After writing a couple of award winning and broadcast shorts whilst at university and spending a while developing a couple of feature scripts for various companies I fell into comedy writing by (almost) serendipity. The BBC had launched a new sitcom writers scheme which I did quite well with and from that I was then fortunate enough to get a great agent.

The protracted process of working on a feature was also less agreeable to me as a writer than the often (but not always) quicker turnaround of comedy. And as the comedy world has so many avenues – sketches, sitcom, stand up, gags, film, TV, advertising, radio etc. – I have worked in and around those arenas since.

Yes. However, as the book explains - my allegiances are certainly to the films as they were my starting pistol to Bond on so many levels. But as the books are the tail that wags the 007 dog, they are vital to the world of the character – and perhaps more so now than for quite a while. Years ago as a burgeoning kid fan I was certainly less familiar with the books and tried to read them all at too young an age which put me right off. The correct etiquette to eat a plate of scrambled eggs in polite company was always going to be a tad less vital to my nine year old self compared to Jedis, Ewoks, Supermen and Roger Moores.

Of course there will be nine year olds who can get through all the Fleming books and totally understand and appreciate that world. But in the mid-1980s I was not one of them. Yet, as one gets older you also appreciate the world of Fleming - his tics, spurs, motivations, influences and story drives. To me Fleming is a constant essay on “experience”. The books are dripping in another man’s proficiencies and worldly outlooks. I know the Bond producers are always keen to return to the books. Not solely for titles, characters or incident but for timbre, attitude and context. There is certainly a lot of Fleming in Skyfall. I don’t mean 007’s parents, his ancestral home and allusions to his formative years, but the richness of character, how Bond’s nine-to-five can indeed inform us about the man underneath and the bravura depth of devilment as seen in Raoul Silva.

He was my first. And none of us forget our first! From the moment I cracked through my Bond fan egg I saw that Bollinger-supping, flared behemoth that was Roger Moore and he was my Bond. He was also the Bond of choice when I learnt and understood about my grandfather’s association with the films, so maybe there is something attributable too. As the book underlines throughout, Moore’s take is often lampooned and easily dismissed (often by himself). However, the wry mugging at hotel receptionists and various cleavages the world over in every one of his films still contains a serious spy beneath.

His Bond is one of utter diplomacy, consideration and a canny judge of character. Moore’s Bond has a great tic of losing his temper with the villainy on show and cuts through the spin. “Get on your feet, General”, he demands in Octopussy, “you’re going to stop that train”. There is a reason he got an early contract with Metro Goldwyn-Mayer. He was complete matinee idol fodder, a movie star who knew how to work the camera. It takes a lot of skill to appear to be doing very little. But you cannot do nothing. Not with a 35mm lens staring at you. And Moore (like Michael Caine) knows how to time every tic, double take and – yes – eyebrow raise. If an actor can ‘get’ comedy then he can do anything.

Moore was also perfect for the times and he never lost the Broccolis and the studios any money. Despite the detractors he left the franchise in a great shape with the studios confident enough to assist Eon Productions in moving forward on The Living Daylights. The faithful trivia hounds can trade in “he did too many” and “such and such a film was not written for him” anecdotes but I look at the films made, not the what-ifs. Connery may have proved the box office worth of Bond, but Moore proved the longevity of it – that with the right actor and creative mind-sets, these films can be both project and product. That is not just the Bond brand. That is Moore himself.

I do. But you will have to get the book to find out! And as there is a difference between favourite and best (or I suggest there is for reasons of total fan boy greed), then there are two that stand out for me.

It is a masterful Bond film. Obviously Sam Mendes needs to take many bows for what he did to the series and that one film, but Skyfall is the end result of so many creative strengths (the  writers, designers, cast, location managers and of course the producers fifty year warm up) all pulling together. There was also a serendipitous momentum to 2012 that was all about Britain’s past and future – perfect for a character like 007 that has always straddled senses of the new and the classical. That works less to explain the film’s success in every global territory, but the sense of story, character and location was near sublime.

Nothing can be throwaway in a Bond movie anymore (certainly not in Craig’s reign). I imagine Bond 24 will keep a careful eye on its sense of place and purpose. Supporting characters, the set pieces, the design and writing all now need to echo the themes of Bond’s own arc. There is a raw, contemporary honesty to Skyfall – mentions of child sex trafficking, a villain with a very non-Blofeld agenda and a sexual attraction to Bond unnecessary tribunals masking government inadequacies and a buoyed up Britain not afraid to stand tall again in the global community. Catching Bullets discusses the “second album” dilemma for the Broccoli camp. Bond 24 has that hurdle like never before. But if anyone has experience of “what next” it is Barbara Broccoli, Michael G Wilson and the Eon team.

