The following is an incomplete
compendium of the fictional characters featured in the
Blandings Castle stories of
P. G. Wodehouse, in alphabetical order by
surname.
Lady Georgiana Alcester
One of
Lord Emsworth's many sisters,
Lady Alcester is very fond of dogs (at one point she owns four
Peke (one of which is called Susan), two
Pomeranian, a
Yorkshire Terrier, five
Sealyham, a
Borzoi
and an
Airedale), making her an
ideal customer for her nephew
Freddie
Threepwood when he comes to England to promote his
father-in-law
Mr Donaldson's dog
biscuits; much to Freddie's disgust, she feeds her many dogs on
"Peterson's Pup-food".
The mother of
Gertrude, in
"
Company for Gertrude" Lady
Georgiana disapproves of her daughter's liaison with
"Beefy" Bingham, until she learns of his
prospects, and is even more against the crooning
tenor Orlo Watkins in
"
The Go-getter".
Gertrude Alcester
Lady Georgiana's daughter,
a beautiful girl who is nevertheless miserable company for her
uncle
Lord Emsworth when, in "
Company for Gertrude", she is
imprisoned at the castle to keep her away from her beloved,
"Beefy" Bingham. Later, in "
The Go-getter", she becomes infatuated with
Orlo Watkins, the
tenor, until she sees his weak, dog-fearing
side.
Wilfred Allsop
A nephew of
Lord Emsworth, of
undisclosed parentage, Allsop is a struggling musician, a
pianist, who visits Blandings in
Galahad at Blandings. The prospect
of taking employment at the Girls' School run by
Dame Daphne Winkworth worries him
considerably, as does the idea of proposing to the
Amazonian Monica
Simmons; his friend
Tipton
Plimsoll's advice that he steel himself with drink almost leads
to his undoing, when nasty
Huxley
Winkworth spots him swigging from a flask, but he hides the
evidence in the
Empress'
feeding-trough, leading the prize pig to get herself a skinful.
Helping his aunt
Lady Hermione
Wedge with a spot of burgling loses him his job, but his uncle
Gally gets him a post at a music
publishing company owned by Plimsoll, allowing him to elope with
his beloved.
Angela
Lord Emsworth's niece, a pretty girl
with fair hair and blue eyes. On the death of her mother Jane,
sister of Lord Emsworth and
Connie, Angela's money was put in
trust until she reached twenty-five, the trustee being Emsworth
himself. As a child,
Beach was very
fond of her, and often amused her with his
hippopotamus impersonation.
Angela has long loved
James
Belford, who her Aunt Connie thinks unsuitable; when he goes
away to work on a farm in America, she becomes engaged to
Lord Heacham, but breaks it off on the return
of her true love, in "
Pig-hoo-o-o-o-ey". Her surname is never
revealed.
Samuel Galahad Bagshott
Son of
Gally's old pal Boko
Bagshott, Sam is a struggling lawyer and poorly paid writer
(occasional contributor to
Tiny Tots, the
Mammoth
children's paper), who is brought to Blandings by Gally to mend a
rift between himself and his girl
Sandy.
While in
Market Blandings,
Sam gets into trouble with the local police, after accidentally
purloining
Beach's watch, and
hitting the constable who subsequently chases him down. To keep him
out of trouble, Gally inveigles him into the castle, in the guise
of
Augustus Whipple, the famous
pig-expert, in
Galahad at
Blandings.
Rev. Cuthbert "Bill" Bailey
A
typically large and muscular curate, Bill
Bailey does his good works in the East End
parish of Bottleton East,
where he chanced to meet and fall in love with Myra Schoonmaker. When she is taken to
Blandings for safety, Uncle Fred's
assistance is needed to reunite them, and fortunately Fred's nephew
Pongo Twistleton is a good friend
of Bailey from their Oxford
days (where Bailey boxed
three years running, and prior to which he attended Harrow
). Not the most attractive of men facially,
Bailey's soul is clean and pure, and objects strongly to being
blackmailed into stealing pigs, in
Service With a Smile.
"Plug" Basham
Major Wilfred Basham, known to all as Plug, was a good friend of
Galahad Threepwood, and features
in many of the anecdotes Gally drops like leaves from a tree. A
member of the
Pelican Club,
Basham once knocked
"Stinker" Pyke out cold
when, having started off throwing bread in
Romano's, he
got a little carried away and moved on to a side of beef. His
trouble was due to a custom of ordering
quarts
where others would be satisfied with
pints, an
old Basham family trait.
His drinking was curtailed when, attending a wedding reception
which became entangled with another wedding party being held at the
same hotel, he was shocked to find himself seeing two brides. He
swore off the booze, and was fortunate to find an appetising and
stimulating
teetotal beverage, by the name
of
Absinthe. On another occasion, during a
pheasant-shooting weekend in
Norfolk, Galahad gave Plug a much-needed jolt by
secreting a
phosphorus-painted pig in his
bedroom. Basham was also present for the incident of
"Puffy" Benger and the thunderstorm; pigs were involved
once more, when Galahad and Benger borrowed "Old Wivenhoe"'s pig
and put it in Basham's room, on the night of the Bachelor's Ball at
Hammer's Easton.
Although described as "the late Major Basham" in
Full Moon, his nephew
Jerry Vail states that he is in
robust health, in
Pigs Have
Wings.
Rupert Baxter
Lord Emsworth's efficient
secretary.
Maudie Beach
Beach's voluptuous niece – see
Maudie Stubbs below.
Sebastian Beach
Head butler at
Blandings.
James Bartholomew Belford
Son of a
parson living near the castle, who
is on cordial terms with
Lord
Emsworth, Belford had a somewhat wild youth and was sent to
America for some unnamed transgression.
Finding work on a farm
in Nebraska
, he learns
much, including the art of pig-calling. He returns to
England after two years to find his childhood love
Angela; although he has enough to live on, he
requires some capital to buy a partnership. He uses his farming
wisdom and knowledge of pig calls to endear himself to her uncle
and trustee, Lord Emsworth, in "
Pig-hoo-o-o-o-ey".
Joe Bender
Art dealer and proprietor of the Bender Gallery, Joe Bender is a
friend and business partner of
John
Halliday, who makes a brief appearance in
A Pelican at Blandings. He is 28
years old, has a high voice and wears tortoisesehell spectacles,
giving him an appropriately artistic appearance. He inherited the
gallery from his father, and struggles to maintain its
respectability in the face of fake nude portraits by the famous
French artist Claude Robichaux.
"Puffy" Benger
Puffy Benger was a good friend of
Galahad Threepwood and fellow member of
the
Pelican
Club, who features in many of his humorous anecdotes of life in
the wild 'nineties.
On one occasion, staying at a cottage in
Somersetshire
for some fishing, with Galahad and "Plug" Basham among others, Benger's habit of telling
outrageous lies came home when he described his girl as the fastest
typist in England, and swore that she could play Chopin's Funeral March in
forty-eight seconds. He reproached Basham for suggesting
that the lie was so outrageous that the house was in danger of
being struck by lightning, saying that if it wasn't true, he hoped
the house
would be struck; which, of course, it promptly
was.
We later learn that Benger let his guard down sufficiently to allow
a girl to get him alone and reading romantic poetry; as a result,
he hung up his glad-rags and became the father of a boy with
adenoids and two girls.
Admiral George J. "Fruity" Biffen
An old friend of
Galahad
Threepwood, Admiral Biffen is a former
Pelican. By the
time we hear of him, his relations with
bookies have become so strained that he rarely
leaves home without a false beard; in
Full Moon, he returns a particularly
bushy one he has borrowed from Galahad, just in time for it to come
in useful to
Bill Lister (it
made Biffen look like an
Assyrian monarch,
but renders Lister somewhat frightening).
He rented a small
cottage for a time, just up the road from Blandings, shortly prior
to the events of Pigs Have
Wings, but had to return to Piccadilly
, London
, on finding
the country far too noisy.
Rev. Rupert "Beefy" Bingham
Beefy
Bingham is a big, strapping fellow, who became a friend of Freddie Threepwood in university days at
Oxford
, where he took part in rowing (for which he nearly
got his blue) and swimming (for which he did). A rather
clumsy, bumbling chap with a big red face, who regularly finds
himself spilling drinks or tangling himself up in small tables
covered in china. He has a dog of uncertain parentage, named
Bottles.
After university he became a
curate, and fell
in love with
Gertrude Alcester.
He lacks an income to support her until, in "
Company for Gertrude", posing as a Mr
"Popjoy" at Blandings and trying to ingratiate himself with Lord
Emsworth wins him the living at
Much Matchingham.
