Go Lovely Rose and Other Short Stories by He Bates

H.E. Bates

Herbert Ernest Bates - Author

Herbert Ernest Bates was born in 1905 in Northhamptonshire, England. He knew he wanted to be a writer from the age of 12. Determined to write his first novel H.E. left school at seventeen and had worked as a clerk and a journalist and been on the dole for a while by the time he was 20 years old. It was then he had his first novel published, The Two Sisters. Over the next fifteen years he was to write eight novels and more than a dozen short story collections.

In 1941 H.E. (as he was known both professionally and privately) went to war serving in the Air Force. Whilst there he compiled another set of short stories regarding "Flying Officer X, " who became quite famous for describing exploits of life in the Air Force during the Second World War. Although these stories were written for the Air Force at the time, he also found time during the war to write his own novel, Fair Stood the wind for France."

Fair Stood the Wind for France tells the tale of an RAF pilot called John Franklin during the Second World War. He and his crew are forced to land in France when something goes wrong on their flight back from a bombing trip to Germany. Somehow they have to find their way through France and back to England, but considering they can only have landed in Occupied France or Vichy France, the only way they will manage that it with civilian help. They find it (of course) in the form of a young girl, Francoise, and her family, who live on a farm in Occupied France. Although this book is more serious in tone than some of H.E.'s other work, it is really easy to get the feel of what life was like in France during the war.

H.E. was found of rural England and this showed in many of his novels and short stories. One of the most famous of his creations was "Uncle Silas," a "rural reprobate" who was the subject of many a short story, a collection of which were published in 1939. H.E. wrote in the preface of that collection,

Certainly there was no strain of the Puritan in my Uncle Silas, who got gloriously and regularly drunk, loved food and the ladies and good company, was not afraid to wear a huge and flamboyant buttonhole, told lies, got the better of his fellow-men whenever the chance offered itself, used a scythe like an angel, was a wonderful gardener, took the local lord's pheasants, and yet succeeded in remaining an honest, genuine and lovable character" (Bates, 1939)

The character of Uncle Silas was actually based on a distant uncle of Bates, who was born in the 1840's and who lived well into the 20th century.