Seven by Five

by H.E. Bates

Thirty-five of his best short stories, written between 1925 and 1961, and chosen by H.E. Bates.

Contents:
The Flame; A Flower Piece; The Mower; Time; The Mill; The Station; The Kimono; Breeze Anstey; The Ox; Colonel Julian; The Lighthouse; The Flag; The Frontier; A Christmas Song; The Major of Hussars; Elaine; The Daffodil Sky; The Good Corn; Country Society; Across the Bay; Chaff in the Wind; The Evolution of Saxby; Go Lovely Rose; The Maker of Coffins; Love in a Wych-elm; Let's Play Soldiers; The Watercress Girl; The Cowslip Field; Great Uncle Crow; The Enchantress; Now Sleeps the Crimson Petal; Where the Cloud Breaks; Lost Ball; Thelma; Mrs Eglantine

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Classics, Literature

485 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1957

About the author

Herbert Ernest Bates, CBE is widely recognised as one of the finest short story writers of his generation, with more than 20 story collections published in his lifetime. It should not be overlooked, however, that he also wrote some outstanding novels, starting with The Two Sisters through to A Moment in Time, with such works as Love For Lydia, Fair Stood the Wind for France and The Scarlet Sword earning high praise from the critics. His study of the Modern Short Story is considered one of the best ever written on the subject.

He was born in Rushden, Northamptonshire and was educated at Kettering Grammar School. After leaving school, he was briefly a newspaper reporter and a warehouse clerk, but his heart was always in writing and his dream to be able to make a living by his pen.

Many of his stories depict life in the rural Midlands of England, particularly his native Northamptonshire. Bates was partial to taking long midnight walks around the Northamptonshire countryside - and this often provided the inspiration for his stories. Bates was a great lover of the countryside and its people and this is exemplified in two volumes of essays entitled Through the Woods and Down the River.

In 1931, he married Madge Cox, his sweetheart from the next road in his native Rushden. They moved to the village of Little Chart in Kent and bought an old granary and this together with an acre of garden they converted into a home. It was in this phase of his life that he found the inspiration for the Larkins series of novels -The Darling Buds of May, A Breath of French Air, When the Green Woods Laugh, etc. - and the Uncle Silas tales. Not surprisingly, these highly successful novels inspired television series that were immensely popular.

His collection of stories written while serving in the RAF during World War II, best known by the title The Stories of Flying Officer X, but previously published as Something in the Air (a compilation of his two wartime collections under the pseudonym 'Flying Officer X' and titled The Greatest People in the World and How Sleep the Brave), deserve particular attention. By the end of the war he had achieved the rank of Squadron Leader.

Bates was influenced by Chekhov in particular, and his knowledge of the history of the short story is obvious from the famous study he produced on the subject. He also wrote his autobiography in three volumes (each delightfully illustrated) which were subsequently published in a one-volume Autobiography.

Bates was a keen and knowledgeable gardener and wrote numerous books on flowers. The Granary remained their home for the whole of their married life. After the death of H. E Bates, Madge moved to a bungalow, which had originally been a cow byre, next to the Granary. She died in 2004 at age 95. They raised two sons and two daughters.

primarily from Wikipedia, with additions by Keith Farnsworth

Reviews

[Leslie · Rating 4 out of 5]

A terrific collection of stories from a writer who is less well-known than he should be, I think. The stories tend to focus on small moments in the lives of ordinary people--throwing a party, visiting a neighbour, working in a diner--or tell larger stories of the decades in a person's life, giving a sense of the larger patterns of a life, as in one of the last and most memorable stories in the collection, "Thelma," which moves in a few pages through the life of a woman who started working in a commercial hotel at 14 and stayed there until she died suddenly in her fifties, serving all the men who moved through the hotel and her life over the years. I learned a lot about the rhythms of the short story from this collection. Bates had a good eye for the telling details and moments in ordinary people's lives.

[Jonathan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This collection consists of stories from 1926, when Bates was only twenty-one, to 1961. There are thirty-five stories in total, hence the title, and I'm assuming that they appear in chronological order though little information is given about the publication date of the stories, which is annoying. I have only read short stories by Bates so far but he is quickly becoming a favourite author of mine and one who, in my opinion, ranks with the great short story writers from around the world. Bates is most famous for the The Darling Buds of May and Uncle Silas books (and TV adaptions), which I still haven't read, but he wrote so much more, as I'm slowly finding out. His work seems to fit my reading requirements at the moment as I'm finding myself being increasingly drawn towards straightforwad realism; whether this is just a temporary situation or a more permanent one I'm not sure at the moment.

