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
A Moment in Time (novel) A Moment in Time (novel) A Moment in Time is a 1964 novel written by English author H. E. Bates. He based the setting for most of the story on Shopswyke House, a Georgian mansion in Tangmere, West Sussex to which Bates himself was assigned. In the summer of 1940, 19-year-old Elizabeth Cartwright lives a secluded and privileged life in a village in Kent. Her world is turned upside down with the arrival of a group of RAF officers who requisition her family home as a base. She immediately falls for Bill Ogilvie with an old sports-car, then marries 'Splodge'