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 in the early to mid 20th century of England mainly.

His best-known works include Love for Lydia, Fair Stood the Wind for France, The Darling Buds of May, as well as My Uncle Silas.

Herbert Ernest Bates was born on 16 May 1905 in Rushden, Northamptonshire, and educated at Kettering Grammar School.

Bates was partial to taking long walks around the Northamptonshire countryside, which often provided the inspiration for his stories.

Bates discarded his first novel, written when he was in his late teenage years, but his second, and the first to be published, The Two Sisters, was inspired by one of his midnight walks, which took him to the small village of Farndish.

During World War II, he was commissioned into the Royal Air Force solely to write short stories.

The Air Ministry realised that it might create more favorable public sentiment by emphasizing stories about the people fighting the war, rather than facts.

[3][4] He was also commissioned by the Air Ministry to write The Battle of the Flying Bomb, but because of various disagreements within the government, it was cancelled, and then publication was banned for 30 years.

The man (probably Wiltshire trader William Dell, also on holiday) had a huge wad of rubber-banded bank notes and proceeded to treat his trailer load of children with Easter eggs and ice creams.

In 2020 ITV commissioned a new television series of The Darling Buds of May, with the title The Larkins starring Bradley Walsh, Joanna Scanlan, Sabrina Bartlett and Tok Stephen.