Recently been reading the Darling Buds of May by H. E. Bates (written by a friend of my old neighbour, the recollection of which prompted me to read it) and I've come to realise that the Larkins are Britain's (more specifically Rushden, Northamptonshire's) answer to the Addams family.
Not so much in terms of the gothic aesthetic, but as a subversion of what society considered to be the norm. This book was written in the 1950s, a time of austerity in the UK, prior to the sexual liberation of the 60s and 70s, a time when the idea of the stiff upper lip was an ideal rather than a cliché. The Larkins consume as much as they like, by fair means and foul, they are openly and healthily emotional, and - most significantly - they embrace sexuality in a way that made me in the 21st century blush slightly. They don't even conform to the skinny-girl ideal that was popular at the time, some of the most lavish and blush inducing descriptions surround Florence 'Ma' Larkin, Sidney 'Pop' Larkins 36 year old wife, who is also stated to take up the space of half of the side of a dining table. Neither do they keep things strictly monogamous, the Larkins are essentially in an open relationship, openly so, each of Ma and Pop approves of the other's extramarital liaisons. I say extramarital but the Larkins aren't actually married, as is revealed at the end of the book, they never got around to it, but - seven children and twenty years or more in - they're none the worse for it.
This is a book that celebrates the antithesis of what we're considered British values, just as the Addams family embodied the antithesis of the American Dream. The Larkins even have improbable relatives that crop up at random.
What I'm saying is, the Larkins and the Addamses would have been friends, even if I doubt Morticia would have approved of Ma's love of colour. Wednesday and Pugsley would have played in the greenhouse with the younger Larkin children, Pop would have drunk Gomez under the table, and both of them would then have shown lavish, and possibly competitive, affection to their respective wives. No one can convince me otherwise
