Francis Gerard Luis Fairlie (1 November 1899 – 31 March 1983) was an English writer and scriptwriter on whom 'Sapper' (H. C. McNeile) supposedly based the character of Bulldog Drummond. Ian Fleming stated that James Bond was influenced partially by the Drummond character.[1][2] After Sapper's death in 1937, Fairlie continued the Bulldog Drummond book series.
Fairlie was born in Kensington, London. His grandfather was Army officer and golfer James Ogilvie Fairlie.[citation needed] He was educated at Downside School in Somerset and the Royal Military College, Sandhurst and was commissioned in December 1918 in the Scots Guards.[3] He was both an Army boxing champion and a member of the Great Britain team in the bobsleigh at the 1924 Winter Olympics at Chamonix, France; his team finished fifth.
He married Joan Roskell in 1923 and became a journalist and screenwriter. In the Second World War, he served as an army officer with the Royal Sussex Regiment.[4] The French awarded Fairlie with a Croix de Guerre during the Second World War[5] while he was undertaking intelligence work. In addition to the Drummond series Fairlie wrote series books about Victor Caryll, Johnny Macall and Mr Malcolm. He died in East Lavington in West Sussex.
James Bond is the culmination of an important but much-maligned tradition in English literature. As a boy, Fleming devoured the Bulldog Drummond tales of Lieutenant Colonel Herman Cyril McNeile (aka "Sapper") and the Richard Hannay stories of John Buchan. His genius was to repackage these antiquated adventures to fit the fashion of postwar Britain ... In Bond, he created a Bulldog Drummond for the jet age.