Major Brabazon-Plank

Major Brabazon-Plank, later Major Plank, is a recurring fictional character from the Uncle Fred and Jeeves stories of British comic writer P. G. Wodehouse, being a famed explorer who led an expedition up the Amazon but is afraid of babies.

Overview

Major Brabazon-Plank is a famed explorer who led at least one expedition up the Amazon River in Brazil. While in Peru, Major Plank judged a bonny baby competition, where one of the mothers unhappy with the results stabbed him in the leg. (He will show the scar when asked.) This experience has instilled in him a lifelong phobia of babies and marriage (as marriages lead to bonny babies, and bonny babies lead to bonny baby competitions).

In South Africa, he hitched-hiked from Johannesburg to Cape Town to avoid being married. In Mozambique, his native servant stole a box of Havanas and his false teeth. (Major Plank had to trade a case of gin and two strings of beads to a native chief to get the false teeth back.)

In Uncle Dynamite, as Major Brabazon-Plank, he is back from leading an expedition up the Amazon with Bill Oakshott. Visiting Ashenden Manor, he finds Uncle Fred usurping his identity. Uncle Fred and Major Plank were acquaintance in their young school days. In this book he is described as a fat man and a perpetual eater, "practically all backside"; this part of the character is dropped by the time he appears in the Jeeves stories.

In Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves, now retired as Major Plank, he sells an important amber statuette to Sir Watkyn Bassett, and wants to call the police on Bertie Wooster trying to sell it back to him. Jeeves (as Detective Weatherspoon) diverted the call to the police by naming Bertie as Alpine Joe and took Bertie away.

In Aunts Aren't Gentlemen, as Major Plank, he is a visitor haunting Bertie Wooster, the Major trying to remember where they had met before. He suffers from a poor memory as an after-effect of having contracted malaria during his time in Brazil.

Quotes

All Marriages are disastrous….They lead to bonny babies, and bonny babies lead to bonny baby competitions.[1]

If she’d [Madeline Bassett] have seen as many native chiefs' wives as I have, she wouldn’t want to make such an ass of herself. Dickens of a life they lead, those women. Nothing to do but grind maize meal and have bonny babies.[2]

I’m strongly opposed to anyone marrying anybody, but if you are going to marry someone, you unquestionably save something from the wreck by marrying a woman who knows what to do with a joint of beef.[3]

Stories

Major Brabazon-Plank is featured in:

Major Brabazon-Plank is mentioned in:

References

Sources consulted
  • Reggie (2007-03-16 revision). "Wodehouse Who's Who: Major Plank". Blandings, a Companion to the Works of P. G. Wodehouse. Archived from the original on 2007-07-24. Check date values in: |date= (help)
Endnotes
  1. ↑ Wodehouse, P G, Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves, London, 1963 (Penguin printing p. 158)
  2. ↑ Wodehouse, P G, Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves, London, 1963 (Penguin printing p. 158)
  3. ↑ Wodehouse, P G, Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves, London, 1963 (Penguin printing p. 181)
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