On July 22, 1916, a private in the Warwickshire Regiment was killed on the Somme. His body was never found and he never knew the influence he had on literature. Three years earlier he had been bowling for his county at the Cheltenham cricket festival and caught the eye of a spectator. When PG Wodehouse needed a name, Percy Jeeves came to mind.
The first name of Bertie Wooster’s sidekick was, in fact, Reginald, not Percy, although that wasn’t revealed until 1971 in Much Obliged, Jeeves. For the first 56 years of their partnership, he was known, with deference to the feudal spirit, only by his surname.
