My Uncle Silas: From the author of The Darling Buds of May, the inspiration behind The Larkins - Tapa blanda

This collection brings together the deeds and misdeeds of Uncle Silas, the rural reprobate H. E. Bates made so popular in the stories published in various magazines throughout the 1930's. Accompanied by the original drawings by Edward Ardizzone this edition captures perfectly the atmosphere of the thatched houses along the violet-banked country lanes.

Over the course of ninety-five years Uncle Silas had an extraordinary life. Occasionally irritable and vainglorious, but always charming, he maintained a devilish spark of audacity making him so attractive to everyone he met.

Now a new generation may delight in the exploits of Uncle Silas and savour this deliciously robust tale of rural England.

My Uncle Silas is a YTV Co-Production with Excelsior and WGBH/Boston
Executive Producers - DAVID REYNOLDS, RICHARD BATES, PHILIP BURLEY
Director - PHILIP SAVILLE
Producer - PETER NORRIS
Screenplays by ROBERT BANKS STEWART, PETER TINNISWOOD

My Uncle Silas stars
Albert Finney,
Sue Johnson,
Annabelle Apsion,
Charlotte Rampling
and Lynda Bellingham
and introduces Joe Prospero as Edward

H. E. Bates was born in Northamptonshire in 1905. He published his first novel, The Two Sisters, when he was twenty, and for the next decade built up a reputation as a writer of great versatility. During the Second World War Bates was commissioned by the RAF as a short story writer, where he wrote the acclaimed How Sleep the Brave and The Greatest People in the World. His most popular creation was the effervescent Larkin family about whom he wrote five novels including The Darling Buds of May and A Little of What You Fancy. In 1973 H. E. Bates was awarded the C.B.E. He died in 1974.