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 independently until nationalisation began in the late 1940s. Tilling Motor Services Ltd was formed from the break-up. As part of the government's moves toward nationalisation of the transport industry, the Transport Act 1947 resulted in formation of the British Transport Commission (BTC). The railway companies were nationalised from 1 January 1948 with the result that their major stake in the Tilling and BET bus companies passed into public ownership from that date. Tilling sold its remaining holdings to the BTC at the beginning of 1949, as did the Scottish Motor Traction group. Thomas Tilling (BTC) Ltd. was set up as