Sidney (Pop) Larkin—Cedric Charlton

Pop Larkin and Cedric Charlton’s relationship begins with a dispute over an unfiled income-tax return and develops, through meals, an overnight stay, work and affectionate renaming, into a friendship that makes the tax inspector part of the household. Its decisive change is not a single reconciliation but a gradual conversion: Pop’s evasions become invitations, and the visitor who arrives with a statutory obligation is eventually addressed as a son-like friend.

The Official Visit and Its Diversions

Cedric arrives in his official capacity from the Inspector of Taxes. According to his records, Pop has made no return of income for the past year; Pop responds as though the obligation itself were news, asking what return could be expected when nobody had asked him. When Cedric explains that the form must be returned and invokes a statutory obligation, Pop counters that he cannot return a form he has not received. The exchange establishes their initial opposition: Cedric insists on procedure, while Pop treats the demand as an opening for banter and hospitality.

Pop’s way of resisting is to change the conditions of the encounter. He postpones discussion of the form when Ma calls everyone to dinner, apologizes to Cedric as though the household’s meal schedule were the urgent matter, and immediately invites him to eat. When Cedric tries to return to the paperwork, Pop turns to the family and wonders what form he means. The official question is not answered; instead, the inspector is offered dinner, tea, coffee, beer, Guinness and cider.

The invitation becomes material and difficult to refuse. At the crowded table, Cedric is given tea among fish and chips, ice cream, three pineapples, jam, ketchup, Guinness, Worcester sauce, chocolate biscuits and iced buns. The household’s noise and abundance surround him while he tries to raise the tax form. At last he offers to help fill it in, and Pop simply agrees that he should do so. The gesture appears to concede the official task, but it also draws Cedric further into the family’s domestic scene. Hospitality does not settle the dispute so much as keep rearranging it.

From Visitor to House Guest

The relationship changes as Pop’s attention shifts from the tax inspector’s job to Cedric’s circumstances. When Cedric says he has no car, Pop is astonished and makes the lack of one a matter for the family to hear. Cedric again asks to discuss the form before leaving, but Pop insists on tea first. The practical request is repeatedly displaced by care that is also comic pressure: the visitor is treated not as an appointment to be concluded but as someone whose needs the household can take charge of.

Cedric tries to leave by catching the eight o’clock bus, only to learn from Montgomery and Ma that the service was discontinued after petrol rationing began and never restored. Pop seizes on the changed circumstances to invite him to stay the night; Ma agrees, and Pop declares that she can make up a bed on the billiard table. The accommodation makes the growing friendship tangible. Cedric is no longer simply being entertained at a meal: he is being absorbed into the practical arrangements of the house, even as he remains uneasy about staying.

That welcome continues beyond the first visit. When Cedric faces Sunday dinner alone, Ma objects to the prospect of his eating cold food and invites him to stay and eat with the family. He refuses at first, but Pop endorses the invitation with his characteristic approval. Across these repeated offers, food and lodging become the household’s language of inclusion. Each invitation narrows the distance Cedric tries to keep, without erasing his attempts to return to his own life or his official purpose.

Naming and Kinship

Pop’s most direct expression of affection comes when Cedric says he had better go home. Pop puts an arm around his shoulder and explains that Cedric seems too formal a name to him: he wishes the visitor were called Charley instead, a name he finds more human. Cedric gives permission to use it, and the moment leaves him feeling close to tears. The change of name is small but consequential: Pop is no longer treating him as a stranger whose business can be delayed, but as someone whose place in the family can be marked through familiar address.

That intimacy is reciprocal in feeling, even though Pop often supplies its boisterous form. When a remark about a bloater-paste sandwich makes Cedric laugh, Pop strikes him firmly on the back and calls him a good fellow, saying he feels like one of the family and as if they had known him for years. Ma confirms that this is how they feel. The forceful pat, the shared laughter and the family’s agreement turn a passing joke into an explicit declaration of belonging.

The relationship also depends on Pop’s knack for treating Cedric’s official concerns as opportunities for practical advice. He urges him to take advantage of the National Health Service, arguing that Cedric has already paid into it and should go sick rather than be a mug. Pop’s advice belongs to the same pattern as his offers of dinner and a bed: he speaks as though Cedric’s work, welfare and time are now matters the family may manage. The warmth is genuine, but it comes with a persistent effort to draw Cedric away from the official role with which he arrived.

Shared Work and a Changed Allegiance

The movement from hospitality to participation becomes especially clear when Cedric joins the strawberry work. Pop introduces him to the foreman, Mr Jennings, not as a tax inspector but as Charley, a friend of theirs and an office fellow from the tax business. Mr Jennings promptly offers Cedric a job weighing and recording baskets. The introduction converts Cedric’s bureaucratic identity into a means of finding him a place in the family’s working world; the man who came to examine Pop’s records is now being welcomed into the activity of the strawberry field.

By then, the bond between Pop and Cedric has outgrown its original contest over the return. At the fireworks celebration, Cedric approaches Pop to say that Ma will let him marry Mariette if Pop gives permission. Pop agrees at once, without hesitation or further bargaining. The scene completes the change in their relationship: Cedric still seeks Pop’s approval in a consequential family matter, but he does so as a prospective member of the family, not as an inspector demanding compliance. Pop’s answer confirms a connection formed through delay, food, shelter, teasing and shared work. The tax form that began their encounter has not defined it; the visitor’s gradual incorporation into the household has.