Next Monday will be Sir Pelham Grenville Wodehouse’s 137th birthday. The PG Wodehouse Society celebrated with a slap-up dinner at Gray’s Inn on Thursday evening.
A report of proceedings will be in the next issue of Wooster Sauce but to whet your appetite there were lashings of Champagne and a four course dinner accompanied by white Burgundy, Chateau Patache D’Aux 2015, and port. (I could append a photograph of the menu but it would only enflame hoof hearted’s sensibilities.) This was followed by a cabaret on the theme of crooks in Wodehouse’s novels. Master of the Revels, as usual, was Wodehouse expert, Tony Ring. Alexander Armstrong made his first appearance as President delivering a speech and then bursting into song. Hal and Lara Cazalet, step great-grandchildren of PGW, also sang and HRH The Duke of Kent performed with a team of readers, narrators and piano accompaniment. While it was a formal black tie dinner there was more than a whiff of the Drones Club in the atmosphere: sensibly, Gray’s Inn did not serve crusty rolls.
The last such dinner, two years ago, was over-shadowed by the death of Norman Murphy. This dinner was also emotional when our Chairman, Hilary Bruce, pulled a rabbit out of the hat at the end of the evening. The extent of Wodehouse’s supreme mastery of the English language can best be measured by his continued popularity with readers of all ages from all over the world. His knighthood endorsed this. Next month Ben Schott’s Jeeves and the King of Clubs will be published. Almost all Wodehouse’s stupendous output is still in print. (I have 88 but Wiki lists more than 90.) What more can you expect of an author who died in 1975?
Hilary’s rabbit was to announce with some emotion that a memorial to PG Wodehouse will be placed in Westminster Abbey. Like his knighthood it is symbolic but nonetheless pleasing. There are three good reasons to join the PG Wodehouse Society (UK): to read Wooster Sauce, to attend dinners and meetings and now to attend the unveiling at the Abbey next year. A snip at £22.
Dinner was preceded by Grace, delivered in Latin by committee member, Oliver Wise. Here is a translation:
Accept, we beseech Thee, O Lord, the thanks which we render unto Thee for these and all Thy benefits, and grant that we, listening obediently to the sermons of Thy ministers of whatever length they may be, may endeavour to give satisfaction unto Thee and at length hear the hoped-for words: “Well done, thou good and faithful servant”, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
I am grateful the author is learning to resist indecorous photography. He is still, however, prone to pretentious name dropping, but I suppose I should be relieved, as at least he didn’t attempt to snap the Duke of Kent performing his piece de fete.
Inspired by the Grace above I felt compelled to pen……..
Bloggers Benediction
On bloggers, Dear Lord, we ask for your blessing,
Preserve their thoughts from excessive digressing.
May each post they produce be considered and chaste;
And not appear to be dashed off in great haste.
Grant us perseverance as their ideas are declared,
And from indiscriminate photography may we be spared.