Professor Branestawm - Characters

Characters

Professor Branestawm is always at work in his "Inventory" creating bizarre inventions, all of which either malfunction or work in unanticipated ways, and which lead him into incredible adventures, often accompanied by his friend Colonel Dedshott of the Catapult Cavaliers, and his housekeeper Mrs Flittersnoop. He lives in Great Pagwell, which is apparently surrounded by other Pagwells (Little Pagwell, Pagwell Heights, Pagwell Gardens etc.). In "The Professor Borrows a Book", he manages to lose fourteen different copies of the same book from fourteen different public libraries, and has to cycle frantically between fourteen different Pagwells to renew his books to avoid being fined.

The Professor is described in the first book as having, like all great men, simple tastes: "His coat was simply fastened with safety pins because the buttons had simply fallen off. His head was simply bald and it simply shone like anything when the sun caught it." He has five pairs of spectacles – one for reading, one for writing, one for out of doors, one for looking at you over the top of and a fifth pair for looking for the others on the frequent occasions when they get lost. Other pairs of spectacles are often mentioned.

Mrs Flittersnoop, his housekeeper, causes trouble a few times through her lack of understanding for the Professor's genius. In "The Wild Waste Paper", she throws what seems to be a bottle of cough medicine into the waste bin. The liquid turns out to be the Professor's elixir of life, which was in the bottle because cough medicine is the only thing that can stop the stuff dead without actually destroying it. Since the bottle was uncorked to allow air in (nothing can live without air), the waste paper in the bin comes to life. Even when stuck up a pear tree surrounded by giant, predatory bits of waste paper, the Professor retains his scientific detachment, wondering if a carpenter's bill would know a saw if it saw one, and if so, whether the gas bill might explode at any moment.

The names of other characters in the books, like the Professor's, are puns:

• Mrs Flittersnoop - the Professor's housekeeper
• Colonel Dedshott - his best friend
• General Shatterfortz - the Colonel's commanding officer
• Commander Hardaport (Retired) - a neighbour of the Professor's
• Mr Chintzbitz - a friend of the Colonel's who owns a furniture shop
• Dr Mumpzanmeasle - the local doctor