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« on: November 07, 2018, 04:58:42 AM »
Googling Michael Occleshaw I came across in Google Books, Lost Eagle, The Untold Story of Tatiana.. I see here in AP there was a thread on it but it was all about the fictionalized part of Tatiana's life and which I gather was done rather distastefully and disrespectful of her. I'm not sure if I want to read that part, but the author also has a section of her rescue and it's along the same lines as Occleshaw's story. But the astonishing part is he claims this story was hidden in full view in Ian Fleming's 1957 novel From Russia With Love. So many things that Occleshaw uncovered in 1990, this author claims Ian Fleming slipped into his novel, without spelling things out, back in 1957. You recall Fleming was a secret agent, so if there were secret British files as Occleshaw claims, he could have been the man to see them.
Lost Eagle lists eight coincidences from Tatiana's rescue story that appear in Fleming's story. Most glaring is his heroine is named Tatiana Romanova, also when he needs a date for something, he uses Tatiana's birthday, Alexi's birthday, and Larissa's wedding day date. He uses that date for James Bond's and his Tatiana's wedding date. The author speculates both Noel Coward and Sergei Rachmaninov, who knew Tatiana, may have met Larissa in Lydd and they told her story to Fleming. Fleming's Tatiana lived in Istanbul, just like Larissa, too, and at one point Fleming calls her that Russian princess.
Needless to say, I just ordered the book, and a dvd of From Russia With Love.