----- Original Message ----- From: "Andrew Sellon" > <snip> (Lord Bosham, though a viscount and a future earl, is supposed to be the stupidest chap in the Wodehouse canon >>> Was it not the Viscount who lived in Blandings Castle who had a special affinity with pigs? I have to confess to never having linked Bosham, near where I used to live, with Blandings. ------------------------------- First, to bring this on line. P G Wodehouse had had a strong family connexion with India, as some of you might recall. His father was a British-Raj civil servant/judge and was posted to Hong Kong in late 1870s. PG's elder brother Peveril (named after a peak in HK) became a big-shot in Hong Kong police force. PG's other elder brother Armine was a lecturer in Bombay, Poona, and Benares between 1911 and 1925. He was actively associated with Annie Besant. PG's wife Ethel was in India with her first husband L Rowley, from 1905 to 1909. Rowley died near Kolar GF, and the young widow then went back to England and subsequently remarried PGW. Finally, PG's second cousin twice-removed was Sir Philip Wodehouse - he served as Governor, not only of the Bombay Presidency, but also of the Malay Federated States. All right! Now to briefly answer your q. - the pig lover was the Viscount's (Viscount Bosham) father - Clarence, 9th Earl of Emsworth. PGW spent some time in Emsworth (Hants) and was so deeply pleased with the area, that he named many of his characters after nearby towns and locales. Hence Lord Emsworth, Lord Bosham, Lord Havant, et al. The fictional Blandings Castle itself exists somewhere in Shropshire, on the banks of the Severn, not far from Bridgenorth and Shrewsbury. And that, I think, is all I dare to write about PGW on this list. Cheers, ----- Harshawardhan_Bosham Nimkhedkar Nagpur, India