In the bond novels, author Ian Fleming introduces Q as a simple supplier of the not so hard edged elements Bond was going to need during the course of his mission. Geoffrey Boothroyd, whom Fleming named to honour a pen pal, an armourer from Glasgow who sent him a letter advising him that the Beretta wasn't an appropiate gun for 007, makes his appaerance in the novel Dr. No (1958), and his participation on it was fairly similar to the one in the homonymus film: criticize Bond for using a Beretta .25 and offering him the standard-issue Walther PPK. However, Desmond Llewelyn was far away of becoming Boothroyd in that film. The actor who played the armourer in the movie, premiered for years after the publication of the book was Peter Burton, who wasn't available for the next film in the series. It was in that moment when Desmond came.

	Llewelyn, who played a Welsh tank driver in the epic They Were Not Divided, directed by Terence Young, was called to play Major Boothroyd in From Russia With Love. At the beggining Young wanted Llewelyn to provide a Welsh accent to the character, but when Desmond made a demostration of his Welsh accent, the director decided it was better that the armourer had a common British accent. He'd never imagine he was going to portray the role until the last day of his life.
Q delivers the exploding attaché case to Bond in From Russia With Love.

Even tough it was Young, also director of the two first Bond epics, who hired Llewelyn as the MI6 armourer, it was Guy Hamilton the one who made the relationship between 007 and Q the way it has been. Hamilton directed the third film in the series, Goldfinger, in 1964, the first Bond andventure where Mayor Boothroyd started to be known as Q, acronym of Quartermaster, the name assigned to the officers who delivers the weaponry to the troops.

Guy Hamilton proposed Llewelyn not to show admiration towards Bond: "Originally, I stood up to greet Bond, and Guy Hamilton said, 'No, no! You don't like this chap! He treats all your inventions with contempt! As soon as he said that, the entire scene fell into place. It made the relationship much more interesting" ⁽¹⁾, recalled the Welsh actor in 1995. That was how the Q/Bond relationship was handled along the films Thunderball (1965, directed by Terence Young) and You Only Live Twice (1967), the first of the three Bond films hemed by Alfie (1968) director, Lewis Gilbert. In both films, Q abandons his lab and, in a very bad temper, assists the agent on the field, whether in Bahamas or in Japan. In 1968, Desmond Llewelyn also had a role in another Albert R Broccoli and Harry Saltzman production, playing Cogghins in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, based on the novel by Ian Fleming and starring Dick Van Dyke and Gert Frobe.

Desmond Llewelyn with George Lazenby (avobe) and Roger Moore (right) in On Her Majesty's Secret Service and The Man With The Golden Gun.

Even tough George Lazenby's first and only appearance as Bond, On Her Majesty's Secret Service, has not-so spectacular gadgetry, Q mantains a very cordial relationship with Bond: he assists to Bond's wedding, which, as we know, has a tragic ending.

The first James Bond flick premiered in the seventies, Diamonds Are Forever, where Sean Connery returned to the role for the last time in the EON produced saga of Bond films, showed Q having fun in Las Vegas with an RPM controller ring that can stop the slots in the desired sequence, so that Q wins fortunes in each bet. In this film we discover how the MI6 armourer has fun with his inventions and even he gives many of his inventions as a gift to his grandsons, as the voice box James Bond uses to make Blofeld believe he's talking to the traitor Bert Saxby.

The growing popularity of Llewelyn's character was so big that the marketing department of United Artists decided that Llewelyn should travel to the United States to show his gadgets and promote Diamonds Are Forever. Because of this, and his participation in the TV series Foolyfoot, Desmond Llewelyn was unable to appear in Roger Moore's debut film as James Bond, Live and Let Die, where the new 007 takes the time to entertain himself and escape the jaws of dead with a Rolex Submariner wristwatch with an integrated magnetic field and a circular buzz saw hidden in the bisel.

	Q shows his inventions to Bond (Roger Moore) and Vijay (Vijay Amritraj) in Octopussy.

Desmond Llewelyn had a small role in The Man With The Golden Gun, where he just identified the creator of the villain Scaramanga's golden bullet, and he was contantly told off by a bad tempered M when he made unnapropiate comments with a typical "Shut up, Q". There was also a deleted scene in which Q gave James a Nikon camera with many gadgets in the Hong Kong airport: "Most ingenious, but I'm sure there's one thing it can't do... Take a photograph" -commented Bond in that scene, to what Q awnsered: "Actually you're right - but I'm working on it..." ⁽²⁾

In 1977 the third Roger Moore era film premiered, The Spy Who Loved Me. There is firmly established that Q and Boothroyd are the same person, when Anya Amasova, played by Barbara Bach, greets him and calls him Mayor Boothroyd when Q gives 007 the Lotus Espirit in Sardinia. Previously, Bond and Anya, together with M and Gogol, visit the temporary MI6 workshop in an Egyptian pyramid.

During the times of Sean Connery the relationship between Q and Bond was caracterized by the gorgement of the first and the frivolity of the latter, in the Roger Moore era, as an excuse to emphasyse humour at all costs in the series, this kind of relationship was acentuated, particulary since Moonraker, where Llewelyn's character gave 007 a poison dart-firing wirst which James uses to make an accuarate shot at the tail of a horse drawn on a painting on M's office. "Very novel, Q. Make sure it's on the store for Christmas", it's Bond's pungent awnser.

In was in For Your Eyes Only and Octopussy were Moore's Bond really drove Q mad: in the first he mocked at an umbrela which, when it got wet, activated spikes which ended introduced in the neck of the user, pharaphrasing a theme song by Frank Sinatra: "Stinging in the rain". Besides, we see him disguised as an orthodox patriarch to brief Bond hidden in a confession booth, where 007 appears saying "Forgive me father, for I have sinned". In the latter, Bond made Q get even more mad: annoyed by the innadecuate technological conditions in his Indian laboratory: "Look, I haven't time for that adolescent anthics!" -barked Q when Bond focused the breast of a young woman with the camera that transmitted images to his Seiko watch.

