Tilling (Sussex) for television, McConnell was introduced to Elizabeth Mapp by her intoxicated husband, Major Mapp-Flint, as "a veritable pilling of Tillar".) The custom in Tilling of saying ""au reservoir"" as a valediction (in place of the French" au revoir") was a feature of "Miss Mapp", although it became apparent in "Mapp and Lucia" that it had originated with Lucia in Riseholme. It was transported to Tilling by Elizabeth Mapp who had stayed one summer at the Ambermere Arms in Riseholme. The lexicographer Eric Partridge suggested that in fact the term had originated in America in the 1880s. Lucia's celebrated recipe Lobster
Thomas Tilling up Tilling's South London services. In 1935, Tilling took over Royal Blue, which was the premier express coach company in the South and West of England, with a network of routes stretching from Penzance to Margate and Bournemouth to London, having developed tours and local services around Bournemouth and the New Forest in the horse-drawn era and express coach services after the First World War. Tilling and TBAT continued to trade successfully, but internal disagreements resulted in TBAT being wound up in 1942. The companies in TBAT were split between Tilling and BET, and the two groups continued to operate