Uncle Fred, or to give him his full name and title, Frederick Altamont Cornwallis Twistleton, fifth Earl of Ickenham, of Ickenham Hall, Ickenham, Hants, is an elderly but sprightly man of distinguished appearance and serene disposition. He is discouraged by his wife from leaving the bounds of the Ickenham estate because of his propensity when let loose on the wider world to be a source of disaster and upheaval in the lives of everyone with whom he comes into contact. The innocent and unwilling accomplice in his misadventures is his nephew, Pongo Twistleton.
The novel opens with Pongo on his way from the Drones Club to attempt to borrow £200 from his friend, Horace Pendlebury-Davenport, who happens to be engaged to Pongo’s sister, Valerie Twistleton. On his arrival at Horace’s Park Lane apartment, he is admitted by Horace’s man, Webster. Webster explains that Mr Davenport has ‘stepped out to take a dancing lesson’. He goes on:
‘Perhaps you would not mind waiting in the library. The sitting-room is in some little disorder at the moment.’
‘Spring cleaning?’
‘No, sir. Mr Davenport has been entertaining his uncle, the Duke of Dunstable, to luncheon, and over the coffee His Grace broke most of the sitting room furniture with the poker.’
Pongo’s immediate thought is that Horace’s uncle might be eccentric, but that ‘thinking of his own Uncle Fred, he felt like Noah listening to someone make a fuss about a drizzle’.
This all occurs on page one of the novel. A distinguished veteran screenplay writer and adaptor of classic novels once explained to me that most modern novels are unsuitable for dramatization because they yield only about three minutes of filmable action: too wordy, too introspective. These disqualifications certainly do not apply to this or any other novel by P. G. Wodehouse. By the end of the first chapter we have discovered the chain of events that is the cause of Dunstable’s rage and why Horace has hired a detective by the name of Claude ‘Mustard’ Pott to shadow and report on the goings-on of his fiancée while she is in Le Touquet; how she has discovered this and has broken off their engagement; and why Horace rashly declares he will transfer his affections to Polly Pott, daughter of the afore-mentioned Claude. Poor Pongo does not succeed in borrowing any money from Horace.
The main setting is Blandings Castle, the peaceful, indeed idyllic home of Lord Emsworth, his beloved prize pig and his slightly less beloved sister, Lady Constance Keeble.
