Galahad Threepwood - Life and Character

Life and Character

Galahad is the only one of the Threepwood siblings never to have married. His true love was Dolly Henderson, with whom he was in love from 1896 to 1898 but who, as a lounge singer who wore pink tights, was not an appropriate bride for a man of his social status. His father sent him to South Africa to prevent him from marrying, following which he spent most of his life drinking heavily and getting up to mischief. A member of the notorious Pelican Club, he appears to have travelled widely and known many people.

The prospect of Galahad's writing his reminiscences causes a good deal of consternation among England's well-established upper-class because he had, in younger days, been "a notable lad about town". A partier, drinker, prankster, and ladies' man, and his stories are liable to embarrass his former comrades, most of whom have grown into respectable gentlemen. One particularly embarrassing story concerns Sir Gregory Parsloe-Parsloe and prawns, though we never learn many details of the incident, other than that it took place at Ascot, "the year Martingale won the Gold Cup".

His wildness makes him very popular with the members of the Blandings Servants Hall, who feel he sheds lustre on the castle, but less so with his sisters, who find him something of an embarrassment, particularly when recalling stories of their now-respectable friends. Despite the fact that he "apparently never went to bed until he was fifty", he is in remarkable shape, a sprightly, rosy, dapper man with bright eyes and a jaunty posture.