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)

The Monsoon Season

by Sushmita Sen Gupta

Surfacing from the depths of a dreamless sleep, my first thought was, “Is it raining in?”

Despite being Indian, I was finding this British obsession with the weather is infectious, especially after a rather wet Friday. Thankfully, the sun was shining and we were soon in the coach and on our way to The Cotswolds. Our first stop was Upton-upon-Severn and the PGWS's Tony Ring announced that a triathlon was in progress there, so any of us who could swim, cycle and sprint was welcome to join. No-one volunteered.

Where's the pub?

Upton-upon-Severn turned out to be a quiet and very pretty riverside town, where we went in search of the Angler’s Rest. As Norman Murphy (the Society's Remembrancer) told us, the only geographical clue in the canon was that it stands beside the River Severn. We had three to choose from: The Plough, The King’s Head, or The Swan. But he wasn’t sure which.

The plot really thickens here, so follow me closely. While we were walking around, taking pictures, Doug Jeffords got chatting to one of the boatmen on the river bank. The Upton native was naturally curious to find a gaggle of strangers infesting his town. When Doug explained, he promptly said something on the lines of, “Oh, the inn that Wodehouse described? It’s The Plough Inn. We’ve always known it, common knowledge around these parts.”

Confirmation! Obtained during the Wodehouse Week. Norman’s reaction: “Yayyy”! Cameras were whipped out and we all posed outside The Plough Inn, looking around to see if Miss Postlethwaite would appear.

Where's the hangover cure?

Guided by Norman’s notes, we then sought out the chemist where Buck-U-Uppo may have originated. The most likely candidate was John Gibbs, MPS, Established 1881. That was the year PGW was born. Another marvellous coincidence.

Our final stop was the second-hand bookshop on the High Street, and as I entered, I could hear that the radio was on, with an agricultural expert talking of the season’s fruits. “This year, we’ve had a marvellous crop of plums. They are delicious and make excellent jam.” I could have told him that the year had seen a marvellous crop of Plummies, too!

Where's the laced orange juice?

As we trooped back to the coach, Norman told us that he had had many anxiety attacks that the coach would not be able to squeeze through the gates leading to Severn End, which is the inspiration for Brinkley Court. So, he and Dave (our excellent coach driver) went and measured the width of the coach and the gate opening. We might just make it! And so we did, with Dave’s careful manoeuvres and Norman wrestling with a branch of an obstructive tree.

We stopped for pictures in the front yard and admired the very attractive house in front of us. It was easy to imagine Aunt Dahlia tally ho-ing across the fields and Bertie mounting the cycle to go in search of the Brinkley Court keys. We wondered which of the windows Gussie had chosen, to “make faces” at Anatole!

Gussie was very much on our minds en route to our next stop: Hanley Castle High School, the source of the unforgettable Market Snodsbury Grammar School. A very hospitable school official took us to the library, which used to be the old school hall. We were greeted by bookshelves and banks of computers, but it wasn’t difficult to imagine a prize-giving ceremony taking place there. We kept quoting bits of the action and Gussie’s speech to each other and dissolving in mirth. Come to think of it, “dissolving in mirth” was pretty much the leitmotif throughout the Week!

We then trooped across the fields to St Mary’s Church, described as “built from the 12th to the 17th centuries”. The font itself is 600 years old. The architecture, the stained glass windows, the wall tablets combined to create a lovely feeling of antiquity. We were treated to an excellent talk by Mr Robin Tufton, a former church warden. He showed us the mammoth door key, and remarked how the church had been built upon over the centuries, “giving us this beautiful arcade and a dreadful draught on the backs of our necks”.

Lunch was at The Three Kings, a genuinely historic English country pub. Any director of a period film would be ecstatic to find it. The name has no connection with the Biblical Magi, but three brothers King, who began to sell ale from the premises. Norman feels that the building probably dates back to 1550 or thereabouts. The present innkeeper is Sue Roberts, whose family has run the pub for over a hundred years. She produced a feast worthy of Anatole and the local dark ale was something I’d go back for.

Back in the coach, Tad Boehmer and his mother Liesel did a masterful reading from The Inimitable Jeeves. Then suddenly, Norman announced, “Look, right ahead of us, there’s Bertie Wooster and a girl in an open two-seater!” And so they were. The car and the girl’s bright red hat seemed straight out of the twenties. I wonder if Tony, our Entertainment Coordinator, somehow pulled this one off!

Life at Blandings

Then it was on to Sudeley Castle where Norman’s search for Blandings had ended. There in front of us was a huge imposing stately pile – turrets, battlements, rolling parkland. And wonder of wonders, the yew alley. With delighted squeals, we all walked through it, talking of McAllister and Lord Emsworth. Robert Bruce and Norman obliged with a brief impersonation, to warm applause. So, here at last, we were at the “seat of the ninth earl” and most impressive it was, too. We visited the exhibition and garden festival, gawped at excellent effigies of Henry VIII and his wives, then chattered over coffee.

That evening, an excellent dinner was topped off by a post-prandial talk by Adrian Tinniswood on “Life in PGW’s Country Houses”. Mr Tinniswood is a writer and historian and an expert on stately homes. His latest book “The Verneys” was on the shortlist for the BBC Four Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-fiction 2007.

He talked of the appearance of the Blue Guide to England in 1924, sparking off an enduring interest in visiting stately homes. We were told that by 1929, the population of cars in Britain had gone up to one and a half million, which made it possible for more people to explore the countryside. Advertisements for new cars showed motorists in idyllic rural settings. The Dunlop Guide to England offered a free touring service supervised by a member of the Royal Geographic Society.

But not everybody was happy with the advent of the automobile. Many commented that the charm of the country walk had been destroyed by motorists. Walkers were warned to be careful lest they get run over by rude motorists, “swagger men, brewers with their ill-bred wives, sisters, cousins and aunts”.

The owners of stately homes and country estates were hard put by the Budget of 1919, when death duties shot up to 40%. Many families sold their houses and between 6 and 8 million acres changed hands – a quarter of England. Between 1918 and 1945, as many as 458 stately homes were demolished. And some were transported brick by brick to the USA and re-created there.

Eventually, country houses were saved from extinction by the National Trust which started buying them in earnest after World War II. An appreciation of their history, architecture and vanished way of life has helped to keep their popularity alive. Gradually, many peers opened up their homes to fee-paying visitors. The response was heartening. On one day in the 1950s, 37,000 people visited Wolverton Abbey. The interest in stately homes endures.

Mr Tinniswood speculated what Blandings Castle would look like today. Maybe a plush hotel or an exclusive venue for corporate events, with a teashop selling sausages and mash and a gift shop at the end of the yew alley.

He concluded with the words, “By visiting them, we celebrate them. By celebrating them, we remember them. By remembering them, we keep them alive.”

After sustained, much-deserved applause, Hilary presented Mr Tinniswood with a print of Sudeley Castle and the inescapable tea towel. I could almost read the thought that flashed across his mind, “Now I’ll have to do the dishes”!