It was only a little over a year ago that I came across H. E. Bates' work; up until then. I had never even heard his name, strange as this may sound. I blush now when I read that he is the author of forty or more books, has been translated into a dozen or more languages, and that 'his reputation in America, Australia and New Zealand equals, and in some cases surpasses, that in his own country. Perhaps I would never have heard of him had I not been laid up with chills and fever in the Hotel Formentor, Mallorca, where I was quartered during the Formentor Conference. Having nothing to read I asked a friend to go to the bookstore in the lobby and select something light, gay, amusing for me. My friend returned with a copy of A Breath of French Air.

He said nothing about knowing the author until some days later when I told him how much I had enjoyed the book. A little later, at some airport, I picked up The Darling Buds of May and Fair Stood the Wind for France. The last named impressed me deeply and made me wonder why I had never heard of the author. It struck me as being the only good novel I had read about World War II.