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
Wiley H. Bates High School 1937, and second-floor classrooms were added in 1945. Additional teaching facilities were added in 1950, in a simplified International or Modern style. The site is now known as Wiley H. Bates Heritage Park. The building has been repurposed into 71 senior housing units, a senior center, a boys and girls club, and a museum dedicated to Annapolis merchant and civic leader Wiley H. Bates. Wiley H. Bates High School was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1994. Prior to desegregation, Bates was the only public school in the county that African-American students could attend for a secondary