The Life And Death Of Rochester Sneath

Download or read book The Life and Death of Rochester Sneath written by Humphry Berkeley and published by Harriman House Limited. This book was released on 2009-06-26 with total page 103 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: H. Rochester Sneath no longer exists. And if you wished to put your son's name on the waiting list for Selhurst School, near Petworth, Sussex, you might have a little difficulty. It doesn't exist either. But, as this collection of Sneath's letters, and the replies, proves, you can fool most of the people most of the time. Particularly, it seems, if the people happen to be the head masters of those most English private institutions - public schools. In early 1948 Sneath began his brief and glorious career. Letters, like canes, mortarboards and jaundiced rugger balls, began to appear in headmasters' offices, whose occupants, with two notable exceptions, appeared to find nothing strange in Sneath's requests or his exhortations. Pompous, indignant, eccentric, pushing, toadying, or just plain dotty, the letters were answered with a seriousness which is barely credible. For he wrote of: - infestations of rats - the possibility of 'engineering' Royal visits - how to hire a private detective - junior masters with club feet and warty noses - ghosts, cricket, statues, new buildings, 'monster' reunions George Bernard Shaw was puzzled, Sir Giles Gilbert Scott was booked up, as was Sir Adrian Boult. Sir William Reid Dick was eager. After four or five letters the Master of Marlborough became exasperated, while the head master of St Benedict's was livid. A certain master displayed a cupidity not normally associated with men of the cloth; the new Master of Rugby was grateful for some wise advice; the head master of Stowe could not have been more helpful about sex. There was talk of Sneath succeeding the headmaster of Eton. One head master was so drawn to Sneath that he recommended Selhurst to a prospective parent, who promptly applied for a place on behalf of her son. His name was placed on 'the waiting list for the Waiting List'. Sneath's letters comprise a gentle and unmalicious, but devastatingly accurate parody of the public school system - a collection so intelligently absurd that it defies adequate description.

Download or read book From Morality to Mayhem written by Julian Lovelock and published by Lutterworth Press. This book was released on 2018-10-25 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The stories we read as children are the ones that stay with us the longest, and from the nineteenth century until the 1950s stories about schools held a particular fascination. Many will remember the goings-on at such earnest establishments as Tom Brown's Rugby, St Dominic's, Greyfriars, the Chalet School, Malory Towers and Linbury Court. In the second part of the twentieth century, with more liberal social attitudes and the advent of secondary education for all, these moral tales lost their appeal and the school story very nearly died out. More recently, however, a new generation of compromised schoolboy and schoolgirl heroes - Pennington, Tyke Tiler, Harry Potter and Millie Roads - have given it a new and challenging relevance. Focusing mainly on novels written for young people, From Morality to Mayhem charts the fall and rise of the school story, from the grim accounts of Victorian times to the magic and mayhem of our own age. In doing so it considers how fictional schools not only reflect but sometimes influence real life. This captivating study will appeal to those interested in children's literature and education, both students and the general reader, taking us on a not altogether comfortable trip down memory lane.

Download or read book Disgusting Bliss written by Lucian Randall and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2010-05-13 with total page 282 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Sunnewspaper asked if Chris Morris's July 2001 Brass Eye Special on paedophilia was 'the sickest TV ever?' It was certainly the most controversial, though his uncompromising style of comedy meant he was rarely far from trouble. Morris first came to national prominence at the heart of a group of virtually unknown comedians brought together by Armando Iannucci. This book follows them from their 1991 news satire On the Hour, which transferred from radio to television where it was reinvented as the equally successful The Day Today. It became impossible to watch bulletins without thinking of Morris's Paxmanesque anchor character chastising a reporter -- 'Peter! You've lost the news!' -- or authoritatively delivering nonsense headlines: 'Sacked chimney worker pumps boss full of mayonnaise.' Meanwhile co-star Steve Coogan created a lasting anti-hero in Alan Partridge, imbued with a horrible life all of his own. But Morris himself was always the most compelling character of all. Drawing on exclusive new interviews and original research, this book creates a compelling portrait of Morris from his earliest radio days and of the comedians and writers who frequently took on the industry they worked in, polarising opinion to such a degree that government ministers threatened to ban them entirely. THIS IS THE NEEEWWWWS!

Download or read book Country Life written by and published by . This book was released on 1974-11 with total page 1144 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book School's Out written by James Thellusson and published by Sandstone Press Ltd. This book was released on 2022-11-03 with total page 87 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'An utter delight. 10 out of 10!' Harry Mount, editor of The Oldie A charming gift book of pleas, put downs, misplaced career guidance and character assessments collected from the school reports and memoirs of celebrities and ordinary people from across the UK and Ireland. Featuring household names such as Benedict Cumberbatch, David Bowie, Sandi Toksvig, Sir Billy Connolly, and even members of the Royal family, this collection will have readers laughing and digging out their own school reports.

Download or read book Family Affairs written by Mary Abbott and published by Psychology Press. This book was released on 2003 with total page 220 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This work explores the secret life of English families from 1920 to 1990. Mary Abbott takes the reader into her subjects' homes and hearts and provokes us to reflect the past and speculate on the future of the family. A product of intense original research of primary and secondary sources, this volume is an important contribution to the history of the family.

Download or read book John Mortimer written by Graham Lord and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2013-12-03 with total page 475 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Britain every generation produces a national treasure, a lovable figure so English that he could not possibly be of any other nationality, and Sir John Mortimer is just such a figure.Mortimer has delighted millions all over the world with seven television series about the gloriously larger-than-life fictional barrister Horace Rumpole --- Rumpole of the Bailey --- as well as novels, autobiographies, stage plays, film scripts, short stories, television and radio plays, newspaper articles, and even an opera and a ballet. Laurence Olivier, John Gielgud, and Alec Guinness appeared in his plays, and among his greatest theatrical triumphs is his stage and television play A Voyage Round My Father. He won a British Book Awards trophy for Lifetime Achievement in 2005.Mortimer actually practiced as a barrister for thirty-six years, defending husbands, wives, pornographers, and murderers in court and starring as the real-life "Devil's Advocate" in several legendary obscenity and blasphemy cases in the 1970s, quickly becoming a liberal hero.Yet despite huge success, fame, and knighthood there lurks beneath that genial "champagne socialist" mask an unusually complex man who has been plagued by depression, doubt, insecurity, and an irresistible urge to commit adultery.Biographer Graham Lord, whose discovery that Mortimer had a secret son by the British actress Wendy Craig forced Sir John to admit it publicly in 2004, has interviewed scores of Mortmer's family, friends, mistresses, and enemies to write a frank and vital biography that reveals the startling reality behind the beloved public figure. "Breathless prose and many juicyrevelations-an absorbing read."--Kirkus Reviews