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Teacher Series – Book V
Jack Sheffield
Bantam Press (Transworld
UK)
27 January 2011 / ISBN 9780593065686
General Fiction / 1981-82 Yorkshire, England
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Reviewed
by Rachel A Hyde
Headmaster
Jack Sheffield is back to the chalk face for another hectic year
of school and village related incidents. Caretaker Ruby comes face-to-face
with a Butlin’s Redcoat she once had a fling with, the school
gets a computer, Vera has her own “brief encounter,”
and Jack has wedding bells of his own to deal with.
Anybody who is still having withdrawal symptoms following the demise
of Heartbeat (my hand is up) is sure to love this series of tales
about Ragley-on-the-Forest and its primary school. This fifth installment
has perhaps more to say about the adult residents of the village
than the children, but there are still many funny and thoughtful
moments. The world is changing, and the villagers’ lives are
touched by the Falklands War and the Royal Wedding as well as by
the arrival of the computer and rumblings of a national curriculum.
There is so much to enjoy as usual, whether it is the social history
of a recent but now remote-seeming period or the antics of the larger-than-life
characters that the end of the book came too soon. Mr Sheffield
has a nice balance between the two, and has the period spot on as
well as the unique charm of “God’s Own County.”
I hope this series continues for some time yet, and it is certainly
one that would dramatise well for TV.
Reviewer's
Note:
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