Welcome to the ninth of my ‘Calendar Chaos’ posts, in which I take the books I received in my 2024 book advent – each cover representing a different period of time – and review them for you!
Up first in May is MAY and the book is The Darling Buds of May by H.E. Bates.
Read on to find out more…
Blurb: ‘Home looks nice. Allus does though, don’t it? Perfick’
And so the Larkins – Pop, Ma, Mariette, Zinnia, Petunia, Primrose, Victoria and Montgomery – return from an outing for fish and chips and ice cream one May evening. There, amid the rustic charms of home, they discover a visitor: one Cedric Charlton, Her Majesty’s inspector of taxes.
Mr Charlton is visiting to find out why junk-dealer Pop hasn’t paid his tax – but nothing’s that simple at the Larkins. Mariette takes a shine to ‘Charley’ – as Pop calls him – and before long the family have introduced the uncomplaining inspector to the delights of country living: the lusty scents of wild flowers, the pleasures of a bottle of Dragon’s Blood, cold cream dribbled over a bowl of strawberries and hot, hot summer nights.
In fact, soon Charley can’t see any reason to return to the office at all . . .
Review: I was surprised on reading this book that, while some of the attitudes feel very of their time and out-dated by today’s standards, others feel almost ahead of their time in terms of the consumerism and rather relaxed attitudes towards marriage and babies!
Being a UK 80’s baby, I have naturally known of the TV series starring David Jason and Catherine Zeta Jones as a part of youthful pop culture, but somehow missed actually watching any of it, so I was curious to see what it was all about from the original source. And, despite not having watched it, I heard and saw David Jason every time Pop Larkin appeared on the page.
The story is short and as light as dandelion fluff – not a lot happens other than fruit-picking and flirting, as the hazy spring-summer days meander by in a constant state of excess, whether it be food, drink or kissing. On the surface, the Larkins appear to be the bucolic, rural ideal of happy, hedonistic innocents, living life in the moment and declaring everything ‘Perfick!’ in their little junkyard-cum-smallholding. But there is a sly humour in the deft way the family adults sidestep financial enquiries (how do they afford all those feasts and booze-ups on the tiny amount of work they seem to do?!) and parental responsibilities easily and lightly – managing to dodge the tax man’s mission while simultaneously ensnaring him in a honey trap of their own.
If you’re a Brit of a certain age and want to indulge in a bit of lightly humorous nostalgia for a rural version of Del-Boy’s wheeler-dealering then this is an entertaining little novella for whiling away a sunny afternoon.
If you are younger and/or not British, you may find yourself baffled by the lack of plot, character development and what passed for humour in those earlier days. Best taken with a pinch of salt, plenty of spirits and a large English breakfast (for starters!).
About the author:
Herbert Ernest Bates CBE (16 May 1905 – 29 January 1974) was a British writer known for his gritty, realistic short stories (he wrote more than 25 collections) and novels set predominantly in early- to mid-20th century England.
His rural upbringing and love of flowers and gardening (on which he wrote two books) informed much of his writing. The semiautobiographical “Love for Lydia” has detailed descriptions of nature in winter, and of the big grounds of Aspen Hall where he meets Lydia.
His best-known works include Love for Lydia, Fair Stood the Wind for France, The Darling Buds of May, and My Uncle Silas.
Many of his short stories were adapted for British television in the 1970s.
