BATES H. E.: (1905-1974) English writer whose works include The Darling Buds of May (1958). An interesting A.L.S., with his initials H B, four pages, 8vo, Little Chart, Ashford, Kent, 2^nd January 1959, to Eric Williams ('Dear Bill'). Bates states that as soon as the 'turkey orgy was over' he read Dragoman Pass, continuing to add that he enjoyed it very much and that several good things struck him about it, including the exciting narrative and philosophical edge ('Otherwise it might well have been Bulldog Drummond'), and further remarking 'Of course the book isn't a novel, as you well know, but that doesn't matter. Another thing I like is that you've managed to give me (& damn few Iron Curtain travellers have) a clear & vivid picture of what the Balkans & the Danube basin are like. It sounds pretty damn grim to me. We have in fact got a very good Romanian friend who tells us how enchanting his country was before it got the comrades paradise conferred in it & I don't doubt it was. I think this sort of sticking-your-neck-out travel is just what you need, as a writer, for stimulus - though I've told you this before. It brings out the best in you & I look forward to the new trip & its results'. Bates also informs Williams that he was brought up in Northamptonshire, just over the border from where Williams is living, and that as a boy he often used to 'roam about the fields & copses that have now been absorbed in that gigantic U.S. mess of an air base at Chelveston. If you hear a voice crying for its lost world in the night-time it'll probably be mine!'. Together with Emlyn Williams (1905-1987) Welsh writer, dramatist & actor. A.L.S., Emlyn Williams, one page, 8vo, Pelham Crescent, London, 11^th October 1956, to Eric Williams, thanking him for taking the trouble to forward a letter and remarking 'I would have thought commercial TV would be more efficient, wouldn't you?!' Accompanied by a carbon typed copy of Eric Williams' original letter to Emlyn Williams. Also including an unsigned 6 x 4.5 photograph of Eric Williams. Two file holes to the left edge of each letter, only very slightly affecting the text, but not the signature. VG, 4

 

Eric Williams (1911-1983) English writer and former RAF pilot and prisoner-of-war during World War II whose most famous novel was The Wooden Horse (1949), made into a movie of the same name the following year.