50 YEARS AGO: The former Moscow correspondent for Reuters and later assistant to the head of Naval Intelligence died at the age of 56. His name was Ian Fleming, best known as the creator of James Bond.

Fleming married Lord Rothermere’s former wife Anne after being cited in their divorce of 1972. The couple lived in St Margaret’s Bay, near Dover before becoming tax exiles in Jamaica.

70 YEARS AGO: Duncan Sandys, Britain’s supremo in the hunt for flying bomb launch sites, told a hushed House of Commons the battle of the pilotless plane “was over, except for a few last shots”.

The following day, September 8, a V2 rocket came down at Chiswick and killed six people. Rockets were soon peppering south London, falling at Crockenhill, Keston, Woolwich and Lewisham.

100 YEARS AGO: As more people from south-east London responded to Lord Kitchener’s appeal for volunteers, the first casualty lists were published.

In Bromley six boys were killed and 25 wounded in Flanders. Many of the local men were serving with the Buffs and the Queen’s Own Royal West Kent Regiment, but others, such as 16-year-old Tom Wallace of Bromley, were with the Queen Victoria Rifles following excellent training with the Territorials.