Nearly every element of the characterisations, narrative and backdrops of Skyfall had an airtight justification. That sense of cause and effect has been a real toy of the Craig films – where what Bond does affects the whole film (from stopping a Miami super plane from being blown up causing Le Chiffre to have to get to Casino Royale to try and claw back some funds to every key death – or not - in Quantum of Solace presented as 007’s vital learning curve). Bond is no longer an observer to the plot, hitch-hiking a ride on someone else’s story or global dilemma. He is the plot.

For me the key scene that typifies the Craig era is that first encounter with Raoul Silva. Written by John Logan, it shows a potential future path for Bond that is loaded with barbed wit, venom, a real sense of cinema, an adult attitude to sexuality (“we can either eat each other” – cue Silva’s knowing smirk) and a realisation that making a Bond film work need not require millions of Bond-like quirks just a protagonist at the centre of the story.

No. Not at all. I partly believed my reappraisal of the films could find favour (the hit rate of traffic when previously doing so online suggested so) but the exploration of the personal side of the book – my own childhood, my grandfather’s relationship with Eon, the specific historical contexts of catching these cinematic bullets, the eccentricities of a cub scout mourning a torn Roger Moore t-shirt – have been met with great comebacks and the sort I never once envisaged. Of course the timings of the fiftieth anniversary helped, but were not make or break. Bond is such a vital touchstone in so many people’s experiences of cinema, cinema-going, family memories, television memories, first dates and last dates. How we have all caught those fifty years of Broccoli bullets is a social history in itself of film consumption and spectatorship.

So a tale that felt specific to my 1980s VHS generation is actually universal for anyone who came to Bond at any time. I have been blessed with people’s responses and am already in contact with a swathe of new faces, other folk’s anecdotes and new friendships literally the world over. And to get the support from Barbara Broccoli, Mark Gatiss and Maud Adams was the olive in the vodka Martini. That all fell into a lovely place very quickly, not just for me and the book, but the memories of key people no longer with us. I was sat at the Olympics when Barbara messaged “Cubby would be proud”. As the crowds around me were becoming quite vocal at the Greco-Roman Wrestling final (don’t ask!), I was the only one fighting back the tears.

I have now been in contact with a number of EON and 007 alumni old and new who either remember my grandfather, want to reinforce how working on a Bond is not like any other job or have just enjoyed the book and want to say thanks. It all combines to create what I can only bracket as a great privilege.

The cover was always a great concern of mine, especially as everyone was saying I would not have much say on such things so be brave. There are [sadly] so many Bond books out there with lacklustre covers. Early on my publishers – Splendid Books – were confident and kind enough to let me steer some of the thinking behind the cover. Ideally I wanted none of the tired old tropes - so I did loosely suggest no tuxedos, no guns, no Martini glasses and no Aston Martins.

I also suggested a colour palette (I was not long back from San Francisco and love that parched Golden Gate red) and sent on quite a lot of vintage film posters and book cover art that had the right retro vibe. I wanted a cover that looked like a well-loved film poster, complete with dog-eared edges and pin holes. The book is all about being a fan. Part of that are the film posters and artwork film fans adorn their lives with.

A final caveat was “if in doubt, think Mad Men!”. Thankfully – and these things tend not go in the author’s favour – the design team based in Southern England had someone who was ideal at that time and came up with five ideas. Without asking each other, the Splendid Books team and I agreed on the same image in a shot. Though I do remember opening the file and throwing my hand to my mouth in amused shock at the subtext of the image (that bullet so near the woman’s mouth, allegedly) and initially thought, “we can’t, can we?!”. But for a series that has forever flirted with adult suggestion, it was suddenly very apt.
With that locked down I was able to ask if we could add some faux film poster credits. So like all good things, it was a mix of luck, timing, the designer’s skills and then a bit more luck for good measure.

The closing of your book indicates a familiar statement that 'Mark O'Connell will return'. Is there anything you are currently working on at the moment or in the near future?

It is all early days, but the book may have a future life - which was certainly not on the cards. So seeing how that pans out may be taking up my immediate future. I am also circling a second book as the process with Catching Bullets was such a rewarding experience and there is so much more to tell, not just with Bond but – as the 1970s ad-men would say – beyond. I can now identify with the Broccoli’s “second album” dilemma.