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Welcome, friends old and new, to my blog. This is the place where I can share my scribblings and thoughts on loving life. I hope you enjoy them, make suggestions and come back to read more.

Saturday 18 April 2015

Great Fictional Characters: Pop Larkin

Continuing with the Blogging from A to Z April Challenge 2015


P is for Pop Larkin.


Like most people in their 30s, the name Pop Larkin immediately brings a face to mind. Not only a face, but a grin, a raised eyebrow and a wicked belly-laugh.

David Jason was the perfick Pop in the TV adaptation of The Darling Buds of May and is the reason that many, like me, searched out and read the novels in the first place. In them, I found not only evocative description, witty dialogue and nostalgia for an England I never knew, but a philosophy for life- a recipe for happiness, if you will.

It is impossible now for me to read about Home Farm without picturing this

Pop and his family live in the Kent countryside, where everything is beautiful, golden and ‘perfick’, as Pop likes to say. Happiness is everywhere: he only needs to cast his eye over the green fields, the flowers in the hedgerow or listen to the nightingales sing. Pop wants us to enjoy the simple pleasures of nature as much as anything we could buy.

I feel sure Pop is a fellow Taurean as we're very into indulging our senses. According to Pop, homes should be comfortable, cars should be stylish, food should be tasty and plentiful, and alcohol should be shared with friends- and often! Life is bountiful and meant to be enjoyed, as much as and often as you can.

Pop lives by the motto that ‘whatever will be will be’. He finds happiness by simply refusing to fret about the little things and understanding that life is too short to spend it worrying. It puts me in mind of the Serenity prayer- you know the one:

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
The courage to change the things I can,
And the wisdom to know the difference.
 
The Darling Buds of May is no moral lecture. Instead of Pop getting his come-uppance in the form of a visit from the tax-man, he continues eating, drinking and being merry right up to the end of the story.

What would Pop want us to learn from this?

Answer in the comments- and enjoy your day xxx

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