Anonymous

Marc Haynes recalls meeting Roger Moore... Or was it James bond?

$As an seven year old in about 1953, in the days before Firs| Class Lounges at airpons, l was with my grandad in N'Ice Airport and saw Roger Mauve smino a the departure gale, reading a oaoan I told my granddad I'd just seen James Bond and asked if we could go ovev so I could get his autograph My grandad had no idea who James Band or Roger Moore were, so we walked over and he oopoeo me in from oI Roger Moore, wIIh the wards “my grandson says you‘re famous. Can you sign this?“ As charming as you‘d expect, Roger asks my name and duly signs the back o1 my pIane ticket, a IuIsome nate IuII oI best wishes I'm ecstatic, but as we head back to our seats, I gIanee down ax the signamre. It's hard to decipher I! but it definitely doesn't say ‘James Bond‘. My g(andad Iooks at it, haII ﬁgures out it says 'cher Mcore‘ - I have absoImer no idea whn mat is, and my hearts sinks. I IeII my grandad he's signed it wrong, thaI he’s pm someone eIse's name - so my grandad heads back to Roger Moore, holding the ticket which he's only I‘usI signed, I remember staying by our seaIs and my grandad saying "he says you’ve signed the wrong name. He says your name is James Bond." Roger Moore's lace crink‘ed up wim realisation and he beckoned me over. When I was by his knee, he lesnt over, Iouked from side to side, raised an eyebrow and In a hushed voice said (a me, "I have to sign my name as 'Roger Moore‘ because o‘herwls \oleld migm find om I was here." HE asked me not to teII anyone [ha I d Iust seen James Bond, and he thanked me for keeping his secret. I wenI backta our seats, my nerves absolutely jangling wiIn deligm. My grandad asked me if he‘d signed 'James Eond.‘ No, I said. I'd gm i: wrong. I was working wIIh James Bond now. Many, many years later, I was working as a sorIptwriIer on a recording that invoIved UNICEF, and Roger Moore was doing a piece (a camera as an ambassador. He was completely Iover and while the cameraman were sening up, |qu him In passing the story of when I met him in Nice Airport. He was happylo hearII, and he had a chuckle and said "Well, I don't remember om I'm mad you gm m meet James Bond." So that was lovely. And then he did something so brilliant After the ﬁlming, he walked past me in the corridor, heading om to his car - but as he gm IeveI, he paused, looked both ways, raised an eyebrow and In a hushed voIce said, "01 course I remember our meeting in Nice. But I didn‘t say anything In there, because those oameramen - any one oI them could be working for Elofeld." [was as de‘ighted at 30 as I had been at 7. What a man. What a tremendous man. Marc Haynes$