The family, at first against the match, change their minds and
become strongly in favour, on learning that Bingham is nephew and
heir to a wealthy shipping magnate. Not normally a quick thinker,
he knows how to stop a dog fight, a talent which comes in
especially handy in "
The
Go-getter".
Herbert Binstead
Butler to
Sir Gregory
Parsloe-Parsloe at
Matchingham Hall,
Binstead is a thin man, lacking the magnificent dignity of a
Beach. He appears in
Pigs Have Wings, making extravagant
bets in the saloon bar of the
Emsworth Arms on
the forthcoming Fat Pig contest, but later spoils his own chances
with a poorly-placed bottle of
Slimmo. He has large ears,
which frequently prick up in hopes of hearing something worth
including in his memoirs.
Blister
Freddie's nickname for
Bill Lister.
Montague "Monty" Bodkin
Lord Emsworth's secretary for a time
in
Heavy Weather, and
nephew to
Sir Gregory
Parsloe-Parsloe.
Lord Bosham
See
George Threepwood,
Lord Bosham below.
Lavender Briggs
Secretary to
Lord Emsworth in
Service With a Smile,
Miss Briggs is a tall young girl, with a cold, haughty eye,
harlequin glasses, and what her former
employer
Lord
Tilbury describes as "hair like seaweed". She becomes the bane
of Emsworth's life with her haughty efficiency. Requiring capital
to start her own typing business, her schemes to acquire it by
stealing the
Empress get her
fired from her job, but her friendship with
Uncle Fred sees her through.
Sue Brown
A chorus girl, Sue is the daughter of
Dolly Henderson. A tiny thing, mostly large
eyes and a wide smile, she has a dancer's figure and catches the
eye of many a man, including
Percy Pilbeam and in the past
Monty Bodkin, to whom she was engaged
for a spell, but when we first meet her in
Summer Lightning she has been fiancée
to
Ronnie Fish for some nine
months.
Galahad Threepwood, who adored
her mother in his youth, has a fatherly affection for her, and aids
her considerably in her hopes of marrying Ronnie; although his
sister
Julia at one point accuses
Gally of being her actual father, in fact Dolly Henderson married
Jack Cotterleigh, an
Irish Guardsman, while Gally was in
South Africa. After her mother's death, they
moved to America for a time.
Percy Bulstrode
The
chemist in
Market Blandings,
Mr Bulstrode figures in a minor way in
Pigs Have Wings, his shop being the
main local outlet for the wonder-drug
Slimmo, and is
mentioned again in
Galahad at
Blandings.
Alexandra "Sandy" Callender
A red-headed young girl, Miss Callender used to work for Chet
Tipton, and so has a poor opinion of his nephew
Tipton Plimsoll's likelihood of getting
married. While
Lord Emsworth is in
away America, Sandy is hired by
Lady Hermione Wedge to be secretary to
her brother, a fact that upsets the Earl considerably on his
return, especially when he finds Miss Callender has tidied his
study. Prior to coming to Blandings, Sandy was engaged to
Sam Bagshott, but broke it off when
he commented unfavourably on the spectacles she decided to wear to
impress her new employer with her seriousness, and refused to take
her advice to sell on a valuable
sweepstake ticket. Thanks to
Gally's intervention, things are patched
up, in
Galahad at
Blandings.
Hugo Carmody
A tall and
lissome man with light hair, a keen and talented dancer and a
confirmed gossip, Hugo Carmody is an old friend of Ronnie Fish, with whom he first appears in
Money for
Nothing; the two of them found a nightclub, "The Hot Spot", just off Bond Street
, which goes bust, in part due to some after-hours
trading.
Ronnie,
before being taken off to Biarritz
by his
mother Lady Julia to recuperate,
insists on Hugo being given a job, so he becomes Lord Emsworth's secretary, a few weeks before
the start of Summer
Lightning. While at
Blandings, Hugo falls in love with, and
becomes secretly engaged to,
Millicent
Threepwood, Lord Emsworth's niece. Their relationship runs into
trouble, however, when Hugo visits London and takes his old friend
Sue
Brown out dancing, but all is later resolved, thanks to a
purloined pig and the heroic
Beach.
Despite needing to work for Emsworth in the short term, Hugo's
long-term security is assured, thanks to an inheritance due to him
on the death of his uncle
Lester
Carmody. At University, he boxed in the light-weight
division.
Howard Chesney
A suspicious character visiting Blandings in
A Pelican at Blandings, Chesney
has a letter of introduction from
Freddie Threepwood, but is quickly
spotted by those in the know as a conman of the first water. A
slender, well-turned-out young man of medium height, he fails to
sell any of his oil stocks to his host
Lord Emsworth. He is later roped in by
Vanessa Polk to help in her scheme to
steal a painting, but is forced to leave the castle to avoid being
recognised by
John Halliday, who
unsuccessfully defended him once. On his way back by night to
receive the painting, he crashes his car, and is last heard of
nursing a broken leg in a cottage hospital.
Edward Cootes
A crook
formerly specialising in card sharping on
trans-Atlantic
liner, Cootes lost his
profession when an irritable mark bit off the tip of his right
index finger, a vital tool in that trade. The incident was
part of a stream of bad luck that dogged Cootes ever since he lost
his love,
Smooth Lizzie. He finds her
again while attempting to pose as poet
Ralston McTodd, and is taken on as
valet for a time by
Psmith, in
Leave it to
Psmith.
Jack Cotterleigh
An
Irish Guardsman, Cotterleigh married
Dolly Henderson after
Gally was torn away from her to
South Africa, and became father to
Sue Brown. They moved to America after Dolly's
death.
Mr Donaldson
Father of
Aggie and a relative of Angus McAllister, New Jersey
City
man Donaldson is Donaldson's
Dog-biscuits. He shares his Scottish
relation's rugged physique, but is taller, with a
smooth, handsome face and an authoritative look in his strong,
keen, level grey eyes; he would look much like a Roman emperor,
were it not for his rimless glasses.
When we first meet him in "
The Custody of the Pumpkin", he
does not consider himself a rich man, not even having as much as
ten million dollars in the whole world, and is highly taken with
his son-in-law
Freddie
Threepwood, who he expects to be an asset to his dog-biscuit
business; he is also a believer in
Roosevelt's
New
Deal, under which he believes American dogs are eating more
biscuits.
Niagara "Aggie" Donaldson
Who becomes
Freddie Threepwood's
wife – see
Aggie Threepwood below.
Penelope Donaldson
Younger daughter of
Mr Donaldson,
sister of
Aggie, Penelope pays a visit to
the castle in
Pigs Have
Wings. On the boat on the way over, she meets and falls in
love with
Jerry Vail, but on
arrival at the castle finds
Lady
Constance Keeble has lined up
Orlo Vosper for her. A courageous and
resourceful girl, she has no qualms about inventing family friends
as an excuse for visiting Vail in London, and helps out her good
friend
Gally in various
pig-related shenanigans; she is also friendly with
Beach, and spends much time sipping
port in his pantry.
Alaric, Duke of Dunstable
Ill-tempered, irascible, and in the opinion of many quite insane,
Dunstable is an elderly
peer, who in his
youth had something of a dalliance with
Lady Constance (they "whispered
together in dim conservatories"), which came to nothing as the Duke
was shipped abroad in his youth, having made England too hot for
him.
By
the time we first hear of him, in Uncle Fred in the
Springtime, Wiltshire
-dwelling Dunstable is somewhat overweight, bald of
head and wears a moustache like a walrus;
Lord Emsworth has disliked him, in a
dreamy sort of way, for 47 years.
He is nevertheless a fairly frequent visitor to the Castle, having
apparently been there the previous summer, and has no qualms about
demanding special accommodation (he is put in the luxurious Garden
Suite).
He is working on a history of his family,
and employs as his secretary Emsworth's former employee Rupert Baxter, who he treats with little
respect, suspecting him of going on "toots", and directs his
ill-temper towards whoever it may be who whistles "The Bonny Banks
o' Loch
Lomond
" outside his windows (on one occasion this is
Baxter, who receives a well-aimed egg in the face). His
sanity is questioned even by his old friend Connie, who calls in
Sir Roderick Glossop to inspect
him; he later has the
Empress
kidnapped and hidden in his bathroom.
In
Service With a
Smile, he once again comes up against
Uncle Fred, and once again schemes to take
Emsworth's pig away from him, hiring
Lavender Briggs to do the dirty work and
hoping to make a tidy profit by selling her to
Lord Tilbury, whom he
knows from younger days as "Stinker" Pyke. He is bizarrely
befriended by
George Threepwood,
who is fascinated by the Duke's moustache, but despite George's
help is once more scuppered by Uncle Fred.