This collection has a good variety of stories; some are set in Larkin-land but others are set on the continent, at the seaside, or amongst the provincial middle-classes. What makes Bates so refreshing for me is that his stories concentrate on workers, farmers and the lower middle-classes, in an age when so much of the fiction from the U.K. was by, and about, the upper-classes or intellectuals. One of Bates's earlier stories, and another one that was adapted for T.V. (in 1972), is The Mill and is amazingly frank for a story that was written in 1935 (for further info see the H.E. Bates Companion website). Alice is a rather vague emotionless girl, the daughter of a greengrocer/florist, and a girl who has low expectations in life. When her father announces that she is to start work at the Holland's mill to help around the house she doesn't question him and starts the following Monday.

It was about five miles to the mill, and she walked as though in obedience to the echo of her father's command. She had a constant feeling of sharp expectancy, not quite apprehension, every time she looked up and saw the mill. But the feeling never resolved itself into thought. She felt also a slight relief. She had never been, by herself, so far from home.

Alice soon gets used to her chores which mostly consist of cooking Mr Holland's meals and talking to Mrs Holland, who is mostly bedridden. Not much happens for a while as the three characters get to know each other. Used to obeying orders and with Mrs Holland's request for her 'to do all you can for Mr Holland' she soon ends up submitting to Mr Holland's sexual advances. Mr Holland is not violent or mean, rather he cajoles Alice into having sex with him. Of course, Alice becomes pregnant but seems oblivious to what's happening to her and instead believes she's caught Mrs Holland's illness. When the Hollands' son, Albert, returns she is initially ignored, she misses reading to Mrs Holland and the attention from Mr Holland, but Albert acts kindly towards her and takes her into town occasionally. It's only when Albert realises that she's pregnant and points it out to her that she understands what's happening to her body. Albert then sends her home and it's only when she returns that she begins to show some emotion and cry. This is a tale, simply told, but powerful in its portrayal of an emotionless and passive young girl.

Another story is The Evolution of Saxby, an amusing tale set during and after wartime. The narrator befriends Saxby at a railway station and after they get to know each other Saxby seems envious of the narrator living in the country with a garden. When he next meets Saxby the narrator discovers that Saxby now house a house with a garden and he is invited to visit. But when he does he notices that the garden is like a jungle and that Saxby's wife, whom Saxby had described as an invalid close to death, is obsessed with renovating houses and selling them before moving on to the next one. Saxby just wants to settle down and to the narrator it looks like Saxby's the one who looks more ill though he persists in the idea that his wife is ill.

One of my favourite stories in the collection was The Major of Hussars. The narrator is on holiday in the Swiss Alps, staying in the same hotel is the major:

The major was very interested in the mountains, and we in turn were very interested in the major, a spare spruce man of nearly sixty who wore light shantung summer suits and was very studious of his appearance generally, and very specially of his smooth grey hair. He also had three sets of false teeth, of which he was very proud: one for mornings, one for evenings, and one for afternoons.

The narrator and his wife see the major everywhere and soon befriend him. The major mentions several times that his wife, Mrs Martineau, should be arriving on the next steamer only for her to not arrive and so they start to believe that his wife is a fiction. The major, meanwhile, is very charming and easily befriends people, especially young attractive women, which is noted by the couple. But one day the major's wife does indeed arrive and surprisingly she is about twenty-five years old; it is soon apparent that she is an overbearing argumentative woman who bullies and argues with her husband. On a trip up a mountain she complains and moans non-stop and the narrator and his wife decide to avoid them in future. But they can't avoid hearing a huge row they have one day with pot plants, books and shoes being thrown about by Mrs Martineau, but she also throws anything else that is to hand.

   Back in the room Mrs Martineau began throwing things. 'You're always fussing!' I heard her shout, and then there was the enraged dull noise of things like books and shoes being thrown.
   'Please, darling, don't do that,' the major said. 'Don't do it please.'
   'Oh! shut up!' she said. 'And these damn things too!'
   I heard the most shattering crash as if a glass tumbler had been thrown.
   'Oh! not my teeth!' the major said. 'Please, darling. Not my teeth! For God's sake, not both sets, please!'

