Major Valentine Fleming (17 February 1882 – 20 May 1917) was a British Conservative Member of Parliament who was killed in World War I. He was the father of authors Peter Fleming and Ian Fleming, the latter of whom created the James Bond character. Biography Early years Born in Newport-on-Tay, Fife, Fleming was the son of Sarah (née Hindmarsh) and Robert Fleming, a wealthy Scottish banker and founder of the merchant bank Robert Fleming & Co. Fleming was educated at Eton College and Magdalen College, Oxford. He married Evelyn Beatrice Sainte Croix Rose in London on 15 February 1906. Together they had four sons: adventurer and travel writer Peter (father of actress Lucy Fleming), novelist Ian (author of the James Bond novels), Richard (whose son is billionaire Adam Fleming), and Michael. From 1906 to 1911, the family lived at Braziers Park in Ipsden, Oxfordshire. On his election to parliament, they moved to Pitt House on Hampstead Heath in 1910. He was a Member of Parliament for Henley from 1910 to 1917. In 1916 they built a shooting lodge at Arnisdale, near Glenelg in Inverness-shire in the Scottish Highlands. Military service At the outbreak of World War I Valentine was a Captain in 'C' Squadron, Queen's Own Oxfordshire Hussars, a yeomanry regiment, having received his commission on 30 June 1908. After a month of training the regiment was sent to France on 22 September 1914. He wrote a "brisk and breezy account" to a fellow officer in England in 1914 about the start of the war. Initially the regiment had little more than "a tour of the principal French watering places" followed by a fortnight hanging about Dunkirk and Saint-Omer ("Very dull"), but then on 30 October were told by General de Lisle to: occupy a line of trenches on the right of Messines. This was disagreeable as projectiles of every variety were exploding with a disquieting regularity all over the ground of our advance. .... Off we went, over some very holding ground, three squadrons in a succession of rushes in extended lines, the regularity of which was still disturbed by the wire! (Never move without nippers on the Sam Browne belt!). Luckliy we had no man hit – I can’t think why – which put some heart into the men .... we began to wonder how to fix the bloody bayonets with which we had been issued two days