He also appears in
A Pelican
at Blandings, returning to Blandings after an electrical
fire left his house smelling of smoke. He tries to make money out
of
Wilbur Trout, by buying a painting
he knows Wilbur wants, and is persuaded by Connie to propose to
Vanessa Polk in writing, a move which
puts him into the hands of the incomparable
Gally. We learn that in his youth he was
soundly
blackballed by the members of
the
Pelican
Club, and that he broke off his engagement to Connie when the
marriage settlement failed to live up to his expectations.
Mrs Ed
In the short "
Birth of a
Salesman", the young lady known only by her relationship to her
husband has an important influence on
Lord
Emsworth's happiness while visiting America. A small, friendly
and companionable girl, she is more than capable of fixing
scrambled eggs and finding bacon, coffee and
even toast in a strange kitchen, and is attempting to raise money
by selling richly-bound encyclopaedias of Sport. She hopes to raise
money as Ed works in a garage and his pay won't stretch to extras,
such as the baby she has due the following January, but keeps her
career from her husband as he would have a fit. She finds the work
tough going and suffers from
blisters, and
is thus the instigator of Emsworth's brief career in sales.
George Emerson
Second-in-command of the Hong Kong
Police force, Emerson has been in love with
Aline Peters since he wore
knickerbockers, a fact he never fails to point out to her when they
meet, even when she is engaged to someone else. In
Something Fresh, Emerson is
invited down to
Blandings by
Freddie Threepwood, and uses his time
there to press his suit with his host's fiancee.
Wodehouse's choice of the name George Emerson for this character
was not accidental.
A Room with a
View by
E. M. Forster was
published seven years earlier than
Something Fresh in 1908, and was a well
known novel then, as it is now. In
A
Room with a View a character named George Emerson declares his
love for Lucy Honeychurch to her even though she, like
Aline Peters, is engaged to someone else. The
events that follow in the two novels concerning both the George
Emersons are closely aligned.
In
Something New, the U.S. version of the book, Emerson is an
American from Pittsburgh
, a rising member of a New York
law firm; a fierce patriot, this Emerson loathes
all things British and loves all things American.
Colonel Fanshawe
The master of
Marling Hall, near
neighbour of
Blandings Castle, is
also the local
Master of Hounds,
but is not familiar with important local dignitary
Lord Emsworth. This fact is significant when,
in the short "
Sticky Wicket
at Blandings", Fanshawe mistakes the elderly Earl for a
prowler, and has him locked in the coal cellar, requesting Emsworth
come around in his capacity as
Justice of the Peace to pronounce
summary judgement. He has a wife, and a
spaniel, of which he thinks the world.
Valerie Fanshawe
The attractive Miss Fanshawe is daughter of
Colonel Fanshawe. Acknowledged by
Galahad Threepwood to be 'a dish and a
pippin', with her golden hair, blue eyes, and figure rendered
slender and lisson by years of healthy country pursuits, Valerie
would excite jealousy in any wife who found her husband showering
the girl in gifts. Fortunately for
Freddie, her father's word is law at
Marling, but Valerie is more than capable of talking him into the
purchase of a new brand of dog-biscuits, in the short "
Sticky Wicket at
Blandings".
Lady Julia Fish
One of
Lord Emsworth's sisters, Lady
Julia is "a handsome middle aged woman of the large and blonde
type, of a personality both breezy and commanding". She has a
resolute chin and china-blue eyes, and a patronizing good humour
about her manner. In her childhood, her angelic appearance often
fooled people into thinking her charming, until they realised she
could be even more vicious than her sisters. She disapproves of her
son
Ronnie marrying
chorus girls, and although her sister
Connie believes she can persuade Julia
to allow such things, Julia herself is willing to take firm action.
Her resolution trembles somewhat, however, on hearing that her late
husband
Miles' reputation is at
stake, in
Heavy
Weather.
Sir Miles Fish
Major General Sir Miles Fish, C.B.O. of the
Brigade of Guards, once described by
Lord Emsworth as the biggest fool in
that regiment, is the late husband of
Lady Julia Fish and father of
Ronnie.
Although by the time
he married he was, even in Lady Julia's opinion, "stodgily
respectable", in his youth he was known as "Fishy" Fish and had
some wild moments, including, in the late summer of '97, riding a
bicycle down Piccadilly
wearing only sky-blue underclothing, and in the
early morning of New Year's Day 1892,
trying to shoot a coal-scuttle with some fire-tongs, having
drunkenly mistaken it for a mad dog, facts revealed by Gally to keep Julia in line in
Heavy
Weather.
Ronald Overbury Fish
Lady Julia's son,
Drone and would-be entrepreneur Ronnie is good
friends with
Hugo Carmody, with whom
he once ran a
nightclub (in
Money for Nothing). A highly
jealous young man, in
Summer
Lightning and
Heavy
Weather he is in love with
Sue
Brown, and resents her long-time friendships with Carmody and
past engagement to
Monty Bodkin.
Educated
at Eton
and Cambridge
(where he got a feather-weight boxing blue), he is
sensitive about his short stature and red face, drives a jaunty
two-seater Austin Seven and smokes his
cigarettes in a long holder. Never known for the speed of
his wits, he can act fast in a crisis, and is invariably
well-informed on matters of the turf, a knack which his good friend
Beach is regularly grateful. As a
child, Beach played bears with him in the pantry, and used to take
him fishing on the lake; later, when Ronnie was an undergraduate at
Cambridge, he borrowed five pounds from Beach to see him through to
his next allowance.
For a time, he has a
valet, named Bessemer. He
also has a cousin named George, whose father is a bishop and who
gets married in
Norfolk, with Ronnie as best
man, at the start of
Heavy Weather.
Lady Dora Garland
Another of
Lord Emsworth's tall and
stately sisters, Lady Dora is the widow of Sir Everard Garland, and
lives in an apartment on the fourth floor of Wiltshire House,
Grosvenor Square, with her daughter
Prudence, her three dogs (two
spaniels and an
Irish
Setter), and a butler named Riggs. She disapproves of her
daughter's dalliance with
Bill
Lister, and sends her off to Blandings for safety, in
Full Moon.
Sir Everard Garland
A
K.C.B, the late Sir Everard was
the husband of
Lady Dora and
father of
Prudence.
Prudence Garland
Daughter of
Lady Dora and niece
of
Lord Emsworth, Prudence is a rather
small, pretty girl (though not as pretty as her cousin
Veronica) with blue eyes. In
Full Moon she is in love and plotting
an elopement with the artist
Bill Lister, but is sent to
Blandings to keep her away from him; there, in her despondent mood,
she decides to bury herself in good works, much to the horror of
her uncle Clarence.
Alaric "Ricky" Gilpin
The nephew of the
Duke of
Dunstable, Ricky Gilpin is, despite being a
poet, a large, beefy chap with red hair and a
quick-temper. His mother, the Duke's sister, married beneath her,
to one William "Billy" Gilpin, a member of the
Connaught Rangers, who was a friend of
Uncle Fred; Billy, apparently, looked the
dead spit of his son and had same hot temper - Fred often had to
sit on his head.
The muscular Ricky once cleaned up against
three simultaneous Covent
Garden
costermongers in five minutes. On another
occasion, he rescued
"Mustard" Pott from a
gang of thugs bent on his destruction, and, on taking him home, met
and fell in love with
Polly Pott.
His uncle
disapproves of the match, and also of Ricky's plan to buy an
onion-soup bar in Coventry Street off Piccadilly
from an American friend, despite its great
financial potential. Ricky attended a
ball as
Little Lord Fauntleroy, in
Uncle Fred in the
Springtime.
Archibald Gilpin
Cousin of
Ricky and another nephew of the
Duke of Dunstable,
handsome, long-haired Archie is a struggling artist, once employed
by the
Mammoth
Publishing Company but fired for drawing a satirical portrait
of
Lord Tilbury.
His dismissal causes a rift with his betrothed,
Millicent Rigby, and he is for a time
engaged to
Myra Schoonmaker, even
after Millicent forgives him and renews their engagement. He also
needs £1000 to buy into Ricky's thriving onion-soup business, and
is prone to tugging at his long hair in despair, but all is
resolved by the twinkling
Uncle Fred in
Service With a
Smile.
