Mr Phinn is an Inspector of English in the Yorkshire Dales, he is also a great raconteur and his audience cannot help but be warmed, delighted, amused and touched by his seemingly inexhaustible fund of anecdotes. Yorkshire gave us James Herriot’s vetinary exploits, these, in a different vein, carry that humour and affection into the human species. This is the fourth and I can only assume we have lots more to come for here baby number one is due but in real time, Mr Phinn has four children. I look forward to each.
Comparisons: James Herriot, Gerald Durrel, Miss Read.
Similar this month: Alexander McCall Smith, John Lister-Kaye.
| Primary Genre | Biographies & Autobiographies |
| Recommendations: |
In Up and Down in the Dales, life for the Inspector of English is always hectic. Some of the events, like the nativity plays at Christmas or ‘little jobs’ for Dr Gore, come round the annual calendar like clockwork; others are totally unexpected and can cause happiness or concern in equal parts.
Now in his fourth year as a schools inspector, Gervase Phinn continues to visit schools within his area of Yorkshire, from the little primary schools in the Yorkshire Dales to the inner-city schools with their often mulish adolescent pupils. At least he can leave school affairs behind him when he goes home each evening to Peewit Cottage and his lovely wife, Christine, who is expecting their first child. That is, until their own village school is threatened with closure and Gervase finds himself on the opposite side of the argument from Christine.
Some things, however, don’t change: Mrs Savage roars, Connie rants, and Gervase’s colleagues in the office play verbal ping-pong. The children he meets in the primary schools continue to steal the limelight, and their contrived innocence never fails to endear.
Gervase Phinn’s fourth book is a delightful, funny roller-coaster of a read.
Up And Down In The Dales features in the following genres: Biographies & Autobiographies, eBooks of the Month, Biography, Literature and Literary studies, Recommendations
Up And Down In The Dales is available in Paperback
Up And Down In The Dales was written by Gervase Phinn and published by Penguin Books Ltd
Up And Down In The Dales has 340 pages
£11.69
