Wodehousian hero

SIR – I much enjoyed your feature about the intrepid Congo adventurer John Blashford-snell (Magazine, September 8).

Curiously, years before this real-life explorer was born, a splendidly named character, one J Bashford Braddock, appeared in PG Wodehouse’s short story “The Ordeal of Osbert Mulliner”.

This fictional Bashford Braddock was also a Congo explorer and was a fearsome figure at the sight of whom “rhinoceroses frequently edged behind trees and hid themselves till he had passed”.

Surely a case of life reflecting art?

Charles Jackson Hyssington, Montgomeryshire