Linda Gilpin
Niece of
Alaric, Duke of
Dunstable and brother of
Ricky, Linda
is a pretty, slim young girl with blue eyes and chestnut hair, who
appears in
A Pelican at
Blandings, visiting the castle with her uncle shortly
after becoming engaged to
Johnny
Halliday. She objects to being roughly treated in court, but
has strong motherly instincts when those she loves are hurt.
Gally, who works hard to smooth
the way for the couple, refers to her as a 'popsy'.
Gladys
A small
girl from the Drury
Lane
area of London
, at the age
of around twelve or thirteen Gladys visits Blandings Parva
for the fresh air. She has a kind of wizened motherliness
about her, and a fondness for flowers ("Flarze") which gets her
into trouble with
Angus
McAllister; fleeing him, she hits him in the shin with a
well-thrown stone. She has a small, freckled brother named Ern who
she looks out for, and who bites
Lady Constance in the leg. These two
leg-injuring incidents, as well as her skill at controlling large
dogs, endear her to
Lord Emsworth in
the short "
Lord
Emsworth and the Girl Friend".
Sir Roderick Glossop
A prominent
loony-doctor who almost
visits Blandings in
Uncle Fred in the
Springtime, where we learn that he was at school with
Lord Emsworth, and was known as
"Pimples".
The Bishop of Godalming
A relative of the Threepwoods who visits Blandings during
Something Fresh, his holy
office often prevents him from putting into words the less kindly
thoughts that may enter his head, particularly concerning
Lord Emsworth's ideas of hospitality; he
nevertheless relishes hearing such thoughts aired by others.
Eve Halliday
In
Leave it to Psmith,
Eve first catches
Psmith's eye while
sheltering from the rain under the awning of a coal merchant's
opposite the
Drones; she has already
smitten
Freddie Threepwood, who
has got her a job at the castle, cataloguing the library (for the
first time since the year 1885).
Eve's late father, a clever but erratic
writer, was not a wealthy man, but sent her to
exclusive Wayland House school, despite barely having the money to
buy himself tobacco. There she met
Phyllis Keeble, later Jackson, stepdaughter
of millionaire
Joe Keeble, who she
comes to pity when she falls on hard times; unlike Eve, Phyllis is
a delicate plant not meant to struggle. Eve gets by on a small
annuity from a late uncle, but frequently has to find work due to
tempting but expensive hats, gloves and other necessities.
A highly attractive young girl, Eve is adept at deflecting
proposals from young men like
Freddie
Threepwood, but finds Psmith's approach more difficult to fend
off. Capable and efficient, she works hard at her cataloguing job
despite Psmith's attempts to lure her away; a faithful and reliable
friend, she does much to help Phyllis get the money she
deserves.
J. D. "Stiffy" Halliday
A prominent member of the
Pelican Club,
"Stiffy" Halliday was a close friend of
Galahad Threepwood, who was best man at
his wedding and was made godfather on the birth of his son
Johnny.
Halliday is famous for having knocked down
the Duke of Dunstable
with a cold turkey, during an altercation at Romano's about the
apostolic claims of the church of Abyssinia
.
Like many of his fellow-Pelicans, Stiffy generally presented a
rather weary aspect to the world, looking like he had slept in his
clothes and hadn't had time to shave. Also like so many of his
cronies, he didn't make it past his early forties, leaving Johnny
to fend for himself, with Gally's capable help.
John Halliday
John Stiffy Halliday is a
barrister with a
part-interest in a small
art gallery,
who pays a brief visit to Blandings in
A Pelican at Blandings. He
arrives in the persona of a psychiatrist, junior partner to
Sir Roderick Glossop,
ostensibly hired to analyse
Lord
Emsworth but in reality hoping to press his suit with
Linda Gilpin.
A neat, trim, fit, athletic-looking chap, his
golf handicap is 6 and he plays excellent
squash racquets. His London address
is in Halsey Court, W1, where his landlady is known to all as "Ma"
Balsam.
He got his middle name from the nickname
given to his father, and was at Oxford
with Linda's brother Ricky. Gally was instrumental in smuggling
his godson into the castle, having been called on for help after an
estrangement between the man and his beloved Linda, result of
Halliday's zealous devotion to his duty as a lawyer despite his
fiancee being a witness.
He is well known by some criminal types, such as
Howard Chesney, who pushes him down the
Blandings stairs in hopes of avoiding recognition; the bump on the
head thus received is instrumental in restoring Johnny to Linda's
favours.
Lord Heacham
A wealthy
Shropshire
landowner, who was for a time engaged to Angela. A solemn man in riding-britches, he
upsets his potential father-in-law
Lord
Emsworth with his disgraceful and rather violently-expressed
malevolence towards pigs, in "
Pig-hoo-o-o-o-ey". Despite his wealth and
glamour, and the approval of
Lady
Constance, he is rejected by Angela, much to Emsworth's
pleasure.
Dolly Henderson
A one-time star of the
music-hall stage,
Dolly was
serio at the old Oxford and the Tivoli, and the
only girl
Galahad ever loved.
After they were forced apart by the family, Dolly married a
Guardsman named
Jack Cotterleigh, and they had a daughter,
Sue Brown. She died, however, shortly
after which her husband and daughter moved to America. London is
still apparently full of elderly gentlemen who become pleasantly
maudlin when they think of her though.
Mike Jackson
A friend of
Psmith from schooldays.
Phyllis Jackson
Nee Keeble, Phyllis is the daughter of
Joseph Keeble, who is married to
Mike when we first meet her at the start of
Leave it to Psmith.
Phyllis is a pretty little girl with large brown eyes, a good
friend of
Eve Halliday from their days
at Wayland House school. She incurred the wrath of
Lady Constance by refusing to marry
swimmy-eyed Rollo Mountford, and instead eloping with Mike.
J. Horace Jevons
The
Chicago
-born millionaire for whom Rupert Baxter works both before and after his
reign of terror at Blandings, Mr Jevons treats Baxter with respect
and even obsequiousness. Baxter regretfully leaves his
service when Mr Jevons decides to return to his native land, but
after a spell with the
Duke
of Dunstable, the efficient secretary returns to Jevons employ,
in America..
R. Jones
An extremely fat and wheezy man, with sleek grey hair and a mauve
face, ever-jovial Mr R. Jones is a
bookmaker and sometime money-lender, trusted by
many a young man in their hour of need, much as he is relied upon
by
Freddie Threepwood to get him
out of trouble in
Something
Fresh. He is, however, a grasping and untrustworthy type,
always with his eye on the main chance.
His rather run-down
offices are to be found somewhere near the Strand
; he is known
to his friends as "Dickie".
Lady Constance Keeble
Later Schoonmaker,
Lord Emsworth's
bossiest sister and
chatelaine at the
castle.
Joseph Keeble
Lady Constance Keeble's first
husband, the doting stepfather of
Phyllis is a short man with a round,
grizzled head and a pink face. He made a large fortune in
South African diamond
mines, and was already fairly elderly and a
widower by the time he married Connie, some two
years before the events of
Leave
it to Psmith. Though their relationship is close and
loving, Joe often regrets giving her the supervisory role over
their mutual bank account, and worries that her valuable jewellery
is vulnerable to thieves. He has a distinct dislike for the smell
of
heliotrope. Keeble does not appear
in subsequent novels, and passes away some time before
Service With a Smile.
William Galahad Lister
Known to most as Bill, but to
Freddie
Threepwood as "Blister", Mr Lister is an artist, a large and
muscular man (he was once a finalist in an Amateur
Boxing championship) with a face like a
gorilla, who is bizarrely adored by
Prudence Garland and terrorises
Tipton Plimsoll with his repeated
appearances, in
Full
Moon.
Lister's mother was a strongwoman on the
music hall stage, and his father a sporting
journalist.
His uncle owned the "Mulberry Tree" inn outside Oxford
, which
Freddie Threepwood spent much time in as a student (it was in this
period that he befriended Blister), and which Lister later
inherits. Both Freddie and his uncle
Galahad, Lister's godfather, support
Lister in his wooing of Prudence; when their planned elopement is
scuppered by Prudence's mother, Lister makes his way to Blandings,
under the name of "Messmore Breamworthy", on a commission to paint
the portrait of
Empress of
Blandings. He later poses as a gardener, wearing an impressive
false beard provided by Galahad's friend
"Fruity" Biffen, and later still takes on the name
of
Landseer in yet another attempt to
be near Prudence by painting the pig. At Prudence's insistence, he
plans to give up art to run the Mulberry Tree, but needs investment
to modernise the place.
Lady Mildred Mant
Lord Emsworth's eldest daughter, Lady
Mildred appears in
Something
Fresh. She has a personal maid named Willoughby and is
married to a
Colonel.
