Woodhouse's cricket heroes
Sir: Mr Alan Magid draws attention to the excellent Mike by PG. Wodehouse as both a major cricket novel and the best school story ever (Letters, 25 August). I am sure he is right on both counts and this is at least partly because PG. Wodehouse was basing his book on facts, which would have been even better known at the date of publication. The Jackson brothers in Mike are clearly based, as N.T.P. Murphy's Wodehouse Handbook points out, on the cricketing Fosters of Malvern College. The school in the book is plainly Malvern as Wodehouse describes perfectly the cricket grounds, the Senior and the Junior, as terraces cut into the (Malvern) Hills. The climax of the book is the Ripton match; a principal fixture for Malvern is against Repton. Wodehouse knew Malvern well as he frequently stayed in Worcestershire, or Fostershire as the county side came to be known.
Timothy Straker Gray's Inn, London WC1
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