The Oldest Member is a fictional character from the short stories and novels of P. G. Wodehouse. He narrates the majority of Wodehouse's golf stories from the terrace of a golf club whose location is unclear, and he never has a proper name. We don't even know whether the Golf Club is located in England or in the United States. In The Clicking of Cuthbert, it appears to be in England. In The Heart of a Goof, it seems to be in the United States, but then, some characters will talk about pounds instead of dollars, and Marvis Bay is mentioned in one of the story. And we know that Marvis Bay is one of the favorite fictional English seaside resorts of Wodehouse.
While the club's members enjoy having drinks in the clubhouse after a brisk eighteen holes, they do so fully aware of the risk that the Oldest Member, who, though he has long since given up golf, has seen all and knows all, might pick up on their conversation and begin to relate a story from his experience. Once he has started talking, he cannot be stopped. These stories are often told to another character, 'the young man', who, for some reason, seems eager to leave before the story has even started.
BBC Radio 4 aired an adaptation of some of the short stories and novels. Maurice Denham starred in three series between 1994 and 1999.
Read more about Oldest Member: Stories
Famous quotes containing the words oldest and/or member:
“No ray is dimmed, no atom worn,
My oldest force is good as new,
And the fresh rose on yonder thorn
Gives back the bending heavens in dew.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Even in harmonious families there is this double life: the group life, which is the one we can observe in our neighbour’s household, and, underneath, another—secret and passionate and intense—which is the real life that stamps the faces and gives character to the voices of our friends. Always in his mind each member of these social units is escaping, running away, trying to break the net which circumstances and his own affections have woven about him.”
—Willa Cather (1873–1947)