One guest at Whitney and Daphne’s wedding had just quit a career as a banker to try stockbroking.
Two decades later, he turned to Whitney, then deputy chairman of Rolls-Royce, for advice on a new car for the hero of his novels, and the extensively modified Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost owned by a villain named Auric Goldfinger. The wedding guest was Ian Fleming, and the hero of the novels was James Bond.
Fleming’s reward for Whitney’s support was a namecheck in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. In chapter 12, ‘Two Near Misses’, Bond, in the guise of genealogical expert Sir Hilary Bray, is invited to lunch on the Piz Gloria terrace by Ernst Blofeld’s assistant, Irma Blunt. ‘She waved a hand towards the crowded tables around them. “A most interesting crowd, do you not find, Sair Hilary? Everybody who is anybody. We have quite taken the international set away from Gstaad and St Moritz. That is your Duke of Marlborough over there with such a gay party of young things. And nearby that is Mr Whitney and Lady Daphne Straight. Is she not chic? They are both wonderful skiers.”’
Photo credit: Family archive
Quote from On Her Majesty’s Secret Service reproduced with permission of Ian Fleming Publications Ltd, London. Copyright Ian Fleming Publications Ltd 1963 (www.ianfleming.com).