Woman who inspired Miss Moneypenny's character in James Bond passes away

Dame Victoire "Paddy" Ridsdale, the secret service secretary who inspired the character of Miss Moneypenny in the James Bond stories, has passed away. She was 88.

Ridsdale once described Ian Fleming as "definitely James Bond in his mind".

Fleming and Dame Paddy worked together in the wartime Naval Intelligence Department, reports The Times.

Insisting she's just Fleming's friend, the lady denied harbouring amorous feelings for him. She said that she was "never taken in by his charm".

"He'd go off and do something brave and come back with silk stockings and lipsticks for me," she told People magazine in 1998. "I always kept him at arm's length."

She became Lady Ridsdale when her husband was knighted in 1981, and was appointed DBE in her own right, for political services, in 1991.

The Ridsdales had a daughter, Penny, whose husband Sir Paul Newall is a former Lord Mayor of London.