Old Filth is the acronym for 'Failed in London try Hong Kong' and described the colonials in the Far East who didn't quite the mustard in the UK and therefore chose to go into the service of the mother country and its natives on the other side of the World. Sir Edwards Feathers, the eponymous character, was anything but a failure. A child of the Raj who had been born and orphaned in Malaya, he moved to HK and was a colossus in its legal system.
In the first book Old Filth, the story is told from Sir Edward's point if view and it recounts his life history, including his childless marriage to Betty and long and bitter rivalry in the courts and in love with Terence Veneering. Stolid, dull Old Filth - v- the flashy arriviste Veneering. Book two The Man in Wooden Hat retells their stories from Betty's standpoint and reveals her very deep love for Old Filth but passion for the louche, dangerous and very clever Venereering.
Now in the last part of the trilogy Jane Gardam rounds up and concludes the story of the two lawyers, who in retirement in the UK find themselves next door neighbours in the English countryside which neither would nor could have called 'home' for most all of their lives.
The books are funny but bitter and recount the apogee and relentless decline of Empire. But there is hope in terms of the rapprochement of the two formerly powerful colonialists.
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