Quotations from P G Wodehouse are copyright of, and reprinted by permission of, the Trustees of the Wodehouse Estate © 2012 The P G Wodehouse Society (UK)

Society Meeting and AGM, 18 November 2008 – with a talk by radio presenter and author Nigel Rees

by Jamie Jarrett

Society members met again at The Arts Club in Dover Street, London – an ideal venue for the Society. During this meeting we had both the AGM and a highly funny talk from Nigel Rees, who has become a patron of the Society. Our chairman Hilary Bruce kicked off proceedings with the AGM itself. The AGM, although held in November 2008, was for the period 1st June 2007 to 31st May 2008. Hilary summarised a highly successful year for our very active Society. We enjoyed the multiple benefits of the Society: meetings, four Wooster Sauces, three By The Ways, bonus publications, our website, cricket matches, Wodehouse Walks and of course last summer the wonderful Week With Wodehouse. The Week With Wodehouse was a particular highlight where a large number of people, from nine countries (including Russia, The USA, India, The Netherlands and Japan) saw Wodehouse's England and made many lasting friendships. Also the Society continued its support of Berkshire pigs. Some new Society patrons were announced, these being Lara Cazalet, Shashi Tharoor, Simon Brett and Nigel Rees. Wooster Sauce's new editor, Elin Murphy, introduced a number of changes and we saw Jamie Jarrett co-opted as our new Website Editor.

There then followed positive reports from various officers of the Society, these being our Membership Secretary Christine Hewitt, Treasurer Alan Wood and Wooster Sauce Editor Elin Murphy. Hilary, Christine, Alan and Elin all stood for re-election and were voted in by a large show of hands. In addition Jamie Jarrett stood for election as Website Editor and was also voted in. Tim Andrews and Edward Cazalet were re-elected as Committee Members.

After a short break Hilary then introduced Nigel Rees, our guest speaker for the evening.

Hilary Bruce and Nigel Rees

Nigel's voice is very familiar to Radio 4 listeners. He is the deviser and presenter of Quote...Unquote, the highly enjoyable quotations quiz, which has been aired since 1976. Somehow, Nigel also manages to include questions on a regular basis which involve PG Wodehouse!

Nigel has also been on the World Service and the Today Programme as well as in comedy programmes. He has written about 50 books covering many things, often related to quotations, such as Euphemisms or Political Correctness. He also created The Guinness Book of Humorous Anecdotes. Many of these books have Wodehouse mentioned.

Nigel Rees enthralling all at the Arts Club

The talk by Nigel was quite simply hilarious, involving much of his own insight in connection with the world of Wodehouse and of course using many extremely funny quotes from the work of PGW. His special interest lies in the popular use of the English language and the humour that derives from it and so his talk was not only relevant for a literary society but much appreciated  by Wodehouse's fans. Nigel is an accomplished public speaker.

Nigel's most recent book is All Gong and No Dinner and a new series of Quote...Unquote is in preparation. If you would like to find out more about this programme, please click here.

The Society will be holding future meetings at The Arts Club, for details of which please see our Future Events section. For those members wishing to know more about the club or simply how to get there, please click here.