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:
“A stranger may easily detect what is strange to the oldest inhabitant, for the strange is his province.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Neighboring farmers and visitors at White Sulphur drove out occasionally to watch ‘those funny Scotchmen’ with amused superiority; when one member imported clubs from Scotland, they were held for three weeks by customs officials who could not believe that any game could be played with ‘such elongated blackjacks or implements of murder.’”
—For the State of West Virginia, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)