Colonel Horace Mant
Husband of
Lady Mildred, the
Colonel is in the
Scots Guards. He is a forthright man, highly
critical of
Lord Emsworth's style of
hospitality, and suspicious of the level of sanity exhibited by the
inmates of Blandings during the events of
Something Fresh. He once twisted his
ankle badly, during a hill campaign in the winter of '93.
Ashe Marson
The hero of
Something
Fresh, Ashe Marson is a young man from the village of Much
Middleford, Salop., who as a youth, while playing truant from
Sunday School, became adept at
imitating two cats fighting in a backyard.
He later attended
Oxford
, where he excelled more at athletics than in intellectual
pursuits. He took a minor degree and became for a time a
private tutor, prior to taking up the trade he plies when we first
meet him, as writer of the popular
Gridley Quayle mysteries, published by the
Mammoth
Publishing Company under the
pseudonym
Felix Clovelly.
Meeting
Joan Valentine stimulates
him to broaden his horizons and take on something new and exciting,
and he soon falls in love with her while masquerading as a
valet.
An aficionado of physical fitness in all
forms, and particularly Swedish
exercises, Marson despises ill-health in others,
and cures his employer Mr.
Peters' indigestion with a regime of cold baths, exercise and
beautiful thoughts.
In
Something New, the U.S. version of the book, Marson is an
American, born in "Hayling", near Boston, Massachusetts
; he later attended Harvard
, before coming to England to continue his studies
at Oxford
under a Rhodes
Scholarship.
Angus McAllister
The
Scottish
Head Gardener at Blandings in later stories,
Thorne's successor is a similarly imperious
man, with a sturdy, rugged, knobbly physique, large eyebrows, a
wiry red beard and little respect for his alleged employer's ideas
on gardening. The Glaswegian
's views on gravelling the famous Yew Alley are
particularly appalling to Lord
Emsworth, and his ideas on hollyhocks
are nothing short of seditious, but his skill with flowers and
pumpkins is admirable. His favourite sayings are "Mphm" and
"Grmph", always delivered with a very Scottish expression on his
face.
McAllister first appears in the background of
Leave it to Psmith, but takes centre
stage in "
The Custody of the
Pumpkin", when his "sort of cousin"
Aggie
Donaldson becomes engaged to
Freddie Threepwood, and McAllister
withdraws his services as gardener just before the Shropshire Show.
From then on, relations between McAllister and Emsworth continue to
bubble away in the background of many stories.
Ralston McTodd
The
"Singer of Saskatoon
", Canadian
poet McTodd is married to
Cynthia, a friend of Phyllis
Jackson and Eve Halliday, and is
invited to Blandings by Lady
Constance, ever a supporter of the literary arts, in
Leave it to
Psmith. A sullen, gloomy man with long, disorderly
hair, he is a cigar-lover who likes to be the centre of attention,
and to impress people with his epigrams. He rows with his wife
frequently, and is insulted by Lord Emsworth's eccentric ways,
spurning his invitation to the castle, thereby allowing
Psmith to impersonate him for a time. One of his
verses, from the collection
Songs of Squalor, begins with
the line "Across the pale parabola of joy..."
Cuthbert Meriweather
A name used by
Bill Bailey when he
visits Blandings incognito.
G. Ovens
The landlord of the
Emsworth Arms,
Mr Ovens brews excellent
ale, although he may
focus too much on this side of his business; the hardness and
lumpiness of his beds proves too much for
Jerry Vail in
Pigs Have Wings. Many previous
visitors, however, have stayed there without complaint, and the
inn is widely recognised as the finest in
Market
Blandings. His home-brewed ale is generally recognised as
superb, instilling a mellow quality to all who sample it, a fact
put to good use by
Uncle Fred in
Service With a
Smile.
Sir Gregory Parsloe-Parsloe
Lord Emsworth's neighbour and
rival.
Aileen Peavey
A drippy American
poetess of the new school,
Miss Peavey is invited to Blandings by
Lady Constance, who met and befriended
her on a
liner, and while there sickens
all with her pronouncements that the dew is like the tears of
fairies. However, although a genuine poetess, she is also a crook,
known to all as Smooth Lizzie, former fiancee of
Edward Cootes. The two are reunited, and
scheme to steal Connie's valuable necklace, in
Leave it to Psmith.
Horace Pendlebury-Davenport
Son of
the Duke of Dunstable's
late brother, who collected Japanese
Prints, Horace's mother's maiden name was
Hilsbury-Hepworth; though he inherited his large nose from his
father's side, he has her fawn-like eyes. He had measles as
a child, and soon after he shot up to a great height. When we meet
him in
Uncle Fred in
the Springtime, he wears tortoiseshell-rimmed spectacles,
and is not the most vivacious dresser, preferring tried and trusted
styles, although he attended the Bohemian Ball at the
Albert Hall dressed as a
Zulu warrior, complete with
assegai. He dances, according to his fiancee
Valerie Twistleton, "like a
dromedary with the staggers", and takes lessons from
Polly Pott, causing some strife between himself
and his cousin
Ricky. He worries that he
may inherit his uncle's tendency toward loopiness, drives a jaunty
Bingley, and lives 52 Bloxham Mansions,
Park
Lane, where he has a man named Webster.
Aline Peters
Freddie Threepwood's fiancée in
Something Fresh, Aline is
daughter of the American millionaire
J. Preston
Peters, a gentle, kindly girl who dotes on her father to the
extent of starving herself to support his struggle with
dyspepsia, and is in turn adored by
George Emerson, who she finds too volcanic
and
superman-ish for her tastes. Her old
schoolfriend
Joan Valentine thinks
she has been spoiled by too much ease, and that having to fight a
little for her independence would be the making of her; Emerson, on
the other hand, thinks her perfect. She eventually realises her
long-standing love for him, when he shows signs of weakness and
brings out her mothering instinct.
J. Preston Peters
Father of
Aline, Peters is an American from
Memphis,
Tennessee
, a forceful, self-made millionaire who as a boy
made twenty dollars a week selling mint to
saloon keepers. After over-work gave him
indigestion and led to a nervous breakdown, he
took up collecting
scarabs, and amassed a
vast and prodigious collection. His indigestion has left him
quick-tempered and an
insomniac, during
bouts of which he likes to be read to, ideally out of a
well-thumbed
cookbook. His digestion is
improved no end by the regime of exercise he is put on by
Ashe Marson, in
Something Fresh.
Lady Diana Phipps
The only one of
Lord Emsworth's
sisters whom
Galahad likes.
Percy Frobisher Pilbeam
Head of the Argus Private Inquiry Agency, who visits Blandings in
Summer Lightning and
Heavy Weather.
James Pirbright
Lord Emsworth's pigman, brought in to
replace the treacherous
Wellbeloved, he is in the job
throughout
Summer
Lightning and
Heavy
Weather. A capable and reliable sort, Pirbright is a long
lean, scraggy man, whose vocabulary is normally limited to the
words "ur", "yur" and "nur", but when roused includes "Gur!"
("which
is Shropshire
for, 'you come along with me and I'll shut you up
somewhere while I go and inform his lordship of what has
occurred'", according to Heavy Weather). He lives
in a small cottage near the Castle, adjacent to the Empress'
purpose-built new sty, first inhabited during
Heavy
Weather.
Pirbright later moves to Canada
, to be
replaced by Pott.
Tipton Plimsoll
A tall, thin American, Plimsoll wears horn-rimmed spectacles and is
the nephew of the late Chet Plimsoll, an old friend of
Galahad. He is a wealthy man thanks to
having inherited a majority stake in "Tipton's Stores", a large and
successful chain of shops, for which
Freddie Threepwood hopes to persuade
Plimsoll to buy his "
Donaldson's
Dog-Joy" dog biscuits in
Full
Moon. Plimsoll is in the midst of an epic bender
celebrating his new-found wealth, when spots on his chest and the
repeated appearance of the singularly odd face of
Bill Lister persuade him to avoid
alcohol for a spell; visiting Blandings, he at once falls in love
with
Veronica Wedge, and becomes
jealous of Freddie's intimacy with the girl, especially when he
hears of their past engagement. Plimsoll himself was once engaged
to a girl named Doris Jimpson, a coincidence which leads him to the
door of
E. Jimpson Murgatroyd on discovery of his
spots.
Plimsoll appears again in
Galahad at Blandings, which sees
his engagement to Veronica once more under threat, and requiring
further finess from Gally to smooth out; the two eventually elope
to a
register office, avoiding the
need for a large wedding, taking with them
Wilfred Allsop and
Monica Simmons, who Tipton was instrumental
in bringing together.
