IAN FLEMING told us that James Bond was the Eton educated son of a Scots father and a Swiss mother, with a full head of black hair that fell across his brow like a “dark comma”. He would, perhaps, be startled to learn that his latest incarnation is a blond-haired ex-secondary modern lad from Chester.

Daniel Craig will not be officially announced as the 6th actor to play 007 until today, but intelligence leaked out yesterday when his mother was unable to contain her excitement.

Carol Craig told the Liverpool Daily Post that she was delighted with his appointment. “Obviously we are thrilled to bits,” she said. “It has come at a very good time in his career. He has worked extremely hard all his life and this would be his biggest populist role. It will be life-changing.”

Despite his receding fair hair and lack of expensive schooling — although Bond only lasted two terms at Eton before a dubious incident involving a female member of staff cut his education short — Craig is closer to Fleming’s description of Bond than his predecessors in height and weight.

In From Russia with Love he gave Bond similar attributes to himself in the spy’s MI6 file: “Height, 183cm (6ft); weight, 76kg; slim build; eyes, blue; hair, black . . . vices, drink but not to excess and women.”

The actor’s build was important to his selection, according to a leaked memo from Eon Productions, the owners of the Bond franchise. The company, founded by Cubby Broccoli and inherited by his daughter Barbara, believed that Ewan McGregor was at a disadvantage because he is too short at 5ft 10in.

“Eric Bana was deemed not handsome enough, Hugh Jackman too fey, Colin Farrell too sleazy and Ewan McGregor too short,” the memo said. “[Barbara] Broccoli championed oft-reported contender Daniel Craig but [Michael] Wilson was cool to him.”

Critics who have queried Craig’s hairline should note that Sean Connery required a toupée to hide his bald patch in later films and Pierce Brosnan admitted that he needed a hairpiece to restore his hairline in The World is Not Enough and Die Another Day.

Roger Moore thickened his hair for his final role, at the age of 58, in A View to a Kill and Timothy Dalton disguised a receding hairline.

It is a career-boosting move for Craig, who has played everything from a racist South African policeman in The Power of One to a Tudor royal courtier in Elizabeth. Although he will not get the reported $40 million (£23 million) deal demanded by Pierce Brosnan, Craig can expect a large rise from his roles in British films such as Enduring Love and Sylvia. Die Another Day, Brosnan’s last film, cost $142 million to make, compared with £4 million for Layer Cake.

The son of a merchant seaman and an art teacher, Craig was born in Chester in 1968 and brought up on Merseyside. He failed his 11-plus and went to a secondary modern. He left at 16 to join the National Youth Theatre and was accepted to the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, where he was a contemporary of Ewan McGregor, Joseph Fiennes and Alistair McGowan.

Craig, 37, will play a younger, more naive Bond in a serious version of Casino Royale, the only Fleming book Cubby Broccoli never adapted. Martin Campbell, who revitalised the franchise in 1995 when he made Goldeneye, will direct.

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