H. E. Bates Lydia". His most popular creation was the Larkin family in "The Darling Buds of May". Pop Larkin and his family were inspired by a colourful character seen in a local shop in Kent by Bates and his family when on holiday. The man (probably Wiltshire trader William Dell, also on holiday) turned up to the shop with a huge wad of rubber-banded bank notes and proceeded to spoil his trailer load of children with Easter eggs and ice creams. The television adaptation, produced after his death by his son Richard and based on these stories, was a tremendous success. It
The Darling Buds of May (novel) Miss Pilchester, she responds, "Do her good. Make her sleep all the sweeter." In the first novella, Pop, Ma, and Mariette Larkin attempt to beguile Cedric Charlton, a timid and naive tax inspector, into abandoning his investigation of their finances. Their ultimate goal is for Mariette, who is secretly pregnant at the age of seventeen, to marry "Charley" and thus provide a father for her baby. Ultimately Mariette develops true feelings for Charley and they do become engaged. Charley is never told of the pregnancy, which turns out to be a false alarm. The novel was loosely adapted into the