Knight of the long knives

Comic author PG Wodehouse was repeatedly blocked from receiving a knighthood because of his wartime involvement with the Nazis.

Secret files made public for the first time yesterday show that, more than two decades after the end of World War II, there were deep misgivings in Whitehall about official recognition for the creator of Jeeves and Wooster. When Harold Wilson's Labour Government finally relented in 1974 and agreed he should be knighted, Foreign Secretary James Callaghan disagreed, saying: 'Wodehouse put himself out of court during the war.'

Wodehouse is widely acknowledged as one of the finest comic writers in English literature but his reputation suffered from his wartime record. He was captured in France in 1940 when the country fell to the Germans and taken to Berlin. While there, he recorded five interviews for German radio, one suggesting Britain might lose the war. The interviews, later broadcast in the US, were dismissed by fellow writer George Orwell as 'silly but harmless' but left Wodehouse liable to prosecution for treason. After his release, he lived in Berlin for a year before moving to the US and taking American citizenship. The novelist did finally receive his knighthood in 1975, just a few weeks before his death at the age of 93.