A BREATH OF FRENCH AIR

It is the end of a wet English August and the Larkins, all ten of them, including little Oscar, the family's latest addition, bundle into the old Rolls and cross the Channel to escape the angry elements. But far from being the balmy, sunny and perfick spot Ma Larkin hoped for, France and the French prove not so welcoming to an eccentric English family. The tea's weak, the furniture breakable, and the hotel manager is almost as hostile as the wind and the rain they've brought with them. And when the manager learns that Ma and Pop are unmarried yet sharing a room, the trouble really begins. 'Very racy, earthy. Rabelaisian.' - The Spectator. 137pp, Penguin paperback.