AT last a teacher everyone loves. How did he manage it?

Well, Chips’ main claim to popularity seems to be that he has lived long enough to be able to remember the fathers, and even the grandfathers, of boys at Brookfield school.

And that’s it, is it?

Back in 1933 Mr Chips represented continuity in a fast-changing world. He refuses to interrupt Latin lessons during a zeppelin raid and stands out against reforms to the teaching syllabus.

Wouldn’t get away with that today No. You can’t help feeling a bit sorry for Ralston, the new Thatcherite headmaster of Brookfield, who is under pressure to run the school as a business. All he asks for is 20th-century teaching methods and for Chips to buy a new gown as his old one has begun to smell.

And did he?

No, the boys rebel, the governors (who were all taught by Chips) back Mr Chips over the head and so Ralston has to take his pristine gown and mortar board elsewhere.

Sounds the stuff of pure fantasy. And I suppose Chips is proved to be an amazing teacher too?

Not exactly. He admits he’s only average. In fact he’s a bit of a bore, making the same bad puns every year, but the kids like that. Mind you, he does get into trouble one year when he makes a joke about young Isaacstein’s racial origins. And he shocks people in chapel when he insists on commemorating Max Staefel, the former German master who has just been killed fighting on the Western Front.

He sounds a bit of a fascist Oh, no. Not by the standards of the time. You have to understand that for the 1930s Chips was a moderate. When the boys of Brookfield are involved in breaking the General Strike, Mr Chips chats amicably to the strikers.

So he involves his kids in politics, makes racist remarks, speaks up for the German Army, fails to follow standard safety procedures during an air raid, refuses to introduce curriculum changes and has dubious standards of hygiene. And this makes him popular?

Well you have to understand times were very different then.

You’ll be telling me next that he goes on to marry Judy Garland.

No, but at the advanced age of 48, Chips marries Katharine Bridges, a beautiful, strong-minded, progressive young woman heavily into old men with smelly gowns and long memories. He refers to her as his “child wife” and they have a few blissful years together.

Adrian Mourby