It was a distinctly oojah-cum-spiff idea to pen the names of Wodehouse Weekers in truly bold lettering on their dinky name-tags, as Sunday’s reception immediately proved.

Those splendidly clear names were of instant value for those of dimming memory or eyesight: there is nothing so embarrassing as meeting a Wodehousian who greets you by name, while you scrabble desperately in the memory bank to match them.

And as most Wodehouse buffs seem to have met other buffs (those who come on such jaunts certainly have done so), it was a very present help in time of trouble to be able to pick up the identity of the smiling face greeting you without having to peer too obviously at the badge.

For those few newcomers, it must have been a great help too. So that’s the famous X, what a thrill, how about an autograph – and I must dodge Y, whose article on a point of PGW scholarship in Plum Lines/Wooster Sauce seemed to miss its target by several parasangs.

Most of the London visitors booked into the Corus Hyde Park Hotel, just west of Lancaster Gate tube station: a stroll of a few minutes along Bayswater Road took them through the crowds to the Shaftesbury London Hyde Park Hotel in Inverness Terrace.

We were based in the Theatre Bar, whose ornate scrolls and other decorations seemed to ooze Maurice Chevalier (being born in 1888, he would have been just about right for Plum’s era).

Your correspondent, having nipped into the lounge in search of anyone who might know the result of the Wimbledon men’s final, was honoured by spotting Patrick Wodehouse just arrived, and confirming to him that this was indeed the reception he sought.

His memories of life as a member of the Wodehouse family (he is, of course, the son of Plum’s older brother Armine) were delightful, packed with detail just as jam filled the jam roll he helped the cook make at Plum and Ethel’s Mayfair home.

You felt Patrick Wodehouse did not need large name-tags or indeed any other aide-memoire to boost his recall of days now so distant.

Patrick Wodehouse at the Shaftesbury London Hyde Park Hotel

All the right people said the right things. Edward Cazalet read a message from our President Richard Briers, sorry that he could not be with us, but keen to ensure that the event was lived in truly Wodehousean spirit, with no sex or violence whatsoever. After racing through some tedious administrative points, our Chairman then formally announced that the Week With Wodehouse had Begun! This statement was well received, and Norman Murphy capitalised on this goodwill with an evocative description of the glories to be enjoyed in the coming week, covered at breakneck speed. As ever Norman Murphy, the Society’s official Remembrancer, lived up to his title and reputation by returning to the stage to tell us about the hotel.

Built just after the turn of the 19th Century, it included a private theatre which, Norman assured us, was a touch “naughty”.

Exactly what this meant was not made clear, but the idea sent a frisson through the Plummies present – not least cleancut citizens from the New World, ever alert to the decadence of the Old World.

Pevsner incidentally is not much help in definition, stating simply that the hotel was built as a private house around 1905, including an Edwardian theatre (“now disused”).

It was a mite crowded – half a dozen of the more lissom tourists sat on the floor to hear the speakers – but the Theatre Bar stewards seemed able to satisfy requests for drinks without obvious hurry but at high speed, removing any prospect of the formation of restless queues. (What the two lads thought of the evening, the chitchat and the brief addresses was hard to assess, but they served us bravely and well).

One of the most deeply researched documents to be presented by the Society in its ten active years was distributed for the particular benefit of visitors.

This was “Browsing and Sluicing in Bayswater. A special guide prepared for A Week With Wodehouse, by the Chairman’s Consort”.

Anyone who has wondered how freelance financial journalists a) fill in their time, and b) dig up their news and cosset their contacts, now knows. They range the pubs, clubs, cafes, restaurants of their neighbourhood, learning as they digest.

We had privileged access to the bar on condition that hotel guests or others were allowed to drop in, and certain eagle-eyed Society officials keep sharp watch to ensure that no bold intruders got free drinks at our expense. But it seemed fairly obvious that few aliens dared cross the frontier into this little corner of the Wodehouse World.

Surprisingly early, around the official shut-off time in fact, little groups began to drift away, making dinner arrangements and hoping for reasonable sleep in readiness for the next day’s demanding programme of Wodehouse Walks, of which there would be nine, conducted over a day and a half.

Outside in bustling Bayswater Road, tourists and families and locals massed and mingled, going about their own no doubt entertaining or rewarding ways.

But we observed them with a slight feeling of pity. The (magnificent) Wodehouse Week was formally under way, they knew nothing of it – and we were set for days of delight.

FOOTNOTE – The Chairman’s Consort wishes it known that a proportion of his research for the document mentioned above was carried out in days of yore, when he was a student. As a prizewinning financial journalist today, he naturally is wined and dined in the West End by those eager to have him onside. Ask for his account of those Gordon Brown lunches …

Tour photographs taken by Tamaki Morimura and added to Hetty Litjens' website (click here)