This is a story about a school-teacher, Mr Chipping, who his students fondly call Mr Chips. He's the beloved Latin teacher at a quiet boys' school in England called Brookfield. When the book opens, we meet him as an old man, living in rooms across the road from his beloved school, still organising his days by the school bell, inviting the new boys, and some of the older ones over to tea, and keeping up with the goings on at the school.
He begins to reminisce, and we get the story of his life, his progression from an uncertain young man, to the confident but entirely conventional teacher, to one of those teachers who become mentors and symbols and stay with their students long after they've left the school. In time, he becomes an institution, inspiring his students to face up to any situation with courage and an unfailing sense of humour. This is a charming book, and I thoroughly enjoyed it.
I picked it up one night, intending to read a chapter or two, and I couldn't stop until I got to the end. This is a short read, at just 120 pages, but the author, James Hilton, packs a lot story into them. And yet somehow, the pacing is gentle and nothing feels rushed.
Reading this book felt like settling down to chat with an old friend. This is a nature diary, compiled from the Nature Notebook Column that the author used to write for The Times. This book is divided into two sections, city and country. It begins in August, 2014 when Harrison was living in London. She'd been there for more than fifteen years by that time, and she'd gone from feeling cut off from nature to realising that there's plenty of nature to enjoy in the city, if we just slow down and look around.
The second half of the book begins in December 2017 when she moved from London to rural Suffolk. She found that living in the country deepened her engagement with the seasons, as she continued to chronicle her joy in things like watching the migratory birds arrive every spring, the crystal clarity of a full moon night in a place where there are no streetlights, watching the deer wander through the village on winter evenings and more.
The book ends in May 2020 when the world was in the grip of the covid pandemic and people everywhere found themselves listening to birdsong, taking up gardening, going for long walks and engaging with nature in a way that they hadn't before.
This was a lovely read.