Flora Thompson often talked about rural poverty and the life of farm labourers and their families in her semi-autobiographical trilogy Lark Rise to Candleford, set at the end of the 19th century. So she might have been intrigued to learn that some of her ancestors were quite comfortably off.

Flora was born in 1876 at Juniper Hill in north Oxfordshire, and lived in the small hamlet of Juniper Hill until she took up work in nearby Fringford to help at the Post Office, at the age of 14.

Lark Rise To Candleford, first published in 1945, is a love letter to vanished rural England, but also depicts the hard lives of the villagers. Flora’s family tree is discussed in a new book, Flora Thompson’s Country, by local historians David Watts and Christine Bloxham.

The book also lifts the veil of fiction from characters depicted in last year’s TV series Lark Rise. The authors feature two photographs of Kezia Whitton, of Fringford, who appears in Flora’s book — and the TV series — as Miss Lane, owner of the Old Forge and Post Office in Lark Rise.

The photos, dating from about 1898, were found by William Plumb, who has connections with Fringford, in an old trunk just months before the book went to the printers. David said: “Mrs Whitton was the model for Miss Lane, but, as the photographs depict, she was far from her glamorous portrayal in the TV series.”

The authors say Flora was descended from the yeoman farmers of Lambourne and Wallington of Boarstall and Ludgershall. She was also related to the poet and dramatist John Drinkwater, who spent childhood holidays at Piddington, near Bicester.

Christine’s co-author David Watts is a distant cousin of Flora through his mother Molly’s side of the family. He said: “My great-great grandmother and Flora’s mother were sisters and my great- grandfather was a first cousin of Flora’s father.”

David started delving into his family history more than 20 years ago — not solely because of the Flora Thompson connection — and this forms the backbone of the book.

It’s not the first time David and Christine have collaborated — David contributed to the second edition of Christine’s book The World of Flora Thompson, which became The World of Flora Thompson Revisited. David also helped with her book Oxfordshire Folklore. Their new book contains photos from the collection built up over the years by David’s father, the late John Watts, who was a long-serving policeman in Bicester.

The book takes in almost 30 villages and towns that would have been familiar to Flora at the end of the 19th century, when Lark Rise is set.

Christine said: “We have tried to highlight different aspects of life in the villages and towns, such as the school, the church, craftsmen like blacksmiths and organisations such as friendly societies.”

At the same time, they have uncovered the real locations and characters that inspired Flora. In her books, she usually amalgamated different places to create a fictional place.

For example, Candleford contains elements of Bicester, Banbury, Buckingham and Brackley.

Neither David nor Christine was particularly impressed by the BBC adaptation of the trilogy, saying it had several historical inaccuracies and softened or ‘prettified’ the life of those depicted.

Christine said: “The television series is really gentle Sunday-night viewing.”

However, they do acknowledge that the series has brought more people to the original book, which is still in print with Penguin more than 50 years after Oxford University Press published the trilogy in 1944.

Christine, a former museum curator who lives in Headington, has been interested in Flora since she came to Oxfordshire in 1971.

David, who lives in Bicester, is an archivist who worked at the Victoria and Albert Museum for 11 years. He is co-author of several volumes of The Changing Faces of Bicester series.

l Flora Thompson’s Country:is published by Robert Boyd at £12.95. A third TV series is due to be shown next year.