We all are experts on education, aren’t we?! Well, we all went to school, didn’t we? And our strong opinions are banked, from age four onwards, to flame into oft bigoted fire as we get older...
But some of us get closer to the tangled intestinal tract that is the educational system than others. I was such an one: for thirty years, man and boy, I toiled down the Chalk Face, bringing up deposits, mainly mineral but occasionally gold – and, in this, at times gusset-splittingly funny ( though I say it myself) fictional account of the joys and foibles of the teaching profession, I give you my bizarre version of the truth: an exaggerated, nay surreal, version, granted, but anyone who has ever set foot in a classroom in order to perpetrate an act of teaching, will recognise much of what I say!
I deal, in this novel, with types, even archetypes, rather than actual people I have known. You will, I am quite sure, have met your full quota of dinner ladies, eccentric members of staff, naughty children and so forth. Here they all are, spread out in a moving – in both senses! – Advent calendar for you, in these pre-Christmas days : open a metaphorical door each day, and see what lies behind! Go on. I dare you!!!