Village School: The first novel in the Fairacre series - Softcover

The very first Miss Read novel - set in 1950s England, perfect nostalgia for fans of CALL THE MIDWIFE or Gervase Phinn.

'An affectionate, humorous and gently charming chronicle ... sometimes funny, sometimes touching, always appealing' New York Times

Fairacre is a village of cottages, a church and the school - and at the heart of the school, its headmistress, Miss Read.

Through her discerning eye, we meet the villagers of Fairacre and see their trials and tribulations, from the irascible school cleaner Mrs Pringle, to the young schoolchildren with their scraped knees, hopeful faces and inevitable mischief.

Miss Read takes us through the school year, beginning with the Christmas term when the bitterly cold weather challenges the school's ancient heating system, right through to the hot summer day when school is over for another year.

VILLAGE SCHOOL is an intriguing glimpse into a forgotten world and has become a true classic.

Miss Read, or in real life Dora Saint, was a teacher by profession who started writing after the second world war, beginning with light essays written for Punch and other journals. She then wrote on educational and country matters and worked as a scriptwriter for the BBC. Miss Read was married to a schoolmaster for sixty-four years until his death in 2004, and they had one daughter.

Miss Read was awarded an MBE in the 1998 New Year Honours list for her services to literature, She was the author of many immensely popular books, including two autobiographical works, but it was her novels of English rural life for which she was best known. The first of these Village School, was published in 1955, and Miss Read continued to write about the fictional villages of Fairacre and Thrush Green for many years. She lived near Newbury in Berkshire until her death in 2012.