David Jason by Buster Merryfield). In 1989 Jason starred as Ted Simcock in the ITV drama series "A Bit of a Do", aired from January to December. In 1999, Jason starred as Captain Frank Beck in BBC's feature-length drama "All the King's Men" about the Sandringham regiment lost in World War I. He earned acclaim for a string of straight roles. These include Skullion in "Porterhouse Blue" (for Channel 4), Sidney "Pop" Larkin in the rural idyll "The Darling Buds of May" (Yorkshire Television/ITV) and based on the H. E. Bates novel, which featured Catherine Zeta-Jones in an early role. In 1992,
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