List of Minor Blandings Characters - William Galahad Lister

William Galahad Lister

Known to most as Bill, but to Freddie Threepwood as "Blister", Mr Lister is an artist, a large and muscular man (he was once a finalist in an Amateur Boxing championship) with a face like a gorilla, who is bizarrely adored by Prudence Garland and terrorises Tipton Plimsoll with his repeated appearances, in Full Moon.

Lister's mother was a strongwoman on the music hall stage, and his father a sporting journalist. His uncle owned the "Mulberry Tree" inn outside Oxford, which Freddie Threepwood spent much time in as a student (it was in this period that he befriended Blister), and which Lister later inherits. Both Freddie and his uncle Galahad, Lister's godfather, support Lister in his wooing of Prudence; when their planned elopement is scuppered by Prudence's mother, Lister makes his way to Blandings, under the name of "Messmore Breamworthy", on a commission to paint the portrait of Empress of Blandings. He later poses as a gardener, wearing an impressive false beard provided by Galahad's friend "Fruity" Biffen, and later still takes on the name of Landseer in yet another attempt to be near Prudence by painting the pig. At Prudence's insistence, he plans to give up art to run the Mulberry Tree, but needs investment to modernise the place.