Vanessa Polk
A friendly and charming young girl, Miss Polk visits the castle in
A Pelican at
Blandings, having befriended
Connie on a boat over from America.
The daughter of financial emperor J. B. Polk, he of the banks,
railroads, mines etc., would always be welcome at the castle, and
Connie encourages her friend the
Duke of Dunstable the woo
Vanessa. It later emerges that she is in fact J. B. Polk's
secretary, her father being P. P. Polk of Norwich, once valet to an
American millionaire who met his wife, then a housemaid at the
castle, during a visit with his master and later moved to the U.S.
with her, becoming a restaurateur.
Vanessa worked her way up the ladder to become the richer Polk's
private secretary, helped by the coincidence of her surname, and a
longing to see the castle her mother had spoken of so often led her
to dissemble to Lady Constance to get an invitation. During her
visit, she is approved of by
Lord
Emsworth, who thinks she has sound views on pigs, and also by
Wilbur Trout, an old fiancé of hers
who comes to admire her strong independent nature. She elopes with
Trout after an abortive attempt at burglary, prompting an
all-important letter of proposal from Dunstable.
Popjoy
See
Beefy Bingham above.
Claude "Mustard" Pott
Double-chinned Mr Pott, "a stout, round, bald, pursy little man of
about fifty", is a
private
detective and former
Silver Ring
bookie, an old friend of
Uncle Fred (who provided the money to set up his
detective business), and father of
Polly. In a long and varied career he also ran a
club for a time, and was a minor
Shakespearean actor; he has, in his time, been
bitten by a pig (and a lamb). An incorrigible gambler and lover of
soft marks, he is very skilled at the game known as
Persian
Monarchs (although not as quite good as the
Duke of Dunstable), and can
always deal himself an unbeatable hand at
Slippery Joe.
When we
meet him, in Uncle Fred
in the Springtime, he lives at 6 Wilbraham Place, Sloane Square
, and disapproves of his daughter's affection for
impoverished poet Ricky
Gilpin, hoping she may instead be persuaded to marry his
wealthier cousin Horace.
Edwin Pott
Lord Emsworth's pig man in
Full Moon, Mr Pott is an
elderly,
gnome-like man with a strong odour
and no roof to his mouth. He is at one point required to remove his
charge
Empress of Blandings
from the bedroom of
Veronica Wedge,
where she has done sterling work bringing Miss Wedge together with
Tipton Plimsoll, and is later
bribed by
Gally to keep quiet
about it.
He is also involved in capturing
Bill Lister after he is mistaken for
a burglar; Pott is able to hold Lister captive, despite Lister's
size, thanks mostly to the unintelligible nature of his speech, and
his advanced years. He leaves Emsworth's service after winning a
considerable sum of money on the
football
pools, to be replaced by
Monica
Simmons.
Polly Pott
A small and extremely pretty girl with soft grey eyes, Polly is the
daughter of
"Mustard" Pott, and, having
spent her holidays at
Ickenham when a
child, is well known to and adored by
Uncle
Fred. In
Uncle Fred
in the Springtime, she is in love with
Ricky Gilpin, and causes some trouble by teaching
dancing to, and attending a ball with, his cousin
Horace; she later visits
Blandings Castle masquerading as
Gwendolyne, daughter of
Sir
Roderick Glossop. She is chivalrously admired and assisted by
Pongo Twistleton, who finds her
cosy and not too sophisticated.
The Pride of Matchingham
A fat pig, owned by
Sir
Gregory Parsloe-Parsloe, the Pride is the biggest rival to
Lord Emsworth's prize sow the
Empress of Blandings at the local
agricultural show for several years, before being replaced by the
far more challenging
Queen of
Matchingham.
Psmith
A visitor to Blandings in
Leave
it to Psmith.
"Stinker" Pyke
A name by which
George Alexander Pyke, Lord
Tilbury was known in his younger days, used by both
Galahad Threepwood and
Alaric, Duke of Dunstable.
The Queen of Matchingham
Another
fat pig owned by Sir Gregory
Parsloe-Parsloe, the Queen is successor to the Pride of Matchingham, brought in
from Kent
around the
time of Pigs Have
Wings. The Queen is a worthy rival to
Empress of Blandings, a pig of massive
girth and eating power.
She is the subject of several kidnappings,
stashings and relocations, including a spell in Jerry Vail's kitchen, and finally
has her chances of victory in the Shropshire
Agricultural Show scuppered thanks to the
blunderings of Binstead and
several gallons of Slimmo.
Millicent Rigby
Miss Rigby appears in
Service
With a Smile, at which time she is secretary to
George Alexander Pyke, Lord
Tilbury, and visits
Market Blandings
in that capacity. While there, she picks up her relationship with
Archie Gilpin, severed due to his
rash behaviour, and their love is abetted by
Uncle Fred.
Jno. (John) Robinson
Driver of the
Market Blandings
station taxi, Mr Jno. (John) Robinson holds a
monopoly, owning the only taxi in the village. He
crops up in many stories (in one of which he is referred to as "Ed.
Robinson").
Gloria Salt
An attractive and athletic young girl, Miss Salt is engaged to
Sir Gregory
Parsloe-Parsloe at the start of
Pigs Have Wings, and has in the past
been romantically linked to both
Jerry Vail and
Orlo Vosper.
A sporty type, she
loves tennis and golf (she has a handicap of 6 at St Andrews
) and objects to "Tubbby" Parsloe's physique,
insisting he cut back on the pleasures of the table, much to his
resentment. She later realises she cannot countenance
marriage to a man with such chins, and runs off with her true
love.
James Schoonmaker
An
American
, Schoonmaker was in his youth a sporting man, an
All-American footballer, and an old crony of Gally (although he referred to him as
"Johnny"), who mixed the finest Mint Julep in America.
He also
knew Uncle Fred before that worthy's
ascension to Earldom, at which time Schoonmaker was a junior member
of a Wall
Street
firm. By the time we hear of him, he has
succeeded in business and made a considerable fortune, and become a
large and impressive gentleman, with what the
Duke of Dunstable describes as a
"head like a
Spanish onion",
interrupted by
tortoiseshell
glasses.
In
Service With a
Smile, he has already become the object of
Lady Constance's affections, and is
called to Blandings when Connie discovers that his daughter
Myra is in danger of marrying a
curate. With help from
G. Ovens' miraculous
ale, he reveals to his old friend Uncle Fred
that he admires Connie, but considers himself unworthy of her;
Fred's encouragement, and Connie's distress at seeing Myra and
Bill Bailey elope together, help him
screw up his courage, and the two are married in New York
, at the start of Galahad at Blandings.
Myra Schoonmaker
James' pretty daughter, who is of
the "small, slim, slender type". She is kept away by a telegram
from
Ronnie Fish. Her Aunt
Edna is dead and her Aunt Edith is paralysed, facts of which
Sue Brown is of course unaware when she
impersonates Miss Schoonmaker at Blandings.
When Myra finally does make it to Blandings in
Service With a Smile, she is there
by force, dragged away from a London season by Lady Constance to
protect her from an unsuitable relationship. A proud, forceful
girl, she breaks off her engagement to
Bill Bailey several times, even at one point
becoming briefly attached to the artist
Archie Gilpin, before
Uncle Fred, who knew her as a young girl,
frequently gave her her bath and consequently thinks of her as a
sort of honorary daughter, manages to set things straight.
Monica Simmons
The
Amazonian Miss Simmons is one of six
daughters of a rural vicar, all of whom played Hockey for Roedean
. A graduate of an Agricultural College, she
becomes
Lord Emsworth's pig-tender,
first appearing in
Pigs Have
Wings. She is at first viewed with some suspicion by
Emsworth, mostly due to her being niece to
Sir Gregory Parsloe-Parsloe, his
rival, but also in part thanks to her habit of referring to the
mighty
Empress as a
"piggy-wiggy", a term which later becomes rather comforting to his
lordship.
She returns to the pen in
Galahad at Blandings, in which she
is courted by the diminutive
Wilfred
Allsop, and must defend her charge from the devious
Huxley Winkworth.
Slingsby
A
chauffeur at the Castle, who rises
considerably in the below-stairs social ladder thanks to being the
bearer of some rare gossip, in
Something Fresh.
