Ian Fleming makes no mention of the watch worn by James Bond in his short story, ”Quantum of Solace.”
No brand, no descriptive detail; as a matter of fact, 007 never even gives it a glance to tell the time here.
But Ian Fleming did associate a very real wristwatch with this story, according to one of his biographies — Ian Fleming: The Man Behind James Bond, by Andrew Lycett.
Blanche Blackwell, Mr. Fleming’s Jamaican companion, was the source of the “Quantum of Solace” story, which was “about a real-life police inspector in Jamaica,” told at Goldeneye.
“By way of thanks,” Mr. Lycett writes, “Ian promised her a ‘fat present,’ a surprising way to describe a slim, attractive Cartier wristwatch.”
The timing of this reference appears to have been somewhere in 1957 or 1958.
Curiously, this is the only reference to Ian Fleming and a wristwatch by brand name of any kind in the 450+ pages of the Andrew Lycett biography.
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