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)

A Jolly Good Time at the Saint Paul Convention

by Norman and Elin Murphy

Norman: Although I had visited Chicago years ago, I had never really got to know the Midwest so I was curious to see what Saint Paul, Minnesota, was like. And I can say right away that I was very impressed. I don’t know where it stands in the ranking list of biggest or best American cities but it seemed to me, as what the Americans call an alien, to have the best of both worlds.

It may have had traffic problems but I never saw any. It may have had a rush hour but I and others commented on its apparent absence. In contrast to the hustle and bustle of New York, Boston, Chicago and other major centres, people seemed calmer, happier and delighted to stop and tell you how to get to places. And among the features immediately around the Saint Paul Hotel was a statue of F Scott Fitzgerald across the road and a series of superb bronze representations of Charles Schulz’s beloved cartoon characters (Charlie Brown, Snoopy, etc). Just around the corner was an establishment (the word ‘shop’ does not do it justice) that sold bowler hats from Lock’s of St James’s and handmade gentleman’s boots in a style I thought had stopped in 1914, and also boasted a barber shop where the two barbers I saw had moustachios so waxed and curled, Chimp Twist would have died of envy. Further down the road was a real typical Norman Rockwell 1930s Diner. I had read of such things all my life but I had never seen one before I came to Saint Paul. And, at the end of the street, one could look down on the mighty Mississippi River itself, some 2,000 miles from its mouth below New Orleans. And the Convention wasn’t bad either.

Elin: Though the programme didn’t say so, this was The Wodehouse Society’s 15th Convention since it was founded in 1980. What the programme did tell us was that this particular convention would be celebrating TWS’s 30th year of existence (the actual anniversary will be in 2010, a non-convention year). For me personally, it was my ninth Convention. You would think some of us old-timers would become jaded by now, but that is impossible wherever Wodehouseans gather. And Saint Paul made it particularly impossible – full of charm and personality, with the Mighty Mississippi a short walk from the hotel, it was the perfect venue for this very special Convention.

Norman: We arrived on the Thursday evening and, as always at Conventions, old friends appeared through doorways and around corners and conversations were taken up where they had left off two years ago. Kris Fowler and her Northwodes had reception tables set up in the lobby, and the usual happy babble of noise soon became the usual happy argument on where to have dinner.

Things really began on Friday morning as some people went off on an early-morning bird-watching walk, while those who liked their sleep visited the Wodehouse exhibition at the University of Minnesota library later in the morning. More and more people arrived and clustered round the tables of Wodehouse books and memorabilia for sale till the afternoon, when the now-traditional cricket match took place on Harriet Island, just across the Mississippi. I will not say the cricket was exactly as we play in this country but people enjoyed themselves, and Tony Ring and Robert Bruce acted as umpires and gave the whole affair a gloss of respectability.

At 6pm we enjoyed a cocktail party followed by a splendid dinner, and then Kris Fowler told us about the telephone call she had received from a professional singer who loved Wodehouse, knew his songs, and could she come along and pay her tribute to the Master? To which Kris said she saw no reason why not and we were very glad she didn’t because Maria Jette, a glamorous lady and a very good singer, knew her Wodehouse songs from soup to nuts and showed us how they should be sung.

Elin: Norman speaks sooth. Maria had done a lot of research and chosen her songs well. Some were familiar to us (‘Put Me in My Little Cell’, ‘Sitting Pretty’), some were less familiar (‘The Train That Leaves for Town’ and a very different version of the ‘Boat Song’ that I quite liked). Other songs included ‘Nuts in May’, ‘City of Dreams’, and ‘In Our Little Paradise’ – and of course Maria ended with a fantastic rendition of ‘Bill’. She was accompanied by Dan Chouinard on the piano, and they were so good that I for one dropped broad hints to members of the UK Society’s Committee that perhaps they should be enticed over the Atlantic next year to perform at a certain Dinner?

On Saturday we enjoyed an excellent series of scholarly and humorous talks, starting with Len Lawson, a past president of The Wodehouse Society. Len took us through the Society’s early days, talking largely off the cuff and showing slides featuring pages from The Tome, a hefty book in which TWS’s history has been carefully preserved. Some of the images included letters to the Society by Lady Wodehouse. The Wodehouse Society was begun by Bill Blood in Pennsylvania, and it wasn’t long before he managed to sign up members from across the country and then across the Atlantic. The first Convention was held in July 1982, with a total of 16 people at the Saturday night dinner. How things have changed since then!

Norman: Len was followed by yours truly, who told an enthralled audience (well, I think they were enthralled) about Wodehouse and horse racing, which led into a discussion of betting, culminating in the Great Gaiters Handicap of 1958. You’ll have to wait for the talk to appear in Plum Lines and Wooster Sauce to see how that turned out.

Elin: We then heard a fascinating talk by the novelist Faith Sullivan, who told us of her love for Wodehouse – a ‘literary lifesaver’, as she called him. She conceived an idea for a novel in which Wodehouse would figure; the book’s central character deals with her life’s events (some of them quite traumatic) by turning to Wodehouse for escape and comfort. Goodnight, Mr Wodehouse is a work in progress, but we were fortunate to hear the author read two compelling extracts from it. Let’s hope it’s published soon!

