The Darling Buds of May (novel) film "The Mating Game" in 1959. ITV produced a television series based on the novel and its sequels, "The Darling Buds of May", which ran from 1991 to 1993. The Darling Buds of May (novel) The Darling Buds of May is a novella by British writer H. E. Bates, first published in 1958. It was the first of a series of five books about the Larkins, a rural family from Kent. Pop and Ma Larkin and their many children take joy in nature, each other's company, and almost constant feasts. Their only income is through selling scrap, picking strawberries, and
H. E. Bates provided the inspiration for his stories. Bates was a great lover of the countryside and this was exemplified in two volumes of essays entitled "Through the Woods" and "Down the River". Both have been reprinted numerous times. He discarded his first novel, written when he was in his late teens, but his second, and the first one to be published, "The Two Sisters", was inspired by one of his midnight walks, which took him to the small village of Farndish. There, late at night, he saw a light burning in a cottage window and it was this that triggered the