The Retirement of A.J. Wentworth

The second of the humorous fictional memoirs of a hapless schoolmaster. A. J. Wentworth, formerly teacher of mathematics at Burgrove prep school for boys, now passes his retirement years in a typically English rural village where somehow he seems unable to stay out of trouble. Wentworth lurches from mishap to misunderstanding, whether at the Conservative Association or the local dramatic society, the cricket club dinner or the vicarage Christmas Party. His piece de resistance proves to be the escorting of two schoolboys on a trip to Switzerland that unexpectedly detours into Italy. A classic comic study in blinkered English manners, the Wentworth Papers will delight fans of P.G. Wodehouse or Grossmiths’ Mr Pooter. First introduced to readers in the pages of Punch magazine, it was later dramatised for both BBC Radio and ITV drama. AUTHOR: Humphry Francis Ellis became Literary and Deputy Editor of Punch magazine in 1949, a post which he held until 1953. During this period he developed the character of A.J. Wentworth, inspired by his experience as a schoolmaster. He was also a regular contributor to the New Yorker.