Events took a very humorous turn with the next speaker, a real-life pig expert in the shape of Professor Thomas Molitor, a professor at the University of Minnesota College of Veterinary Medicine. He confessed to knowing little about Wodehouse, but he had learned enough to put together an audience-participation game. On the screen were a series of questions on the care of pigs, and we were to enter our answers on remote-control devices that then toted up the scores. This natty electronic voting system resulted in a lot of fun that also taught us a great deal about pigs.

Then it was Mike Eckman’s turn to educate us on an American writer who might be considered a counterpart to Wodehouse: the Minnesota-born Max Shulman, creator of a series of books featuring a character named Dobie Gillis. Though Shulman’s brand of humour was different from PGW’s, Mike made certain comparisons between the writers and amused us with quotes from the Dobie Gillis books.

The final speaker in the morning session was Elliott Millstein, who told us all about impostors in Wodehouse. Elliott examined the numbers of impostors to be found in the various novels (especially at Blandings) and wondered aloud about what is and isn’t an act of imposture. He also noted that the ultimate impostor story is ‘Uncle Fred Flits By’, where four impersonations were taken on by Uncle Fred and three were ‘thrust upon the unwitting Pongo’. Elliott concluded by sharing a personal story of his own imposture, when he and a friend gate-crashed the Wodehouse Centenary Exhibit in New York City in 1981.

After lunch, we first had to get through the Dread Business Meeting, wherein President Kris Fowler conducted elections for the Society’s officers. Gary Hall was acclaimed President, Ken Clevenger became the new Vice President, and Ian Michaud was returned to office as Membership Secretary. Then Now-Ex-Pres Kris was nominated for Treasurer by Jean Tillson (clearly expressing her desire to rid herself of the position), and that took care of the officers. Kris then took us through small bits of TWS business and Jean reported on the Society’s healthy financial condition. Finally, Elliott Milstein and David Warren of the Pickering Motor Corporation chapter unveiled plans for the next Convention, ‘A Mo-Town What-Ho(e) Down’, to be held in Detroit, Michigan, on October 13–16, 2011 – a Convention that will include a celebration of Plum’s 130th birthday.

The afternoon session was an all-entertainment affair. Brian Taves rounded out his previous talks on Wodehouse and Hollywood by showing numerous clips from films and television adaptations of PGW stories. This included the legendary version of David Niven playing Uncle Fred on a TV show in the 1950s – something we all wished we could see in its entirety. Brian was followed by Dick Heymann, whose original intention had been to make up a talk about the friendship between Wodehouse and Saint Paul’s native son, F Scott Fitzgerald. Imagine his chagrin when he discovered they had actually met! Their acquaintance was fleeting, however, enabling Dick to then relay a very humorous and clever – but entirely imaginary – correspondence between the two very disparate writers.

The afternoon talks concluded with a spirited original reading entitled ‘Bertie and Jeeves in Lake Wobegon’, written and enacted by members of the Chicago Accident Syndicate. We then adjourned for tea and prepared for the weekend’s Big Event: the Saturday Night Banquet.

Norman: Since Kris Fowler had made it clear to the meanest intelligence that people who missed the bus would be left behind, the residents of Saint Paul were able to admire The Wodehouse Society in costume as we waited to board our transport to take us to the good ship Betsey Northrup for a trip down the Mississippi. It wasn’t a Showboat paddle steamer, but it had an excellent bar staff, delicious food, a dance floor with room for all of us, and a four-piece band that was superb. And if you have any appreciation at all of American literature, you will know that if you haven’t danced a Viennese waltz on a summer evening on the upper deck of a Mississippi riverboat, you haven’t lived.

Elin: The weather was perfect, the scenery was lovely, and the boat ride so smooth you hardly knew you were on water. The boat rang with music and laughter, and after we thought we had eaten and drunk our fill, out came two cakes: one celebrating The Wodehouse Society’s 30th year and the other in honour of the Northwodes’ tenth anniversary. There were toasts, much dancing, and finally the prize-giving. The fiendish quiz devised by Lynn Vesley-Gross was won by Ian Michaud in the Master Class and Susan Diamond in the Fan Class. Then came the prizes for costumes – too many to list them all here, but as usual the competition was fierce and the costumes absolutely brilliant, as were the prize-winning categories. Among many others, Bob Rains and Andrea Jacobsen were winners as ‘Best Couple’ (Oily Carlisle and Gumshoe Gertie); Christine Hewitt (aka the UK Society’s Membership Secretary), dressed as an Ouled Nail dancer, won for ‘Most Wriggly and Writhing’; Tamaki Morimura won a well-deserved prize for her ‘Buttercup Day’ salesgirl with homemade paper buttercups; and 10-month-old PJ Abrinko won as ‘Bonniest Baby’. To see pictures of the stunning costumes and clothing on display that night, click here.

Norman: Sunday morning followed the hallowed routine of a long and enjoyable brunch. The Northwodes gave us their version of the last two chapters of The Code of the Woosters, the raffle-prize drawing was held, the results of the silent auctions were announced (some $1,500 was raised at this convention for the Society’s Convention Reserve Fund). We officially ended with the call to meet again in two years’ time in Detroit.

But to reinforce Kris’s point that anything New York/San Francisco could do, Saint Paul could do better, there just happened to be a race meeting in the afternoon at nearby Canterbury Downs racetrack. A large and rowdy group of Wodehouseans therefore attended to bask in the sunshine in comfortable chairs, and some even won some money ($9.40 for the Murphys) before reluctantly leaving to catch a plane back to Heathrow and dull, boring real life.

It was a whale of a Convention, a highly enjoyable three days all around.