The next day the couple are seen leaving; the major, with his wrong teeth in, can only give a strange sort of smile to the narrator.

[Keith · Rating 4 out of 5]

H.E.Bates is one of my all-time favourite authors, a master of the short story, and this collection of 35 stories selected from previous collections is a wonderful book to carry about and dip into. He captures the English countryside of his early years so splendidly, and his command of the language is so very good.

[Muaz Jalil · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is my first H E Bates book. An English writer from the 1940s, at least this selection is from that period. Mainly writing about ordinary people in the country/village settings.

Overall, I loved his writing and have already bought another of his series: the Larkin Family collection. He reminded me of R. C. Sherriff, J. B. Priestly, and Alberto Moravia, with a dash of an Akenfield vibe. There is an undercurrent of melancholia across all the short stories. It is very poignant, and all stories explore the human condition around love, hope, and the eventual disappointment that life is!

My favourites were the Mill, Kimono, Loved One, and Mr Penfold

[Stephen · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a wonderful collection of 35 short stories. They are all well written, the characters are closely observed, and they contain some fine narratives. I had been wondering what 'Seven by Five' meant until it dawned upon me that it referred to the number of stories in the book.

Some of the stories are really touching. Some of them evoke strong emotions. Some of the characters you really like, and some you really hate. There is quite a variety in the collection. It covers a wide period of time, from just after the First World War up to the 1960s. I found it interesting to chart how life - especially rural life - changed over those years. I'm not quite sure if I got the sense of it changing for better or worse. It just changed.

I liked the way in which the stories were constructed. There is very little spare to each one. The author doesn't waffle his way along, he keeps to the point and allows the narrative to unfold. This is a skill in short story writing that I wish I had. There are some twists and turns within various plotlines, but I tended to find these agreeable. They served to keep me on my toes as a reader.

I think that I found the stories to be very pleasant and enjoyable. For a bedtime book you couldn't ask for more.

[Cojaysea · Rating 4 out of 5]

This guy loves his women and his flowers . Very good short stories .

[Helen Geng]

From bookishly UK

Read March 2021

[F · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was given this book many years ago - over thirty, and yet have never wanted to read it. Perhaps I was wise to save it for now. This is a collection of short stories, one for every year from 1926 until 1961. I found them a fascinating read, full of affection for life in England in the twentieth century, evoking a country and people whom H E Bates depicts with a loving attention to detail.
Women are not beautiful ("flat heavy feet", "mud-stained skirts", "lumpy angles of bone", "she thumps her feet down like a horse". "her face looks awful, like red meat") but they are endlessly fascinating and powerful. The power is usually sexual, and apart from this , they have little or no power (The Mill). Mrs Harvey in 'The Station" has both the power of her sexual energy, which reduces the young man to the state of a rabbit caught in the headlights of an oncoming car,and of being an educated woman - a hint at things to come later in the century?
Descriptions of the natural world are exquisite, bringing to life hot sunny days in the English countryside and the author's delight in looking at/discovering/being part of this world.e.g "the leaves of the willow tree seemed to be slowly swimming in delicate but ordered separation, like shoals of grey-green fish."
The stories are not about people with money and education, the movers and shakers of society. They are about smallholders, people who make mistakes, commit crimes,people in service, whose lives are not success stories, or, if they are successful people, the story depicts them as they lose their power and face old age.
I now look forward to reading more of H E Bates' work.

[wanderer · Rating 2 out of 5]

I always say I'll gladly read a book where nothing much happens, as long as the prose is beautiful, but even that wasn't enough for me this time.

H.E. Bates' short stories set you up for a good tale, then don't deliver. The intriguing descriptions seem to mean something; the poignant inner monologues hint of drama to come. You read on, expecting something, anything. A lesson learned, a burden shouldered, a mystery solved, a lot accepted. Then nothing. The story ends.

I don't need much, just to want feel when I close a book.

I give this book two stars because of the descriptive prose.

[Ivan Monckton · Rating 4 out of 5]

Superb selection of 16 short stories written between 1934-40 and taken from three volumes of stories: Coutry Tales, The Beaty of the Dead, and The Woman Who Had Imagination. His capture of the accents and language of working people is second to none, and his stories keep you riveted to the often rather sad end. As I’ve said before, the idea that apart from a few novels, the only stuff still in print is the awful Larkin Series, leaves me perplexed.