H.E. Bates Companion

On Bates's adopted home, which has "the happiest union of climate and soil and husbandry and sea," and a tour of its different regions. Bates celebrates the sea, woods, hop-fields, and orchards while decrying "pre-fabs," chain stores, and a "coastal strip of bungalows of astonishing hideousness." He closes by describing Kentish air as "very sweet and pleasant" -- I like it, and I shall probably go on breathing it and liking it, I think, for the rest of my days." In Country Fair (London, i, 6, County Supplement No. 6, pp. 81-8, December, 1951).