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?
