If you want to live like James Bond then head for the former home of author Ian Fleming to relax Jamaican-style. Kevin Pilley reports "Relax, man," said Ramsey, giving me the first ingredient of "The Commander's secret recipe for a happy life.

"Drink water with your rum. Eat a little red meat but more fish, swim, fish and keep your drinking, smoking and women in moderation. And at a long distance from your wife."

Ramsey Dacosta, now 66, used to be the houseboy for British author Ian Fleming at his Jamaican home, Goldeneye. Here he wrote 13 of the James Bond books, starting with Casino Royale - written in 1951 as an antidote to getting married for the first time at the age of 43. His bride was Lady Rothermere, the former wife of the British newspaper proprietor.

Casino Royale, once made as a spoof starring David Niven and Woody Allen, will be the 21st Bond film and will start shooting at the end of this year.

Fleming bought the north-shore property in the beautiful banana port of Orcabessa (as described in Live and Let Die) for £4,000, having originally been sent to Jamaica by British naval intelligence to stop U-boat sinkings in the Caribbean. He named it after a British Admiralty plan to defend Gibraltar and stayed at the former donkey racecourse for 18 winters, writing four hours a day "fast and with application".

At the front gate there is still a sign reading "For Sale or Rent, The birthplace of James Bond, Superspy." The 30-acre estate remained vacant until 1976 when London-born Chris Blackwell, founder of Island Records, bought it. Reggae star Bob Marley considered buying it, too.

It is now a 400-acre all-inclusive holiday spa resort. Ian Fleming's old garage has been converted into a bedroom suite with a giant video/DVD screen and massive bar. His bedroom still has the red bullwood desk on which he wrote, with the jalousies shut to keep out the sun.

There is a typewriter - but the original was sold in 1995. Seashells are scattered on tables, as he liked them to be. The bath is outside. The rest of the property consists of luxury three-level villas with glassless windows to let in the breeze and the sound of the pounding surf. It is far more classy than the island's better-known all-inclusive gulags.

Nothing much has changed, aside from the Maeve Binchy paperbacks on the shelves. The villas are named after famous heroines or villainesses. Except, strangely enough, Pussy Galore.

Fleming entertained many celebrities here. Sir Noel Coward lived at Firefly, ten minutes away; Sir Anthony Eden stayed after Suez and found it restful - although his private detective had to shoot the bushrats so he could sleep.

Jamaica has been used for many Bond movies. Laughing Waters (ten minutes away) is where Ursula Andress (Honeychile Rider) famously came out of the sea, Captain Swaby's Swamp Safari Camp was where Sir Roger Moore hurdled the alligators. The swamps around Falmouth were Dr No's home.

For Bondophiles, Old Palisadoes airport, and the Queen's Club in Kingston, are still there. Mainstream sights include Dunn's River Falls, Strawberry Hill in the Blue Mountains and Bob Marley's home and grave. Island Outposts have several properties on the island.

People who stay at Goldeneye tend to spend most of their time there. They go sea fishing or snorkel the private coral reef which inspired much of Thunderball. Or they take a tour with Ramsey around the gardens of African tulips, yellow hibiscus, giant bunyan trees and every tropical fruit and nut tree imaginable. Or they sit in the garden listening to Ramsey talk about the local birds and 'The Commander'. Under the almond and seagrape trees you learn, if you didn't know, that Fleming went to Eton and Sandhurst; was a stockbroker; foreign manager for The Times; had a brother (Peter) who was a travel writer and a great antiquarian book collector. He was also a chain-smoker and a serial womanizer as well as a good golfer. He died in Canterbury in 1964 aged 56.

Goldeneye was his creative hideaway , says Jenny Wood, the hotel's manager who is from Manchester. "Here Ian Fleming shut himself away from what he described as the gorgeous vacuum of a Jamaican holiday. Our guests don't."

Fleming was a stern critic of his own work. Although he may have cringed at the clich he might have been pleased by what everyone I met said about his home. You only live once. Go to Goldeneye.