The Drone's...

The Drone’s

Established: 1910

 

“We're pretty broad minded here, and if you stop short of smashing the piano, there isn't much you can do at the Drones that will cause the raised eyebrow and the sharp intake of breath"

-A Drone’s Member

Address:

Dover Street, Mayfair, W1

Entry Restrictions

Men only

 

Famous Members

Samuel Galahad “Sam” Bagshott

Charles Edward “Biffy” Biffen

Montague “Monty” Bodkin

Godfrey “Biscuit” Brent, Lord Biskerton

“Tubby” Bridgnorth

Frederick “Freddie” Bullivant

Hugo Carmody

G. d’Arcy “Stilton” Cheesewright

Marmaduke “Chuffy” Chuffnell

Nelson Cor

Dudley Finch

Augustus “Gussie” Fink-Nottle

Ronald Overbury “Ronnie” Fish

George “Boko” Fittleworth

Cyril “Barmy” Fotheringay-Phipps

Hildebrand “Tuppy” Glossop

Richard “Bingo” Little

Algernon “Algy” Martyn

Archibald “Archie” Mulliner

Horace Pendlebury-Davenport

Judson Phipps

Harold “Stinker” Pinker

Tipton Plimsoll

Claude Cattermole “Catsmeat” Potter Pirbright

Alexander “Oofy” Prosser

Rupert “Psmith” Smith

Adolphus “Stiffy” Stiffham

Reginald “Reggie” Tennyson

Frederick “Freddie” Threepwood

Reginald “Pongo” Twistleton

Hugo Walderwick

Frederick “Freddie” Widgeon

Percy Wimbolt

Harold “Ginger” Winship

Bertram “Bertie” Wooster

Algernon “Algy” Wymondham-Wymondham

 

Skills Augmented:

Bargain; Cricket; Fist/Punch; Sneak; Throw;

 

Areas of Speciality:

Country House Retreats; Cricket; Famous Cooks; Musical Theatre

 

History

Not all of London’s most famous Clubs are, in fact, real. Some of them exist only in the pages of famous writers who, themselves, drew upon their own memberships for inspiration. We’ve seen how Boodle’s provided Ian Fleming with the notion of M’s Club Blades, and other writers have developed their own establishments in a similar fashion. Most famous of all however, has to be the Drone’s Club, created by Sir Pelham Grenville Wodehouse.

The founding of the Drone’s Club is shrouded in the mists of time (circa 1910) and is rumoured to have been a charitable act, similar to those of foreign organisations which fund the return of ex-patriate gentlemen back to their homelands after their fortunes turn bad. Establishing a place where vapid and wastrel upper-class youth could be gathered together in one spot seems an act definitely tailored towards the Common Good.

The Drones is populated by young men of a class viciously referred to as “upper-class twits”. They have no particular political or ideological bent beyond indulging their fondness for high-jinks and the furthering of relationships formed whilst in school at Harrow, or Eton. As a group they instinctively shy away from anything bordering on the intellectual.

Uniting all members of the Drone’s is deeply-hued hatred of another Club called the Chanters. Members of that Club are all earnest, go-getting young men who pride themselves on being everything that the Drones are not. Regular inter-varsity activities take place between the two establishments and these contests are bitterly played out. These events are of the challenge variety and are usually instigated by a Chanter’s Club member heaving the gauntlet at the foot of a Drone’s Club adversary.

Events within the Drones Club include the following: The Drones Club Annual Golf Rally; The Drones Club Annual Darts Tournament (sweepstakes); and the Drones Club Annual Fat Uncle Contest (sweepstakes). The Golf Rally takes place along St. James’s Street: participants must carry a golf club and have their own ball; they tee off from the front steps of the Senior Club on Pall Mall and finish with a chip shot through the front door of the Berkeley Club in Piccadilly. Drinks are de rigueur. Very few Drone’s ever complete the course, what with the fleeing through shattered glass from angry Club members and the escaping from policemen. The Darts Tournament, being a sweepstakes event has little to do with the skill of the players, and the Fat Uncle Contest is likewise handicapped in the tactics department. (For the record, the Fat Uncle Contest involves surreptitiously discovering the weights of various nominated avuncular relatives.)

The Clubhouse has two smoking lounges, one large and one small; however for reasons unknown the small lounge is rarely used. The dining room is often raucous and filled with unbridled conversation, leading to the tradition of attracting the attention of a fellow member by throwing a bread roll at him. There is a gymnasium with a swimming pool, ropes and rings but its use is generally infrequent.

More important than the facilities are the personnel. The head barman, McGarry, has an encyclopaedic memory and mixes the Club members’ cocktails to perfection every time. The head porter Bates is a past master of diplomacy and defends the Club’s gates from unwanted intrusion and idiocy. And Robinson who works as a waiter in the cloakroom, is the voice of reason when it comes to organising and assigning hats, coats and various types of purloined impedimenta, including policemen’s helmets.

*****

“Once a year the committee of the Drones decides that the old Club could do with a wash and brush-up, so they shoo us out, and dump us down for a few weeks at some other institution. This time we were roosting at the Senior Liberal, and, personally, I had found the strain pretty fearful. I mean, when you’ve got used to a Club where everything’s nice and cheery, and where, if you want to attract a fellow’s attention, you heave a bit of bread at him, it kind of damps you to come to a place where the youngest member is about eighty-seven, and it isn’t good form to talk to anyone unless you and he were through the Peninsular War together. It was a relief to come across Bingo. We started to talk in hushed voices. ‘This Club,’ I said, ‘is the limit.’

‘It is the eel’s eyebrows,’ agreed young Bingo. ‘I believe that old boy over by the window has been dead three days, but I don’t like to mention it to anyone...’”

- P.G. Wodehouse

“If you are so jolly sure that life is finally extinct, just try clearing away that glass and see what happens!”