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Simon Munro Kerr in Doctor No
Simon Munro Kerr in Doctor No

About the Author

Simon Munro Kerr

Simon Munro Kerr was born in Scotland in 1940 and educated in England. He toured Canada and the U.S. in the late 50’s and then returned to Scotland and joined the Cameron Highlanders in 1959.

SMK with the Queen's Own Cameron Highlanders and the Evzonoi, of the Greek Royal Guard, at Redford Barracks for the Edinburgh Tattoo in 1960.
SMK with the Queen's Own Cameron Highlanders and the Evzonoi, of the Greek Royal Guard, at Redford Barracks for the Edinburgh Tattoo in 1960.

He studied at the Stanislavski Studio in London in 1961 and worked in black and white TV, theatre and film. He was the first person to say the name “James Bond” in Doctor No.

SMK with Leslie Caron at the San Sebastian Film Festival in 1963. We shared a birthday and I was there with a very successful German film directed by Ladislao Vajda and called Das Feuerschiff, in which I had played the part of a pathological mute killer with James Robertson Justice.
SMK with Leslie Caron at the San Sebastian Film Festival in 1963. "We share a birthday and I was there with a very successful German film directed by Ladislao Vajda and called Das Feuerschiff, in which I had played the part of a pathological mute killer with James Robertson Justice".

In 1968, while in Hollywood, he gave up acting and moved with his wife and their two daughters to Nova Scotia, where he became a commercial lobster fisherman and restaurateur. This was followed by a move to Italy in 1971 with a third daughter, where he opened another restaurant in Porto Santo Stefano.

In 1972 he worked briefly for Court Line in Spain, upgrading their chain of hotels until their spectacular collapse in 1973. He stayed on in Spain exporting cement to Nigeria and, in 1977, joined Interbras in London, developing new markets for Brazil in West Africa.

With Cecilia in Madrid, 1974
With Cecilia in Madrid, 1974.

In 1982 he and his family moved to Scotland where he and his wife, Cecilia, worked together on upgrading small country hotels. Tragically Cecilia died in 1988 and he sold their house in Dumfriesshire and bought a Stevenson Lighthouse keeper’s house on the Isle of Jura. There he worked on rebuilding and restoring the house and started on the first draft of this book, buying over a hundred books of the period for research — as it was before the internet and the nearest proper library was a hundred miles away, in Glasgow.

The Lighthouse Keepers House on Lowlandman's Bay, Isle of Jura, Scotland in 1992. I bought this abandoned house in 1988, shortly after Cecilia died and completely rebuilt the roof, putting in a new top floor, with a dormitory for my children's friends at one end and a library for myself at the other end. There I started work on the first draft of this book. It is a magical place, just a few miles south of Barnhill, where George Orwell wrote 1984
 The Lighthouse Keepers House on Lowlandman's Bay, Isle of Jura, Scotland in 1992. "I bought this abandoned house in 1988, shortly after Cecilia died and completely rebuilt the roof, putting in a new top floor, with a dormitory for my children's friends at one end and a library for myself at the other end. There I started work  on the first draft of this book. It is a magical place, just a few miles south of Barnhill, where George Orwell wrote 1984."

In 1994 he remarried and moved to the Kent & Sussex border, very near to where he had lived with his parents in the 1950s. Fortunately, he had kept the house on Jura because in 1998 he was divorced and moved back there. While in Sussex, the manuscript came within a whisker of being published by Macmillan.

I would like to thank my middle daughter, Claudia, a renowned artist in New York, very much indeed for her paintings that capture the style and elegance of the period with each one conveying the essence of the story and adding to its impact.
Author and Artist, 2001 — "I would like to thank my middle daughter, Claudia, a renowned artist in New York, very much indeed for her paintings that capture the style and elegance of the period with each one conveying the essence of the story and adding to its impact."

In 2004 he sold the house on Jura and moved back to Spain, where he now lives near Ronda.

"This was taken in the Patio of my house near Ronda in Spain in 2022, where I finished the book."