George Spenlow
A
resident of a large white house with a pleasant flower-filled front
garden in suburban Long
Island
, Spenlow is better known to his near neighbour
Freddie Threepwood as 'The Timber
Wolf', thanks to his having made his fortune in the lumber
industry. His habit of inviting blondes to his house and
throwing wild parties while his wife is away does not endear him to
Freddie, but to
Lord Emsworth it seems
a sign of a sportsmanlike nature, making him the target of the
Earl's first stab at salesmanship, in the short "
Birth of a Salesman".
Percy, Lord Stockheath
A cousin of
Freddie Threepwood,
who is very worried by Percy's highly embarrassing
breach of promise case in
Something Fresh. He is not the
brightest young man, with an unfortunate susceptibility for pretty
girls.
His father suffers from gout, especially when required to pay for Percy's
mistakes, during bouts of which he repairs to Droitwich
. Percy has a
valet
named Ferris.
"Buffy" Struggles
An old companion of
Galahad,
Buffy was a member of the
Pelican Club,
whose unfortunate demise is frequently used by Galahad to
illustrate the dangers of drinking
tea. Mr
Struggles, after attending a
Temperance lecture and learning what
alcohol does to the
liver, renounced drink and
imbibed only tea, until a few days later he was run over by a
Hansom cab and killed (a fate which,
Galahad asserts, he could easily have dodged had his system been
kept alert with a healthy tipple or two).
Maudie Stubbs
Born
Maudie Beach, the niece of Blandings butler Sebastian Beach was something of a bohemian as a youth, and ran away from home to
become a barmaid at the Criterion
, taking on the nom de guerre Maudie
Montrose. During her time there, the voluptuous Ms Montrose
was a popular girl, friendly with the likes of
Galahad Threepwood and
"Tubby" Parsloe.
She and Parsloe were
engaged for a time, and planned a honeymoon in Paris
, but their
plans fell through due to some confusion.
She later married a man named Digby, who owned a Detective Agency
which she inherited on his death and continued to run in an
administrative capacity, and later a man named Stubbs, who also
died; she lived in "a neat little house in the suburb of
Valley Fields". When
she arrives at Blandings in
Pigs
Have Wings, called in to keep tabs on the
Empress, she takes the name of "Mrs
Bunbury" (after the character from
Oscar
Wilde's play
The
Importance of Being Earnest), and still bears a striking
resemblance to
Mae West; notoriously
anti-female
Lord Emsworth takes
something of a shine to her, but she is finally reunited with and
marries her old flame "Tubby" Parsloe.
Thorne
The Head
Gardener at Blandings in Something
Fresh, Thorne is an autocratic
Scotsman
with whom Lord
Emsworth frequently has to wrangle on the subject of
flowers. He is succeeded in later stories by
Angus McAllister.
Cicely Threepwood
Lord Bosham's
wife.
Clarence Threepwood, 9th Earl of Emsworth
Master of Blandings Castle.
Freddie Threepwood
Lord Emsworth's younger son.
Galahad Threepwood
Lord Emsworth's unmarried younger
brother.
George Threepwood, Lord Bosham
Lord Emsworth's eldest son and heir to
the
earldom, who we first meet in the flesh
in
Uncle Fred in the
Springtime, though he is mentioned occasionally in earlier
stories. A solid man in his mid-30s, with a pink face, Lord Bosham
lives a secluded life in a remote corner of
Hampshire, with his wife
Cicely and his two sons,
George and
James. Like his father, mental agility is
not his strong point - he once bought a gold brick from a man in
the street, and later gave his wallet to
Uncle Fred, at the time a complete stranger, "to
show he trusted him". As a boy , he was frequently spanked by his
aunt
Connie with the back of a
hairbrush. He was once involved in a breach-of-promise case, and
now he is married he misses the excitements of youth, particularly
gambling at cards, as he now only gets to
play a little
bridge. Like his
brother
Freddie Threepwood, he
loves reading thrillers.
George Threepwood
Lord Bosham's second
son, who resents having to have tutors during the summer holidays,
considering the idea "a bit off". He is the proud owner of an
air gun in the classic short "
The Crime Wave at Blandings",
although is quite unruffled by having it taken away from him for
shooting
Rupert Baxter in the
trousers-seat, as he also has two
catapults
in his drawer. He is back at Blandings during
Service With a Smile, and is given
a
camera by his grandfather to keep him
occupied; he puts it to cruel use, however, as a result of his
strange friendship with the generally unpopular
Duke of Dunstable.
James Threepwood
Lord Bosham's eldest
son.
Hon. Lancelot Threepwood
Lord Emsworth's deceased brother,
about whom little is known.
Millicent Threepwood
Lancelot's daughter,
Lord Emsworth's
niece Millicent is a tall, fair girl with soft blue eyes and a
soulful face, who radiates wholesome innocence. Though encouraged
to marry
Ronnie Fish by her
Aunt Constance, she prefers
Hugo Carmody, although she is jealous
of his friendship with
Sue Brown. She has
learnt that a direct approach can disconcert her aunts, believing
that attack is the best form of defense.
Niagara "Aggie" Threepwood
Nee
Donaldson, daughter of the Donaldson
of Donaldson's Dog-biscuits fame, Aggie got her name
thanks to her parents having spent their honeymoon at the Falls
. A
"sort of cousin" of
Angus
McAllister, Aggie is first seen through a telescope, kissing
Freddie Threepwood in a small
spinney down by the
water-meadows in the short "
The Custody of the Pumpkin"; they
later elope together, assisted by her father. An extremely pretty
girl, her father-in-law
Lord Emsworth
can never understand why such a charming young thing would want
anything to do with Freddie, but is overjoyed that he has married a
girl with a rich father. She and Freddie fall out briefly over his
suspected dalliance with a movie-star, but are soon reunited.
George Alexander Pyke, Lord Tilbury
A publisher who is after
Galahad's reminiscences in
Heavy Weather.
The Timber Wolf
See
George Spenlow above.
Wilbur Trout
A much-married American millionaire, Trout visits the castle in
A Pelican at
Blandings, after the
Duke of Dunstable snaps up a
painting Trout thinks reminds him of his third wife Genevieve.
Red-headed Trout played
American
Football in his youth, and has a prominent broken nose to show
for it.
He inherited his millions from his father,
who was a big business man out in California
.
During his days as New York's foremost playboy, Trout was engaged
to
Vanessa Polk, but let her get away,
and since then married widely but not wisely, mostly selecting
blondes of limited intellect, with names including Luella and
Marlene. His third wife, who he still feels pangs for, called roses
'woses' and left him for a trumpeter in a minor band. Despite his
lingering love for her, he resents being forced to pay over the
odds for the painting, and eventually realises how much more
suitable a partner Vanessa would be.
Mrs Twemlow
Housekeeper at the Castle, Mrs
Twemlow is a full-figured woman, who believes in the cheering power
of a nice slice of buttered
toast in times of
stress. She usually finds time to do a little
knitting in the afternoons, and likes to listen to
the
gramophone to relax after a busy
day's housekeeping. As dignified as
Beach himself, she holds a similarly lofty
position in below-stairs society.
"Uncle" Fred Twistleton
Frequent saviour of
Lord Emsworth in
times of peril.
Pongo Twistleton
Uncle Fred's nephew.
Valerie Twistleton
A
spirited young girl, niece of Uncle Fred,
Valerie appears in Uncle Fred in the
Springtime, when she is engaged to Horace Pendlebury-Davenport,
although she disapproves of his dancing style, and his having a
detective ("Mustard" Pott) follow her to
the Drones Club weekend at Le Touquet
. She has a quick temper, and eventually
visits Blandings to get revenge on her uncle for worrying her
Horace.
Gerald Anstruther Vail
A struggling writer of
thriller, Mr
Vail is a former admirer of
Gloria Salt
who is secretly engaged to
Penelope
Donaldson in
Pigs Have
Wings (they met on a boat coming over from America,
whither Vail had gone in an attempt to sell some stories).
Vail,
like his old pal Orlo "Wasp"
Vosper, is an Old Harrovian
; he hopes to buy a share in a health farm, which
will enable him to marry his girl, and takes a job as secretary to
Lord Emsworth for a spell. He
is nephew of
"Plug" Basham, and has known
Admiral Biffen for years, and hence has been
warned about
Gally.
Joan Valentine
The
heroine of Something Fresh,
Miss Valentine is a tall girl with gold hair and blue eyes, who
went to school with Aline Peters and
later lived in Paris
with her
father, who died and left her penniless.
Before becoming editor of
Home Gossip, an organ of the
Mammoth
Publishing Company, she worked at many things, including spells
in a shop, doing typewriting, on the stage (it was in this era,
during a run of
The Baby Doll at the Piccadilly, that a
young
Freddie Threepwood was so
smitten by her that he bombarded her with juicy letters and
poetry), as a governess, and as a lady's maid (during which time
she picked up plenty of useful knowledge of life both below and
above stairs).
