Lucy Fleming & Simon Williams’ Travel Secrets | Sailing Across the Atlantic at 50

Recorded live at the HoT Podcast Festival in Henley 🎙️ Tanya Rose is joined by acting couple Lucy Fleming and Simon Williams for a wonderfully entertaining conversation filled with extraordinary travel stories, family history and adventures around the world. Lucy, daughter of Brief Encounter actress Celia Johnson and writer and explorer Peter Fleming, shares stories from her remarkable family history. Her uncle Ian Fleming created James Bond, and Lucy recalls visiting his Jamaican home, GoldenEye, where she sat at the desk where he wrote the Bond novels. She also reveals how she entered a competition to sail around the world, despite not really wanting to, and ended up spending five and a half weeks at sea from Cape Town to Boston, celebrating her 50th birthday along the way. Simon, best known for his role as James Bellamy in Upstairs, Downstairs, shares why his first visit to New York completely blew his mind, memories of travelling through China and eating oysters straight from the rocks in Oman, and why meeting the people who live in a destination is one of the greatest pleasures of travel. Together, Lucy and Simon take Tanya from the tea country and wildlife of Sri Lanka to leopard spotting in Rajasthan and a magical New Year’s Day watching the sun rise over the Himalayas. Plus, Lucy reveals how her father became known as “Professor Nitpick” when Ian Fleming sent him his James Bond manuscripts to read and make notes on, and the couple share the travel advice they’ve picked up from a lifetime of adventures. CHAPTERS 00:00 Peter Fleming: traveller, adventurer & wartime deception 00:23 Welcome to Travel Secrets LIVE00:52 Introducing Lucy Fleming & Simon Williams 02:06 Posting Letters to the Moon & Lucy’s extraordinary family 04:40 Travel Secret #1: New York 06:07 Arriving in New York by sea 07:05 Lucy’s most unexpected adventure: sailing the Atlantic 09:58 Simon’s experience filming in China 11:49 Ian Fleming, Naval Intelligence & the origins of James Bond 12:47 Oysters on the beach in Oman 13:54 The Savoy Grill, The Ivy & Noel Coward 16:18 Lucy & Simon’s top travel tips 17:25 Why they love Sri Lanka 18:54 Leopard spotting in Rajasthan 20:04 The wartime letters behind Posting Letters to the Moon 23:39 Lucy’s poignant visit to GoldenEye in Jamaica 27:31 The photograph that sums up travel for Lucy & Simon 28:02 New Year’s Day in the Himalayas 29:06 Watching their children leave on their gap years List of places mentioned: • New York, USA • Cape Town, South Africa • Boston, USA • China • India • Oman • Sri Lanka • Galle, Sri Lanka • Rajasthan, India • Jamaica • GoldenEye, Jamaica • The Himalayas Listen to Travel Secrets wherever you get your podcasts and subscribe to the channel for more conversations with some of the world’s most fascinating travellers. With special thanks to Hot Podcast Festival and Good Full Media for such a wonderful evening, Gillan Williams for capturing it all, and Lara Shardlow for the wonderful photographs.