Desmond Llewelyn. ‘Q’. 1914 -1999. Although he is most famous for his 17 appearances in the Bond films starting with From Russia with Love in 1963 and ending with The World is not Enough in 1999, his other films include A Night to Remember, Cleopatra and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. His career after RADA started with Ask a Policeman in 1939, a Will Hay film, following which World War II started and he served in the 1st Battalion The Royal Welch Fusiliers as a 2nd lieutenant. Forming part of the British Expeditionary Force sent to France shortly after the war had started, they were involved in the retreat to Dunkirk during which Llewelyn was captured and spent the rest of the war as a POW.
Although he played the irascible gadget king of the Bond films, Llewelyn was ill at ease with modern technology and confessed to finding it almost impossible to programme his washing machine. Just before his death Llewelyn had said that he was prepared to play ‘Q’ again if asked, but this was not to be. However a little while earlier he had completed Error 2000 which was his first non-Bond film for over twenty years. In it he gets to save the world by himself. In 1957 the Llewelyn family moved to Whitelands in Battle where Desmond became friends with the Dean, Arthur Naylor. Pamela, Desmond’s wife had inherited Linkwell in Bexhill Old Town to which the family moved in 1965 and where he lived until his death. He became a much-loved and respected figure in the Old Town and was a vice- president of the Old Town Preservation Society. He was always ready to help local causes.
Photo: By Desmond_Llewelyn_01.jpg: Towpilotderivative work: MachoCarioca (talk) – Desmond_Llewelyn_01.jpg, CC BY-SA 3.0, Link
