Herbert Ernest Bates

Date: 2015-10-07; view: 576.

Herbert Ernest Bates was born in Northamptonshire in 1905. His family were shoemakers. After leaving school he spent a short, unhappy time as a newspaper reporter, and then took a job in the office of a shoe factory warehouse. He spent many hours alone in the office, and it was there that he wrote his first novel The Two Sisters, which was published in 1926.

During the Second World War Bates joined the Royal Air Force. During that time he published several collections of short stories including There's Something in the Air (1943) and How Sleep the Brave (1943). His most famous novel Fair Stood the Wind for France (1944) is about the crew of a British plane shot down in France. After the war Bates travelled widely, writing in Tahiti and many other parts of the world. He died in 1974.

For fifty years H. E. Bates published at least one new novel or collection of short stories every year, and several of the novels have been made into successful films or television serials. Perhaps his best-loved character is Pa Larkin, the happy family man of The Darling Buds of May (1958). Bates, like Pa Larkin, lived with his wife and children in the peaceful countryside of Kent; and, like his famous character, is remembered as a passionate Englishman, with a deep love of the countryside and the beauty of nature.