	In Licencia para matar, Llewelyn had the longest running participation in the series. Here we see him pictured with Carey Lowell and Timothy Dalton.

Octopussy, however, one of Llewelyn's longest participation in the films, because he assists the agent and Octopussy's female troops in the field, with an Union Jack hot air baloon.

A View to a Kill was the last adventure starring Roger Moore as James Bond,and there we see an amused Q using a robotic pet, the Snooper, a control remote dog laden with video cameras.

Timothy Dalton made his debut as 007 in 1987's The Living Daylights. Q's appareance in the film wasn't that big, though he aids Queen and Country on the field, helping KGB defector Georgi Koskov. He also appears to deliver Bond an exploding key ring that activates when a wolf whistle is done, a gadget that ultimately saves Bond in Whitaker's lair in Tangier. However, the participation of Q in the second and last Timothy Dalton film in the Bond franchise, Licence to Kill, is, up to date, the longest running Mayor Boothroyd screen appaerance ever.

Getting away of MI6 to avenge Felix Leiter's attack caused by Franz Sánchez, 007 goes to Ithsmus City, where the drug czar has a very important influence. Thanks to Moneypenny's alert, Q risks to face M's anger to provide Bond his gadgets: a photographic camera that shots lasers beam and captures x-rays pictures, an explosive toothpaste and a signature gun that can be only be shot by Bond.

Q also acts as undercover operative, like posing as Bond's chaffeur, or assisting agent 007 and Pam Bouvier to infiltrate the Wavekrest, a vessel property of Milton Krest, shipping magnate connected to Sánchez. This two movies show that Timothy Dalton was the most compasive Bond with Q.

1995 iintroduced a new James Bond, Pierce Brosnan, in GoldenEye. This time, Q will not only surprise the flamant Bond with his inventions, but also to the audience: in his first scene we see him in a wheelchair, with a plastered leg, whose plaster launches a missle. In the lab established in the new MI6 headquarters at Vauxhall Cross, Q shows Bond a blue BMW Z3 with stinger missles behind the frontal headlights. "Just the thing for unwinding after a rough day at the office - comments Bond, provoking a very strict awnser from Q: "Need I remind you, 007, that you have a licence to kill, not to break the traffic laws".

"Grow up, 007!", is Q's reply to Brosnan's Bond ironic comments, and he tells him of for examining a sandwich: "Don't touch that! - it's my lunch".

The next encounter between Pierce Brosnan's James Bond and Desmond Llewelyn's Q is in Flughafen Fuhlsbuttel, the Hamburg Airport, in Tomorrow Never Dies, released in December 1997. There, 007 arrives to German lands in order to track the evil press baron, Elliot Carver, and using his perfect German, rents a car at Avis' stand in the airport. Minutes later we see Q dressed in the red uniform of the company requesting the secret agent to sign an insurance damage waiver for a new car, a BMW 750il that can, among other things, be controled via remote control. "I tought you'd pay more attention to a female voice" -says Q referring to tha voice of the car's automatic navigation system. "I think we've met each other" -replies Bond, funny, to what Q coldly awnsers: "I am not interested in you sordid escapades".

	Desmond Llewelyn with Pierce Brosnan in GoldenEye (left) and Tomorrow Never Dies (right)

And once again he'll tell "Grow up, 007!", when Bond, hilarant, shows how easy the remote-controlled BMW "responds to his touch".

The World Is Not Enough, premiered ten years ago, was the latest Bond film in the millenium, and the last performance in Desmond Llewelyn's life. "I will be in the Bond films as long as the producers want me and the Almighty doesn't" ⁽³⁾, said the actor, tough he knew that, at 85, he wasn't as lively as at 49, when he appeared in From Russia with Love. His appareance in the film was many times uncertain due to his delicate health state. However, Llewelyn finally appeared in the film with an assistant, known as R, portrayed by John Cleese thanks to a suggestion of screenwriter and author Iain Johnstone.

The film caractherises R as a clumsy assistant and Q as Bond's great ally. Even tough Q tells Bond off because he destroyed the boat he was going to use in his retirement "away from him", MI6's wizard gives Bond an important lesson.
"I've always tried to teach you two things. First: Never let them see you bleed" -he said- "And second?" -asked Bond.
"Always have an escape plan"

Saying these words, Q said his last words to Bond. Many people compare this moment with Merlin's farewell to King Arthur, when the wizard decides to spend the rest of his life with Minue.

	Bond and Q, together for the last time in The World is not Enough.

It seemed like a irony that, a time after the film's première, Desmond Llewelyn passed away, causing a deep sadness in the James Bond fans all over the world, from the closest ones to those who only saw him in the movies.

"There can be forever many Bonds, but only one Q. I've lost a great friend, someone who I will miss dearly (...) And I think the whole world will feel the same. He was a gentle gentleman. He went the way he would have liked: sitting at the controls" ⁽⁴⁾ - declared Pierce Brosnan when he learned the sad news. Also Dave Worral and Graham Rye, directors of James Bond related publications, have offered his condolences.

James Bond returned in 2002's Die Another Day, where John Cleese took the role of Q. In the two James Bond adventures starring Daniel Craig, Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace, the character has not appeared and it's uncertain if we'll see him in future Bond adventures.

Whoever who could play Mayor Boothroyd, known as Q, in a far or near future, every James Bond followers are quite sure of one thing:
Q died when Desmond Llewelyn died.