Book description
Teetotal! Ma said. It s a libel. He ll never live it down. He ll
never be able to hold his head up again. Whatever will people think?
What s he going to say when anybody asks him to have one?
No, said Dr Conner.
You ll have to strap him down, Ma said. You ll have to put the
handcuffs on.
And so after a mild heart-attack caused by rather too much of what
you fancy Pop Larkin finds himself off the booze, off the good food
and off the good life generally, much to his own and everyone s else s
horror and upset.
And while Ma tries to find ways around doctor s orders , young
Primrose is finding her own way round a rather flustered not to say
flushed Mr Candy
H. E. Bates was born in 1905 in Northamptonshire. He worked as a
journalist and clerk on a local newspaper before publishing his first
book,
The Two Sisters
, when he was twenty. During the Second World War he was a Squadron
Leader in the R. A.F.
The Darling Buds of May
, the first of the popular Larkin family novels, was followed by
A
Breath of French Air
(1959),
When the Green Woods Laugh
(1960),
Oh! To Be in England
(1963). His works have been translated into sixteen languages. H. E.
Bates was awarded the C. B.E. in 1973 and died in January 1974