A plucky, highly capable and unflappable young lady, she is relied
on by her friend Aline and never lets her down, even when called
upon to commit
larceny. She likes to win
through on her own merit and not rely on the chivalry of others,
but eventually realises the merits of chivalrous
Ashe Marson.
In
Something New, the U.S. version of the book, Miss
Valentine is an American, born in New York
.
Orlo, Lord Vosper
A
handsome nobleman who looks like a matinee-star, Lord Vosper is an
Old Harrovian
who pays a visit to the castle in Pigs Have Wings. A tall,
superbly-built chap with a dark,
Byronic
beauty.
Connie hopes he'll hit
it off with
Penelope Donaldson,
although
Lord Emsworth thinks him
unsound on pigs (he yawned on being shown the
Empress). He was at school with
Jerry Vail, who knew him by
the nickname "Wasp", and later was romantically involved with
Vail's friend
Gloria Salt. He plays the
piano, and has a pleasant baritone singing-voice.
Alfred Voules
A
chauffeur at the castle, who first
appears in
Summer
Lightning. His large red ears are always alert for useful
gossip being spilt in the back of his car. He owns a motorcycle,
which he lends to
Percy
Pilbeam in
Heavy
Weather.
Lady Ann Warblington
Lord Emsworth's sister who lives at
Blandings as
chatelaine for a time after the death of his
wife. She has a seemingly inexhaustible correspondence, and spends
much of her time in her room writing letters, when she is not
nursing a sick headache. She has a Persian cat named Muriel and a
maid called Chester.
She appears in
Something
Fresh, but by the time of
Leave it to Psmith has been replaced
as chatelaine by her sister
Connie.
Orlo Watkins
A crooning
tenor with whom
Gertrude Alcester becomes infatuated in
"
The Go-getter", Watkins is a rather
weedy man, with ill-fitting clothes, awful ties and short, but
distinct, side-whiskers. He is invited to Blandings by Art-loving
Lady Constance, but soon
upsets Connie's sister
Georgiana by working his warbling
glamour on her daughter Gertrude, despite his only income coming
from an occasional engagement with the
BBC. He
has a dislike and fear of all dogs, a horror of rats, and isn't a
fan of bats either.
Lady Hermione Wedge
Lord Emsworth's short and fat sister,
who resembles a cook, albeit a passionate one. The wife of
Colonel Egbert and mother of
Veronica, Hermione has all her sisters' fear
of one of the family marrying beneath them, and is incensed when
Bill Lister, unsuitable
suitor of her niece
Prudence,
mistakes her, as so many do, for a cook, in
Full Moon.
When we meet her again in
Galahad at Blandings, she is for a
spell acting as
chatelaine at the castle,
in the absence of her sister
Connie, but gives it up in the face of
her brother's impossible ways; we learn that once, as a child, she
struck
Galahad over the head with
her
doll, laying him out cold.
Colonel Egbert Wedge
Lady Hermione's husband, a
soldierly sort of man who finds his brother-in-law
Lord Emsworth's scattiness rather troubling,
but has a secret admiration for
Galahad. A highly practical man, he is
quick to action, as when spotting a potential burglar entering the
castle, he fetches his revolver and tracks the fiend himself rather
than waiting for the footmen; he also has a romantic side, and
approves of
Bill Lister's
pluck in his wooing of
Prudence.
A former member of the
Shropshire Light
Infantry, Egbert has a
godmother
living in
Worcestershire, whose
birthday he never fails to attend.
Veronica Wedge
The daughter of
Lady Hermione
and
Colonel Wedge is a
spectacularly attractive girl, a fact which never ceases to amaze
her doting father and attracts scrums of fashionable photographers
whenever she appears in public. She has a direct way about her, and
invariably follows her parents' instructions to the letter, even
when it comes to falling in love. Her extreme beauty is matched by
her extreme simplicity of mind, a fact which does not put off
Tipton Plimsoll when he meets her
shortly before her twenty-third birthday, in
Full Moon. Veronica was once engaged
to her cousin
Freddie Threepwood,
which causes Plimsoll much jealous ire. She has a love of
jewellery, which Plimsoll goes out of his way to satisfy, and
despite some misguided efforts by her mother to split them up, she
ends up eloping with her man to a registry office, at the climax of
Galahad at
Blandings.
George Cyril Wellbeloved
Wellbeloved is
Emsworth's first pig
man, who we first meet off-screen, when his unfortunate
imprisonment (fourteen days for being drunk and disorderly in the
tap-room of the
Goat and Feathers), leaves his charge the
Empress of Blandings off her
food, in the short "
Pig-hoo-o-o-o-ey".
A tall,
red-headed man with a pronounced squint,
his drinking tendencies fail to scupper the Empress' bid for
victory in the Fat Pigs competition at the 87th Shropshire
Agricultural Show. He later proves
treacherous, abandoning the Empress to work for
Parsloe-Parsloe by the time of
"
Company for Gertrude". He is
replaced by the capable
Pirbright,
and his behaviour is much criticised (though less so than that of
his new master) in
Summer
Lightning and
Heavy
Weather.
His affairs are central to
Pigs Have
Wings, when Parsloe bans him from touching the beer of
which he is so fond, to keep him vigilant in protecting the new pig
Queen of Matchingham. He
becomes involved in the complex shenanigans concerning the theft of
both the Queen and the Empress, and we learn that he was for a time
a friend and drinking-partner of
Admiral Biffen.
He returns to Blandings for a spell in
Service With a Smile, by which
time he has acquired a broken nose during a political debate
outside the
Goose and Gander, a result of his support of
communism. He betrays his master once
more, accepting a bribe to help steal the Empress, and is given the
push once and for all.
In Galahad at Blandings, we learn he
has inherited a pub in Wolverhampton
, and he returns briefly to the castle on visitors
day, worrying his former master with his dire diagnosis of the
Empress' condition.
Marlene Wellbeloved
A barmaid at the
Emsworth Arms,
Marlene is niece to
George, the pig man, whose
lightning wit she finds a constant pleasure, particularly his
nickname for
Beach ("Old Fatty").
She has a particularly piercing scream.
Augustus Whiffle
The author of
Lord Emsworth's
favourite book,
The Care of the Pig. The writings of Mr.
Whiffle (also known as Whipple) exert a soothing influence on his
Lordship in times of stress, especially in "
The Crime Wave at Blandings",
during the momentous events of which the Earl frequently requires
Whiffle's soothing balm on his stretched nerves.
In
Galahad at
Blandings (in which the name is Whipple once more), we
learn that the great pig-expert is known to
Gally, who spoke to him while writing his
memoirs to get details of Mr Whipple's grandfather, who grew a
second set of teeth at the age of eighty, and used them to crack
Brazil nuts (he died at the age of
eighty-two, from a surfeit of Brazil nuts). An elderly man with a
thin, reedy voice, Mr Whipple is a member of the
Athenaeum club (where he once met
Colonel Egbert Wedge), and is so
impressed by what he hears of the
Empress of Blandings that he hopes to
visit and see the mighty pig; thanks to Gally, however, he is put
off and replaced with
Sam
Bagshott, but causes trouble by installing himself at the
Emsworth
Arms, in hopes of catching a glimpse of the Empress.
Dame Daphne Winkworth
Dame
Daphne is headmistress of a girls' school in Eastbourne
who visits the Castle in Galahad at Blandings.
Huxley Winkworth
Son of
Dame Daphne, Huxley is
an unpleasant young lad, always out to get others into trouble, who
while visiting Blandings in
Galahad at Blandings, takes it
into his head that the
Empress
is overweight and needs exercise. A single-minded youth, he
persists in his quest diligently, until, when he finally finds
himself alone with the pig, she bites him firmly on the
finger.
Algernon Wooster
Wooster, a keen player of
billiards, is
Percy, Lord Stockheath's
cousin, which suggests that
Bertie
Wooster may be a distant relative of the Threepwoods.
Jane Yorke
A friend of
Aggie Threepwood, Jane lacks
her friend's physical beauty, being too short, too square and too
solid to be attractive, with too determined a chin and hair of a
nasty gingery hue. She has a brother, who she always hoped Aggie
would marry, and having seemingly lost her to
Freddie, she tries to upset the marriage
by reporting on his visits to restaurants with movie stars. Though
her scheme sees some initial success, it is eventually scuppered,
and she and Aggie fall out, in the short "
Lord Emsworth Acts for the
Best".