Angalo de Haberdasheri

Angalo is a nome from the Haberdasheri Department of the Store Arnold Bros (est. 1905). In fact, he is the first nome that the Outside group of nomes sees. He is dressed in bright clothes, a belt studded with glass, leather boots and a hat with a feather in. He is very curious about the Outside (the nomes from the Store don't believe the Outside exists and that it can be life outside the Store). He has a trained rat as a pet, named Bobo, and he is son of the Duke Cido de Haberdasheri.

During the narration of Truckers, Angalo develops as the nome specialist on vehicles, and has a very important participation on the Long Drive. His love of vehicles soon translates into a love of speed. If it can go fast, he wants to see it do so and, if possible, drive it. This almost leads to his getting captured while on board a Concorde jet liner when he takes it into his head to climb into the cockpit and look out of the pilot's window.

However the most important role of Angalo among the nomes, is the representation of atheism. This can be seen best on Wings, where Gurder (and Nisodemus in Diggers) represents the belief in Arnold Bros (est. 1905).

Angalo is the author of A Scientific Encyclopedia for the Enquiring Young Nome, which is quoted in Wings at the beginning of each chapter. In this encyclopedia, Angalo tries to explain things he finds in his journey:

  "SCIENCE: A way of finding things out and then making them work. Science explains what
  is happening around us the whole time. So does RELIGION, but science is better because it comes
  up with more understandable excuses when it is wrong. There is a lot more Science than you
  think."  
           From A Scientific Encyclopedia for the Enquiring Young Nome by Angalo de Haberdasheri.

Books

Angalo appears in the three books of Bromeliad: Truckers, Diggers and Wings.

Annotation

The fact that in the final book, Wings, the quotes at the chapter heads are mostly from Angalo's scientific encyclopaedia whereas before they were always from the Book of Nome is perhaps meant to suggest that the Nome culture is moving out of a church-dominated medieval society and into its Renaissance/Enlightenment. This could be an "Author On Board" situation, as Terry himself is an atheist.

Conversely, this corresponds with the arrival of the Ship: as the crew of the Enterprise demonstrate in Star Trek, it's impossible to be dogmatically religious in space. Indeed, none of Planet Earth's major religions seem to make it to the 24th Century, as the job description which is emphatically missing aboard any incarnation of the Enterprise is "chaplain".

(Note: the above is actually incorrect - it is entirely possible to be religious in space as Klingons from Star Trek have a vast space empire and they are devoutly religious believing in both heaven and hell (Stovokor and Grethor) and worshipping Khaless the first warrior as the Klingon messiah and equivalent of the Terran Jesus. Despite operating at the level of an advanced society having Klingon scientists and engineers and having space craft and cloaking devices they are also highly conservative and very traditional in terms of their society divided into feudal age great noble houses and an archaic war like imperial government)