H.E. Bates Companion

The compiler of this "Festival Handbook" writes that he has "lifted" Bates's five paragraphs from something "that has been written...for inclusion in the book of 'The Boy Will Do'" (a play performed for Higham Ferrers Drama Week in 1951). No evidence of that book has been discovered; it is possible therefore that this is the only publication of these reminiscences of Bates's boyhood in Higham Ferrers. Bates closes in a plea for preservation: "Leave it alone, therefore: the unique group of ecclesiastical buildings, the 18th century houses, the College, the pubs, Wood Street with its limes, the incomparable Square with the Chestnut Trees. It can only grow in beauty." In Souvenir of the 700th Anniversary of the First Borough Charter and of the Festival of Britain