In the middle of July I went on a day trip to Cheltenham to watch Gloucester play Essex. As I am not especially fond of cricket (I was a Wet Bob) there was another reason.
First let me describe the location – idyllic, the pitch fringed with tents, reminiscent of matches a century and more ago. One, dispensing ale, had straw bales for customers to sit on while slaking their thirst. WG Grace played here in the 19th century, scoring the first ever triple hundred, among other feats. In the 20th century Wally Hammond set a world record that still stands, taking ten catches in a match by a fielder. It was a privilege to be on such hallowed turf.
I had come to see the ceremonial planting of a poplar sapling to commemorate the death of Percy Jeeves at the Battle of the Somme in July 1916. This was the brainchild of The PG Wodehouse Society and Cheltenham College and Gloucester County Cricket Club picked up the ball and RA with it – excuse the mixed sporting metaphor. Topsoil was put on the sapling by Sir Edward Cazelet (PGW’s grandson) and Keith Mellard (Percy Jeeves’s great-nephew).
Pic by Martin Bennett
Percy Jeeves played in fifty first-class matches, scored 1,204 runs and took 199 wickets. He was twenty-eight when he was killed. During World War One 275 Test and first-class cricketers died.
You will have realised by now the Wodehouse connection with Percy Jeeves. The former saw the latter play for Warwickshire at Cheltenham in 1913, admired his play and adopted the name for one of his most famous characters. Hilary Bruce, chairman of the PGW Soc, spoke movingly:
“We are planting this tree to honour Percy Jeeves and, with him, all the others who died alongside him in that battle, lost in the mud at High Wood, and to honour all the other young men who died on foreign fields in the First World War.”
She unveiled a plaque and in sombre mood we repaired to a tent for lunch after which Edward Cazalet, Keith Mellard and the Great and Good of the county made appropriate speeches. It was a moving occasion and I reflected that Wodehouse ensured that Percy Jeeves is not an Unknown Warrior. His name and memory will live on in his fictional namesake for a lot longer than the lifespan of the poplar tree.
(Large parts of this post are extracted from a longer piece published in the journal of The PG Wodehouse Society, Wooster Sauce, and I reproduce them with the author’s permission.)
