H.E. Bates Companion

A reminiscence of a girl's loss of innocence, drawing its title from her description of herself at eighteen as "dull as one of the aspidistras that cluttered up...our little boarding house" and her mother's characterization of the life of soldiers in their garrison town as "Babylon." The story was adapted for the television series "ITV Play of the Week" and first aired in 1965, and for the television series "Country Matters" in February 1973. The novella was dramatized for BBC Radio by Gregory Evans in 1986 in a production starring Edward de Souza and Deborah Makepeace, and directed by Gordon House. In Woman's Own (July 11, 1959), An Aspidistra in Babylon/The Grapes of Paradise (1960), The Grapes of Paradise (1974).