Who else could play Q? Peter Burton, who played Major Boothroyd in Dr. No, almost locked himself into the lifelong role, but was unavailable for the shooting of From Russia With Love. Desmond Llewelyn has been thanking his lucky stars ever since.

Llewelyn has numerous stage, film, and television credits. His screen debut came in 1939 playing a ghost in a Will Hay comedy, Ask A Policeman. In the past 30 years Llewelyn has become famed as Q, appearing in commercials, on television shows, and at fan events. He even once drove the Aston Martin DB5 before the queen.

In real life, Llewelyn has no aptitude for gadgets, but he has learned the ins and outs of Bond's toys. "What is so brilliant about the gadgets," he says, "is their simplicity. Take the car (the Aston Martin from Goldfinger). Knives coming out of the wheels were seen with Boedcea and Ben Hur; the ejector seat comes from airplanes; oil slicks were used in G-Men and so on. But the cleverness is putting all that into a new contest, in one single vehicle.

Q became a mainstay of the Bond team in Goldfinger when director Guy Hamilton told Llewelyn to show some disdain for Sean Connery's James Bond, and the way he treats Q's wonderful gadgets. Llewelyn parodied his own role as a gadget-master in "Cubby" Broccoli's production of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.

Llewelyn's lack of technical expertise has been the cause of some jokes at the actor's expense. On For Your Eyes Only, Roger Moore and director John Glen asked Llewelyn to learn some new lines over lunch one day. Llewelyn desperately tried to commit the words to memory, only to find out he had been given a paragraph of meaningless techno-babble to see if he would recognize it from his real dialogue. He didn't.

Since taking the role and before his death, Llewelyn had only missed one performance as Q; during the shooting of Live and Let Die he was on a promotional our for the previous Bond film, Diamonds are Forever.

Source: The Ultimate James Bond An Interactive Dossier

In The Spy Who Loves Me, Q is referred to as Major Boothroyd. This is the first time his real name is mentioned. Although Fleming's Q and Boothroyd were two different people, film audiences across the world now knew Q as Major Boothroyd. Taking a step back to 1962 and Dr. No, we recall that the man who gave Bond his Walther PPK was in fact Major Boothroyd played by Peter Burton. He would have continued the role if he were not unavailable for the filming of From Russia With Love. As a result, Desmond Llewelyn got the role and movie history was made.

And the reason for my boyhood interest in engineering ?

Q - Desmond Llewelyn - My hero - The Gadgetman.

May he rest in peace and forever in our hearts".

Major Boothroyd is alive and well and living in Edinburgh or Glasgow, no one seems to know and everyone thinks he moved at one time.

The story is that when Fleming described Bond's ordnance in Casino Royale as "a .25 Beretta with a skeleton stock (whatever that is) in a Berns and Martin holster.." Boothroyd wrote to him and proffered the Walther PPK in 7.65mm (the most common calibre at that time) as being the better option for an "Agent" of Bond's status.

Fleming then adopted Boothroyd as his adviser on all things ordnance related and even went to the point of naming him in the Dr No novel and the movie, although his title in these was "Armourer" before being named by M (or "C" as he should have been known, but that's another story).

The popular theory exists that this character then developed into "Q" although this is a theory I find somewhat difficult to subscribe to since, in army parlance, "Q" normally refers to the "Quartermaster" who issue equipment, not necessarily ordnance which would be issued by an "Armourer" in such parlance (Bearing in mind we are talking about the 1950's).

However, much debate has raged over the years as to the applicability of arming someone like Bond with a weapon like the PPK. Personally I find Boothroyd's suggestion one that is sound for the period we are discussing: I have owned a Walther PPK in 7.65mm and, although I would not describe its delivery as being akin to a "..brick through a plate glass window.." I have always found it to be a useful, compact and reliable firearm until the time came that the British Nanny state came along and banned such pistols from public ownership in order to preserve the Government's status....but that is another debate which I would say Bond would probably smirk during while blowing cigarette smoke out through is teeth....

Anyhow, meandering slightly, the Walther PPK is what is known in modern terms as "very size efficient" in so far as, for the size of the gun, you get a reasonable amount of firepower: bearing in mind that someone like Bond would wear the gun all day, most of the night (Playing baccarat etc.) and be restricted by the 1950's/1960's fashions for well fitting suits and nothing too baggy. As the old saying goes: "When in a gunfight, the .22 derringer in your pocket is miles better than the .44 Magnum you left at home.."

The .44 Magnum (for example) is a much more effective gun than the 7.65mm, but to lug one around all day would not be comfortable and certainly not concealable to a character like 007. Thus the eternal trade-off for those who carry a gun for self defence: Size versus firepower. I personally believe the PPK to be a good choice as long as the person using it can put the bullets where they count, which one assumes 007 could.

Thus the PPK is a good choice, apart from the fact that it LOOKS cool and has always had a certain "je ne sais quoi" about it. In that regard, Boothroyd was quite correct: Bearing in mind that the Royal Ulster Constabulary in Northern Ireland still issue the PPK as a sidearm when off duty (admittedly in 9mmK). It is also used by the British SAS and has the nickname "the disco gun" as it can be carried concealed while off duty.

For those real buffs, you cannot buy a Berns and Martin holster anymore because the company was bought out in 1969 by the holster firm Bianchi International who make all the sporting belts and holsters as well as the police rigs - I vaguely recall they produced a "Berns and Martin" shoulder holster for Bond's 25th Anniversary or something.

By the way, "PPK" stands for "Polizei Pistole Kurz" and not "Kriminal" as the PPK is the shorter version of the Walther PP and the German word for "short" is "kurtz". The gun was to be marketed for the Kriminal Polezei, admittedly, but these are facts: A Walther Waffenfabrik technician told me once - So there you are.

So, back to Boothroyd. Very little is known about him other than what I have been able to glean from the other members of the Aberdeen Full Bore Gun Club, the older of whom actually know Boothroyd but give little away as too his exact whereabouts for security reasons. Some stories are circulating about him and I will forward any when I get them: This normally involves plying the older members with whiskey, retiring to a safe distance and then letting them ramble on...