Apt Sentences

 

 

Well I am reading another book by Gervase Phinn. That is his real name by the way. Phinn wrote "The Other Side Of The Dale", which I read in 2001, concerning his adventures as an education inspector in the schools of a remote and very rural part of Yorkshire. It was his job to inspect all of the schools from kindergarten (which the British call "Infant Schools") up to what we call High Schools and rate the teaching and the teachers and the extent to which learning takes place in each school. He then files a report with the Education Office which is definitely taken into account in determining pay grades for teachers. So his coming to each school is an event of some importance, to the teachers at least. This year he has written a sequel called "Over Hill, Over Dale", which I am now reading. It is not often that a sequel is better than the original story, but in this case I think that very thing has occurred. I'm not quite through with the book yet, but I want to give you some idea of Phinn's writing style. I like it. All the quotes below refer to conversations between Phinn and a class of first graders of six years old.

She gave me a stare that would curdle milk.

She's got a runaway gob - talks and says naught, and she has said naught when she has done.

It was one of those mornings when you wake up knowing coffee won't do. It has to be brandy.

He had an attitude like a grizzly with a toothache.

"Now, Oliver, surely you can tell the class something that happened to you during the holidays." "Well, mum, some white worms came out of my bottom yesterday"

"Portia, do you know about the clever woman in one of Shakespeare's plays that you were named for?" "Oh, no, sir. My daddy says I was named for a car he had always wanted." " Thank You, Porsche."

She went through husbands like a killer shark through a shoal of sprats.

That will give you some idea of the way Phinn writes. He also tells some funny stories. On his first visit to a first grade class, the Oliver quoted above who had the worm problem also asked Mr. Phinn what condoms were for, how the word was spelled, how much they cost and several other facts in the same realm. After putting this off as adroitly as possible, he overheard a conversation between Oliver and a mixed company concerning the subject in which all he could understand was Oliver saying, "But I happen to know they come in different sizes, colors and flavors." The teacher heard it too and said to Phinn "I believe that children grow up faster than they used to, Mr. Phinn".

It is a good book.