The world of Ukridge

Alan Watkins

My father's library was small but for- midable: Ruskin, Carlyle, Froude and Matthew Arnold, Gibbon and Mommsen, that kind of thing, most in the old Everyman edition with the art-nouveau spine. This daunting collection was housed in a glass-fronted bookcase in the sitting- room. In another room, the parlour, there was an inferior book-case, not glass- fronted. It contained books that were com- ing apart, books that were — or had been — for use rather than ostentation (A Modern Geography and Mining Mathematics), books that might offend visiting ministers or clergymen (Das Kapital and The Origin of Species) and books that ' were considered frivolous. Most of the books in this last, admittedly small category belonged to my mother. And among them were several early works by P.G. Wodehouse.

One of these was the collection of Ukridge stories, first published in 1924. But it was evident to me, even as a boy, that P.G. Wodehouse was writing about a vanished world, a world that had disap- peared in 1914. He was writing about essen- tially the same London as Conan Doyle in the Sherlock Holmes stories, which had a similar influence on me. When I learnt more about Wodehouse, I discovered that the setting was indeed pre-1914. Wode- house was also being autobiographical, or as autobiographical as he ever allowed himself to become in his work. (He often lamented that he found it hard to utilise his experiences and had to make up episodes and characters instead.) He was writing about his time as a columnist on the Globe, what George Orwell was dismissively to describe as Wodehouse's introduction to writing by way of 'very cheap journalism.' In fact he had written numerous full-length school stories by this time, and also the light novel for grown-ups, Love among the Chickens (1906).

It is in this book that Ukridge first ap- pears, though not in the principal role. Wodehouse, however, realised that he had picked a winner in Ukridge, and afterwards invested more heavily in him. Towards the end of his career his performance declined. The season of the classics is 1924.

Ukridge is the man who is always seeing the pot of gold in the mists. There is 'a col- ossal fortune, laddie, a simply colossal for- tune' awaiting him if he can only bring his various schemes to a successful conclusion. What is required is 'vision, and the big, broad, flexible outlook' not only in his friends but, more important, in his creditors. As Mr Richard Usborne has pointed out in his study of Wodehouse, Ukridge is the absurdity which is the result of the 'you, too, can be a millionaire' series of books, articles and correspondence courses that flourished more luxuriantly at the beginning of the century than they perhaps do today.

Ukridge, as befits a rising capitalist, is also immoral — or devoid of any moral sense. He bilks creditors. He steals his friends' socks and shirts (as Dylan Thomas was to do later: I have not seen this scholar- ly comparison made previously). He tells lies. He also lolls in bed till midday. He is ill-dressed, wearing a mustard-coloured mackintosh whatever the weather, a collar which detaches itself from his shirt in moments of emotion, and pince-nez attach- ed to his person with 'ginger-beer wire'. This last was something of which I had no direct experience in the 1940s but whose function I correctly guessed: it was the wire that held the cap of the ginger-beer bottle in place.

The narrator of the stories is James Cor- coran, a freelance journalist who has lodg- ings in Ebury street, Pimlico, then famous for providing accommodation for bachelors. Post-1924 attempts by Wodehouse to make Ukridge himself the narrator were less successful. Corcoran 'is'

Wodehouse, and we can indirectly learn something about his early life in London. His landlord is a former butler, Bowles, whose wife is Scottish, perhaps a former cook. Corcoran is provided with a bedroom, a sitting-room, breakfast and dinner. Today someone in his position would be in a bed-sitter or sharing a flat. He can afford to eat out in Soho, though not in `West End restaurants' except on special occasions: 'It was at Barolini's Italian restaurant in Beak Street that Ukridge evolved his great scheme [for his Accident Syndicate]• Barolini's was a favourite resort of our little group of earnest strugglers in the days when the philanthropic restaurateurs of Soh° used to supply four courses and coffee for a shilling and sixpence.'

