Sign-In
Cart
The Perfect Timetable: A Teacher's Memoir
Hardcover
Biographies GeneralGeneral Education
ISBN13: 9781925814507
Publisher: Tellwell Talent
Published: Jul 30 2018
Pages: 208
Weight: 1.05
Height: 0.63 Width: 6.00 Depth: 9.00
Language: English
Have you ever wondered about the life of your favourite teacher?
What did he really think? What inspired him? Who was he really?
Mervyn Pryer began teaching in 1939 at age 19. He taught in NSW Small Schools for 41 years.
Of all the small schools in which he taught, only one remains today. It is of an era passed about which he writes. A time when young teachers were sent to isolated villages consisting of few houses and a building freezing in winter and stifling in summer, to teach the local children. The ever-present loneliness and the need to keep the kids busy and learning.
Upon retirement he began to write his memoirs, beginning with a tribute to his Father. A life begun in poverty blossoming into an innate practical ability and a strong social conscience. A train driver who possessed uncanny bushman's skills. Mervyn admits he never knew where he was in the bush.
He reminisces about Armidale Teachers' College. The magnificence of the building, the honour of attending and lifelong friendships which formed. The decision to take on small school teaching and always the search for that perfect timetable.
Writing of the mystery of love and that moment in time, when he first sees Betty Lillis and is consumed by the knowing, she will be his life partner. There are the joys of a shared life and the happiness of having a family, and watching their children grow.
Mervyn loved a good joke and was often confident he could improve upon an already existing invention. He affixed notes of instruction to many devices for the benefit of users.
The reader is kept engaged as he discusses attitudes of the time, through the lens of politics, religion, philosophy, education, agriculture, employment and poetry as they relate to events of his life.
Widowhood in 1988, is to colour the next 26 years of Mervyn's life. He turns to the poet who expresses his feelings of unrelenting grief and loneliness. He searches for an answer to the age old human question, what IT is all about?
Also in
Biographies General
Bluesland: Portraits of Thirteen Major American Blues Masters
Pete Welding (ED.)
Toby Byron (ED.)
Hardcover
Karl Popper - The Formative Years, 1902 1945: Politics and Philosophy in Interwar Vienna
Hacohen, Malachi Haim
Hardcover
The Children of Athena: Greek Intellectuals in the Age of Rome: 150 Bc0-400 AD
Freeman, Charles
Hardcover
Make It a Double: From Wretched to Wondrous: Tales of One Woman's Lifelong Discovery of Whisky
Sackier, Shelley
Hardcover
The Code Breaker: Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing, and the Future of the Human Race
Isaacson, Walter
Hardcover
An Enemy Such as This: Larry Casuse and the Fight for Native Liberation in One Family on Two Continents Over Three Centuries
Correia, David
Hardcover
Agents of Chaos: Thomas King Forçade, High Times, and the Paranoid End of the 1970s
Howe, Sean
Hardcover
Better Living Through Birding: Notes from a Black Man in the Natural World
Cooper, Christian
Hardcover
The Secret Life of the Savoy: Glamour and Intrigue at the World's Most Famous Hotel
Williams, Olivia
Paperback
The Badger: The Life of Bernard Hinault and the Legacy of French Cycling
Fotheringham, William
Paperback
The Devil's Diary: Alfred Rosenberg and the Stolen Secrets of the Third Reich
Wittman, Robert K.
Kinney, David
Paperback
Florence Kelley and the Nation's Work: The Rise of Womens Political Culture, 1830-1900
Sklar, Kathryn Kish
Paperback
The Rise and Fall of Anne Boleyn: Family Politics at the Court of Henry VIII
Warnicke, Retha M.
Paperback
A Woman of No Importance: The Untold Story of the American Spy Who Helped Win World War II
Purnell, Sonia
Hardcover
Living with a Wild God: A Nonbeliever's Search for the Truth about Everything
Ehrenreich, Barbara
Paperback
Seafaring Women: Adventures of Pirate Queens, Female Stowaways, and Sailors' Wives
Cordingly, David
Paperback
The Butcher, the Embezzler, and the Fall Guy: A Family Memoir of Scandal and Greed in the Meat Industry
Cherington, Gretchen
Paperback
Gift of Power: The Life and Teachings of a Lakota Medicine Man
Erdoes, Richard
Lame Deer, Chief Archie Fire
Paperback
My Own Devices: True Stories from the Road on Music, Science, and Senseless Love
Dessa Wander
Hardcover
Nobody's Girl: A Memoir of Surviving Abuse and Fighting for Justice
Giuffre, Virginia Roberts
Hardcover
How to Be Okay When Nothing Is Okay: Tips and Tricks That Kept Me Alive, Happy, and Creative in Spite of Myself
Lawson, Jenny
Hardcover
Family of Spies: A World War II Story of Nazi Espionage, Betrayal, and the Secret History Behind Pearl Harbor
Kuehn, Christine
Hardcover
Dangerous, Dirty, Violent, and Young: A Fugitive Family in the Revolutionary Underground
Dohrn, Zayd Ayers
Hardcover
A Walk in the Park: The True Story of a Spectacular Misadventure in the Grand Canyon
Fedarko, Kevin
Paperback
Catch the Devil: A True Story of Murder, Deception, and Injustice on the Gulf Coast
Colloff, Pamela
Hardcover