This Ones on Me: The Journals of Bartholomew Bandy: 6 - Tapa blanda

924 and our hero has made the USA too hot for him, thanks to his part in the Great Booze Robbery and his havoc-creating spell as an MP. Exile is urgently advisable.

In his only asset, a giant seaplane, Bandy sets off for Europe. His arrival in England makes a great splash – literally – as he lands in the Channel to rescue a downed pilot. But his fortunes are restored when the rescued pilot proves to be the son of the Maharajah of Jhamjarh, an Indian potentate and The Second Richest Man in the World. How Bandy creates an air force for the Indian state and becomes involved in working with Prime Minister Ramsay Macdonald against the Chief of Air Staff is the stuff of Bandy’s stranger-than-fiction memoirs.

Full of a sense of England in the 1920s, this is a worthy addition to the library of Bandyana. And he Gets the Girl!

Donald Jack was born in England and served in the Royal Air Force in the Second World War before coming to Canada. He was known for his film and television scripts, and his plays. He is most widely remembered, however, for The Bandy Papers, a series of comic novels recounting the adventures of a blundering First World War hero who went on to fame and misfortune in the post-war world. The first six books in the series, Three Cheers For Me; That’s Me In The Middle; It’s Me Again; Me Bandy, You Cissie; Me Too and This One’s On Me were recently re-published by McClelland & Stewart. They gained no fewer than three Leacock Awards for Humour and the undying loyalty of Bandy fans everywhere.

Donald Jack passed away in 2003 at the age of 78.