The Jacaranda Tree. This item is unavailable.The Jacaranda Tree

During World War II, a small English community are forced to flee when Japanese forces invade Burma. Paterson, the manager of a rice-mill, organises the evacuation and takes with him his Burmese mistress and her young brother. The rest of the party take along their prejudices, their pettiness and their squabbles, and a small enclave of English insularity moves north through Burma. Inevitably, as the journey continues, bitterness, tension and insoluble conflict unfold...Inspired by Bates' period of service in the Eastern theatre of war, "The Jacaranda Tree" skillfully evokes the atmosphere of Burma during the chaos of invasion.[Taken from amazon.co.uk]

H. E. Bates was educated at Kettering Grammar School. He worked as a journalist and clerk on a local newspaper before publishing his first book, after which he quickly acquired a reputation for his stories about English country life. During World War II, he was a squadron leader in the RAF and was commissioned to write stories about service life, which he published under the pseudonym of "Flying Officer X." In 1958, the Larkin family appeared for the first time in The Darling Buds of May, the first of the enduringly popular Larkin family novels. H. E. Bates was awarded the CBE in 1973 and died in 1974.