“So, we meet again, Mr Bond…”
This week I learned that wouldn’t happen. In fact, I’d never meet him for the first time. The legendary Sir Roger Moore has shuffled off this mortal coil to the great expensive-looking finale in the sky.
I’ll be honest, it’s left me feeling sad. His passing marked, for me, the end of an era.
You see, though others hold Connery dear or have a soft spot for Dalton or Brosnan. Mr Moore, will forever be my Bond. He may not have had Timothy’s good looks, Sean’s alpha male dynamism or, for that matter, Daniel’s lunchbox, yet, to me, Roger was the man.
To put this into context, I’ve always been something of a Bond obsessive. The bit of the brain many other men leave for football is, in my case, stuffed with Bond facts and figures. Something about this most cinematic of franchises clicked with me and has never left – thanks, mainly, to Mr Moore. During the hard times in my life I’ve always looked to these films for (A Quantum of) solace. I know them backwards, I speak the lines along with the characters karaoke-style. Like a comfortable slipper, I put one on and know I’m at home.
But there’ll be no more Moore, and that makes me sad. I had planned that watching Roger’s canon of Bond-fare would be a pivotal rites-of-passage moment for Sam and I. A father & son bonding (no pun intended) moment. It’s just a shame that Sam will always know Sir Roger as someone who’s dead. I don’t mean this churlishly. I was born 6 months before John Lennon died. My mum, now sadly no longer with us either, was a HUGE Beatles fan. I mean obsessive. So John was a big part of the landscape of my childhood, but as someone ethereal, a person I shared negligible time on the planet with. I knew he was important but always felt robbed by the impossibility of a (highly improbable) meeting with him. So it must be with Sam and Sir Roger.
You see, in Moore’s Bond, I learnt a lot about being a man. He was confident, cocky sometimes, but only with a heavy dose of irony. He didn’t take himself too seriously. Moore’s Bond wasn’t so tied up in his own machismo that he was impenetrable to others. Most of the time, when he got into a fight, you worried for him. He threw punches that looked as threatening as WI coffee morning. When he did a karate kick I worried he’d throw his back out. His hair was always perfect, even when his acting wasn’t. His Bond was a bit crap at times, and I loved him all the more (Moore) for it!
I’m no flag waver. I don’t like the Last Night of the Proms, or Union Jack underpants. You’ll never hear me putting that extra syllable in to England (Eng-er-land). But that moment, in The Spy Who Loved Me, where Sir Roger skis over the edge of the cliff and falls into the abyss – only to open a parachute emblazoned with the Union Jack. Well, it makes the hairs on my neck stand every time – and I’ve seen it hundreds. It makes me proud to be British. British in the way Moore’s Bond was, aware of a great tradition, with a tongue firmly in its cheek.
Sir Roger was, of course, much more than Bond. He did amazing work for children all around the world through UNICEF – a role which made him (in my eyes) far more heroic that Jimmy B ever did.
So what’s all this got to do with being a Dad? I’m aware Sam will find his own heroes, people who represent values he aspires to emulate. Whoever the role models Sam chooses are, I hope he gets as much pleasure from them as I have from Sir Roger’s work over the years.
For me, nobody did it better.
RIP Mr Moore.
Still Sinking…
The Out of Depth Dad.
@Outofdepth_dad
The Out of Depth Dad 