Little rivers of yellow, brown and pinkish-purple cream where running down over her huge lardy hands.

Just like tax inspector Cedric Charlton, you’ll find yourself drawn into the orbit of Pop and Ma Larkin and their six children – indomitably cheery hedonists, the lot of them. Best read in the midst of winter to remind you that golden summers and autumns will indeed come round again.

Written and published almost exactly ten years after Nineteen Eighty-Four, The Darling Buds Of May is, peculiarly and probably quite unintentionally, more accurately prophetic of modern British Society than that nightmare: here are a family who constantly eat crisps and ice-cream, who leave the television on through all daylight hours, whose parents are unmarried and drink heavily and who think nothing of their teen-aged daughter being single and pregnant. Sometimes I read a book description and think I will take a chance with a book outside my typical Mormon or Christian romance genre. The Larkin family appeared in the ITV adaptation, ‘The Darling Buds of May’, over three series between 1991 and 1993 (starring David Jason, Pam Ferris, Catherine Zeta-Jones, and Philip Franks). He helps with the strawberry picking and the preparations for a gymkhana to be hosted on Pop’s field.

Set in Kent, where I myself lived for four years, the series followed the life of the Larkin family. Having produced 6 children without the encumbrance of a marriage certificate, Ma and Pop Larking know they can easily manage a grandchild that comes from "the wrong side of the blanket". Bates - The Larkin Family Saga (Comprising: The Darling Buds of May, A Breath of French Air, When the Green Woods Laugh, Oh! I also got the growing feeling that Charlie was being entrapped by all the adult Larkins as husband fodder for Mariette.Charlton from a malnourished and timid tax clerk to a full member of the Larkin family — Ma and Pa Larkin and their many children — and its easygoing celebration of nature, food, drink, and family.