Frederick Altamont Cornwallis Twistleton, 5th Earl of Ickenham, commonly known as Uncle Fred, is a fictional character who appears in short stories and novels written by P. G. Wodehouse between 1935 and 1961. An energetic and mischievous old chap, his talent for trouble is the bane of his nephew Pongo Twistleton's life.

Appearances

The Uncle Fred stories comprise one short and four novels, two of which are set at Blandings Castle:

Background and character

Uncle Fred is a tall, slim, distinguished-looking man, with a jaunty moustache, and an "alert and enterprising eye". As a child he gambolled at Mitching Hill, his Uncle Willoughby's estate just outside London, which later became the suburb of Valley Fields; it was there that he shot the gardener in the trousers seat with his bow and arrow, and threw up after his first cigar. He was a younger son, and therefore not expected to inherit his present title; he spent much time in America, working variously as a cowboy, a soda jerk, a newspaper reporter and a prospector in the Mojave Desert, before a number of deaths in the family left him heir to the Earldom. While in America, he was friends with James Schoonmaker, and his daughter Myra.