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
Martha E. Cram Bates M.). In addition to her work on the "Herald", Bates did an immense amount of literary work in the way of correspondence, sketches, stories and poems. She also wrote several books. With Mary Knezik Buck, Bates was the joint author of, "Along Traverse Shores", and "A Few Verses for a Few Friends". Bates was the author of "Young People's History of Michigan", which was used in many schools of the State for historical study. In religion, Bates was one of the three surviving charter members of the Congregational church. While she had been an invalid for about three years, Bates