HEAD OVER HEELS IN THE DALES. By Gervase Phinn. Michael Joseph pound;16.99.
Mike Sullivan takes pleasure with a pinch of salt in Gervase Phinn’s tales of romance, gooseberry bushes and school inspection
Gervase Phinn’s latest book follows the successful pattern of The Other Side of the Dale and Over Hill and Dale, both loosely based on his experiences as a school inspector in north Yorkshire. If you enjoyed his earlier books - or have laughed at his speeches at teachers’ conferences - you will certainly like this one.
All the familiar characters are here, including Dr Gore, the chief education officer, Mrs Savage, the fearsome personal assistant, Connie, the house-proud caretaker of the staff development centre, and the delectable headteacher, Miss Christine Bentley.
Like the first two books, which are now destined for television treatment, Head Over Heels in the Dales does not pretend to be anything other than a light, frothy, entertaining read with a plot that twists and bends to link the many funny stories the author has gathered over the years.
In the course of the book, Gervase captures the heart and hand of Miss Bentley, but is less successful in his bid for promotion to senior inspector. Never mind, it’s clear that his day will come and he isn’t despondent for long as the newlyweds are fully occupied setting up their love nest in a pretty country cottage with stunning views of the Dales. The cottage comes complete with a twinkly-eyed neighbour - a northern Joe Grundy - who is always eager to share useless advice and gossip. With his encouragement, Gervase acquires an allotment complete with gooseberry bushes, which yield yet another crop of funny stories. Taken with a huge pinch of salt, it makes a pleasant read.
The teacher characters are a strange bunch. The men tend to be eccentric - there is a particularly odd RE teacher in a very tough secondary school who wanders the corridors with a tea mug emblazoned with the motto: “Sticks and stones may break my bones but whips and chains excite me.” A less perceptive inspector might have gone straight to the head for a quiet word, but Gervase immediately recognises that he is dealing with a teacher of considerable talent. Women teachers emerge on these pages as much stronger and better organised than the men; teaching heads in small primary schools are held in particularly high regard.
The setting is that idyllic period before the national curriculum, Ofsted inspections and SATs targets. No surprise that the school inspectors we encounter are kind, wise, gentle creatures. They are not only keen to help and support through school visits and training courses, but spend quite a lot of time organising displays of children’s work. Said children naturally have hearts of gold and a wealth of knowledge about farming, the countryside and its folklore. Inevitably, they say the funniest things.
Call me an old misery, but I sometimes found the tales of what children said or did uncomfortable; we often end up laughing at rather than with them. Gervase does, very occasionally, come up against challenging pupil behaviour, but the really bad lad wins the county poetry prize long before the final chapter.
Like most teachers, I have spent my career in medium-to-large schools in big towns and cities, yet I found plenty of familiar situations and characters in the book. Gervase Phinn’s prose can have the cloying effect of a battered Mars bar, but his great skill is to filter out all the nastier, stressful aspects of life in school and to remind us that working with children and other teachers is one of the best jobs in the world.
Mike Sullivan is an inspector and educational consultant based in the West Midlands
