like its sisters Ad Lib, and Ad Infinitum (NOW AVAILABLE), it's about creativity, advertising, life, and lots of stuff in between.
You'll find Ad Infinitum, Ad Lib, and Ad Hoc on Amazon, along with my other books, Love & Coffee and Heaven Help Us. In print and ebook. Waiting for you.
And the wonderful thing about all three Ad books is… it doesn’t matter where you finish any chapter or episode.
Because it will always be pretty damned close to where you started it…
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Ad Lib: https://amzn.to/2kd4LKf.
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Love & Coffee: https://amzn.to/28IWaHq
Heaven Help Us: https://amzn.to/2nkQ1Jk
Grab a coffee, grab a chair, and grab a sneaky peek.
Then grab a copy...
Integrated Project & Digital Programme Manager
3 年Bryce I can entirely relate. I watched the programme and had the same reaction in recalling my DB5 - although I recall it as silver so I obviously didn’t have the Goldfinger special edition. I did also have a secret agent briefcase comprising everything a budding 003.5 could need but in plastic. Thanks for the memory. Tel
Manager Graphics Design and Production
3 年What an exciting read this morning. Exciting because it also brought back memories of my own Matchbox DB5. But even more exciting for me was getting the 007 toy kit for Christmas. It came with the count down gun and shoulder holster. I would sit and gaze at the packing daydreaming of being agent 007.