There are some interesting little lights on social behaviour too. `Ukridge's Accident Syndicate' ends with 'arm-in-arm, we stroll- ed off in the pleasant June sunshine'. 10 'The Exit of Battling Billson' we read that Ukridge 'linked his arm in mine and we crossed the road to where the lights of a public house shone like heartening beacons.' He had been at school, at Wrykin (or Dulwich), with Corcoran, whence Ukridge had been expelled for going to the local fair at night disguised in a false beard but still wearing his school cap. They re- main close friends, but Ukridge is resolutelY heterosexual in his tastes. He forms a liaison with his Aunt Julia's secretary Dora, he falls in love with and finally marries a girl called Millie, he finds himself disastrously engaged to a girl called Mabel from Clapham Common and he has a wide acquaintance with the barmaids of the Crown in Kennington.

Ukbridge's Aunt Julia is a romantic novelist, precursor of Rosie M. Banks. She lives in Wimbledon, with a butler and numerous Pekes. Ukridge sometimes staYs with her when he is in very low water, but finds the strain of, among other imposi- tions, having to dress in a morning coat too great to bear. Wodehouse clearly has a cer- tain admiration for Aunt Julia, but is less approving of some of her fellow-members of the Pen-and-Ink Club, such as Charlton Prout.

`He eyed me wistfully, and I felt that something ought to be done about him. He was much too sleek and he had no right to do his hair like that.

"Of course," I said, "I have read au' your books."

"Really?" "A Shriek in the Night. Who Killed Jasper Bossom? all of them."

He stiffened austerely.

"You must be confusing me with sonic other-ah-writer," he said. "My work is 00 somewhat different lines. The reviewers usually describe the sort of thing 1 do as Pastels in Prose. My best-liked book, I believe, is Grey Myrtles. Dunstable's brought it out last year. It was exceedinglY well received. And I do a good deal of critical work for the better class of review.°

Nor is Wodehouse unaware of social Movements outside London. In 'The Exit of Battling Billson' Corcoran visits Wales:

'My presence in Llunindnno was due to the fact that the paper which occasionally made use of my services as a special writer had sent me to compose a fuller and more scholarly report than its local correspon- dent seemed capable of concocting of the activities of one Evan Jones, the latest of 'hose revivalists who periodically convulse the emotions of the Welsh mining popula- tion.'

Notice the word 'periodically.' There Were several Welsh revivals, not just one, as is often erroneously believed. Wodehouse the historical and social observer has got this right. But Corcoran does not take to the place or the people:

'It is a dark, dingy, dishevelled spot, in- habited by tough and sinister men with suspicious eyes.and three-day beards.'

He enjoys the singing, however:

'There is something about a Welsh voice When raised in song that no other voice seems to possess — a creepy, heart- searching quality that gets right into a man's inner consciousness and stirs it up With a pole.'

As with religion, so with politics. Wodehouse was often accused — by 13rwell, among others — of being ignorant Of and uninterested in politics. He admitted the charges cheerfully enough. But in Pstnith in the City Mr Waller, the Socialist city clerk and open-air orator from South London, is almost a portrait of H.T. Mug- geridge. In The Code of the Woosters Roderick Spode, leader of the Black Shorts, is recognisably Sir Oswald Mosley. While in the Ukridge story 'The Long Arm of Looney Coote' Ukridge and Corcoran at- tend a by-election to work for one of the andidates, their old school chum `Boko' Lawlor. Corcoran, the professional word- sMith, composes a song for his benefit:

No foreign foe's insidious hate Our country shall o'erwhelm So long as England's ship of state Has LAWLOR at the helm.

, 'Whether,' Corcoran adds for the reader, 't was technically correct in describing as guiding the ship of state a man who would Probably spend his entire parliamentary Zeer in total silence, voting meekly as the hiP directed, I had not stopped to en- quire., Evidently Wodehouse knew how politics ‘,.s,vorked. He certainly understood the Boating vote. Ukridge is talking about 'the quarter of the town where the blokes live who work in Fitch and Weyman's biscuit factory, laddie. It's what you might call,' said Ukridge, importantly, 'the doubtful Clement of the place. All the rest of the town is nice and clean-cut — but these biscuit blokes are wobbly.' in the end Ukridge is arrested (for steal- ing Looney Coote's motor-car) while mak- ing vigorous speech at an election meeting. Oddly enough, a friend of mine later had a similar experience ---though the charge was different, and the incident oc- curred after an Any Questions broadcast.