Empress of Blandings - Keepers

Keepers

In the course of the Blandings saga, the Empress is tended to by a large and disparate bunch of pig-keepers, most of them rather unappealing types who, unsurprisingly, smell strongly of pig.

• George Cyril Wellbeloved, her first and best-known keeper, is a rather unreliable sort, a little too fond of drink and lacking the old feudal loyalty; he defects to the rival camp of Sir Gregory Parsloe-Parsloe for a time, later returning to Blandings (in Service With a Smile), only to further betray Emsworth by joining yet another plot to kidnap the Empress.

• Pirbright, who holds the post throughout Summer Lightning and Heavy Weather, is a taciturn man does the job in a solid manner, and enjoys a good scrap with would-be pig-nappers.

• Edwin Pott is an elderly, gnome-like man with no roof to his mouth (rendering his speech rather hard to follow), who appears in Full Moon.

• Monica Simmons, rather worryingly niece to Parsloe-Parsloe, is nevertheless a highly capable girl despite referring to the Empress as a "piggy-wiggy". Graduate of an Agricultural College, Amazonian Miss Simmons tends her charge well in Pigs Have Wings, and returns to the post in Galahad at Blandings, only to elope at the end with a nephew of Lord Emsworth.

• Cuthbert Price, who takes over from Simmons, for A Pelican at Blandings.