‘True or false’ with UoE lecturer Kim Sherwood: Bond author responds to online rumours

As part of our latest interview with Kim Sherwood, I sat down to get the whole story on some of the most viral rumours about her.

“True or False,” I ask first, “your grandfather played 007.”

“True, in a way, because he is Sir Hilary Bray in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. He dubs Lazenby for about a third of that film [when Bond is disguised as Bray] because Lazenby couldn’t do his accent. I can’t entirely verify this rumour, but I think he also dubs Lazenby for other scenes – including the love scenes, which I find strange. I haven’t listened that intently.”

“Your undergraduate dissertation was on Virginia Woolf?”

“False – it was a creative writing dissertation! It was the beginning of A Wild and True Relation!”

A Wild and True Relation is Kim’s latest historical novel, a swashbuckling tale set on the high seas, available at all major book retailers.

“You learned to drive on a Formula 1 racing track?”

“Obviously, my family thought it was a terrible idea for me to learn to drive at 150mph. I thought it was too good an opportunity to pass up. So we get to the track, and they ask, ‘how much experience do you have behind the wheel?’, to which I say, ‘I literally don’t know how to turn this car on.’ And by the end, I was going really fast! And the instructor said, ‘that was great, Kim, but you do need to remember to brake.’ Small details.

“That is now all the driving I’ve done, and I’m sort of tempted to leave it there. So for the rest of my life I can say, ‘I can’t drive, but I can drive a sports car.’ It can’t get better!”

“True or False: you wrote a section of A Spy Like Me at Agatha Christie’s house.”

“True! It was in Agatha Christie’s garret, at the top of her house. The staff said to me, ‘so how many books have you written?’, and I said, ‘three,’ and they said, ‘so not as many as Agatha.’ I mean – give me time! It was amazing though. She called it the loveliest place in the world, and it is.

“I love Agatha Christie; all of my novels start with a death or a near-death because of her advice to get to the body as quickly as possible.”

“Your favourite Kim Sherwood novel is Testament?”

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‘In an early draft of Double or Nothing, there was a cameo appearance by Vivienne Michel.’

“Your first ever story was a spy mystery about your neighbours?”

“Yes, true. I used to pretend that I was a spy and play these games of spying on our neighbours. I would then make up stories about them. Thankfully, they were very tolerant.”

“You didn’t accidentally witness any infidelity or cause any marital spats?”

“No, thankfully! I didn’t break up any marriages.”

“True or False: your decompression activity at the end of a day of writing is Mario Kart.”

“False – although that sounds great. When I delivered the first draft of Hurricane Room, that day we adopted our greyhound, Pat. (It’s now a rule, if you finish a trilogy, that you have to adopt a greyhound.) We brought him back from the rescue centre, and my decompression was to fall asleep with him on the floor in relief.”

‘You once gave a copy of A Spy Like Me to someone as a Secret Santa present?’

[I was curious about this one because that would not be a very secret Secret Santa present…]

“False…although I did give a copy to my sister to give as a Secret Santa present.”

“And finally, when the next Bond film comes out, you’ve said you’ll have to wear a disguise to go and see it?”

“Completely false. The great thing about being a writer is that you’re known to your readers in a very niche way. At Bond events, you feel famous for the day, which is really fun, and then you step back onto the street and nobody knows who you are. That is a very healthy balance in life!”