The Darling Buds of May Episode Rating Graph

Whilst the Larkins and John Candy shame some of the villagers into accepting Pieter for himself Charley and Mariette track him down and return him to the farm. They discover that he can stay in England if he marries an English girl and he does have a girlfriend, Eileen, but she feels tied to her selfish, supposedly invalid mother. However the Larkins persuade her to act for herself and she arrives at Home Farm to marry Pieter, now a village hero after rescuing one of the bigot's bullying son from falling in the quarry.

Whilst Pop buys the adjacent quarry to stock as a trout farm and Charley considers buying a hop farm to supply the local brewery the main news in the village is the arrival of Pieter, a handsome Dane who endears himself to everyone - except perhaps Charley who is resentful of his wife's enthusiasm - with his willingness to work and his skill as a jack of all trades. Until, that is, Charley inadvertently exposes him as being a German, who pretends to be Danish to field hostility following the war.

When ex-fighter pilot 'Honey' Honeyman crash lands in a field near Home Farm he asks Pop to deliver some boxes to his drinking club, the Ace of Clubs. He says they contain kitchen utensils but he has been smuggling drink over from France. The hop garden is Charley's if he can find the cash but ruthless property developer Marcus Cope tries to bribe him into letting him have it.

Pop comes across a fun-fair owned by his friend Fruity Pears, though it is losing money. Fruity tells off two teddy boys for causing trouble and they attack and hospitalize him, also injuring Pop. Mademoiselle Dupont arrives to be a godmother at the christenings and is initially upset to find that Pop is not a lord, but he apologizes and she ends up having an enjoyable stay. Pop buys the fun-fair and installs it in his yard where everyone celebrates after the church service.

The Larkin family plan the quintessential English Christmas, with food, drink and presents galore.

Ma and Pop have a serious think about sending two of the kids, Zinnia and Petunia, to boarding school, but the girls themselves of course are none too keen.

Earnest young tax inspector Cedric Charlton visits the sizeable Larkin family at Home Farm in the countryside. They have not paid tax in an age and he has come to help them fill in their tax forms. However, they get him drunk and, intoxicated as he already is with the charms of the Larkins' eldest daughter Mariette, he decides to stay with them and share their rural idyll.

Pop duly appears in court charged with sexual harassment but Mrs. Perigo is discredited when Pop's brother Uncle Perce, a hotel porter in London, testifies that she is well-known in the big city as rather more of a scarlet woman than she paints herself and the case is thrown out. The day of Mariette's wedding to Charley arrives and, as Charley has no family, the Larkins' friend, the Brigadier, acts as best man after he has got rather cosy with another family friend, the sweet but flirtatious Angela Snow.

Pop runs for rural councillor while Charley and Mariette struggle at the brewery and have issues in their relationship.

The whole family go on holiday to France, a holiday which gets off to a bad start. However, when the family car is seen to have a crest on it, it is assumed that they are titled nobility. Mademoiselle Dupont, the pension's owner, calls Pop 'Milord' and gives him and Ma her bedroom. Even the grumpy receptionist is respectful. Primrose, the second eldest daughter, falls for local boy Marc-Antoine but Charley is annoyed to see his wife cavorting with skimpily clad French hunks on the beach.

Pop prepares a trick against George Harran whilst Primrose discovers Liverpool.

Ma decides she and Pop should have a second honeymoon after she wins a competition prize of a weekend away in Paris.