YORKSHIREMAN Gervase Phinn is the writer who has turned teachers into modern day rock stars through his witty and warm books of school life.

Ahead of his Weymouth show he tells Joanna Davis why the lure of the classroom never dies.

GERVASE Phinn is a name that rolls off the tongue - once you get the right pronunciation of course.

After assiduously checking online video clips for the correct way to say 'Gervase' (it's a soft 'g' and 'Phinn' the same as the part of a fish), I'm all set to greet and chat to the former teacher, school inspector and education adviser.

This Yorkshireman's career now sees him writing best-selling books and bringing anecdotes and memories from his life as a schoolteacher in the Yorkshire dales to theatres around the country.

To say that he is the James Herriot of the education world tells you everything you need

to know.

Gervase expanded his repertoire to fiction, writing the hit Little Village School series.

But it's not all dry stone walls and cosy tea and scone sessions in the Dales, he tells me, with the final book in the series that he is currently writing between shows dealing with some hard-hitting issues.

"It's going towards the love interest being reconciled at the end.

"In the last book one of the characters was a boy who was being abused and neglected.

"There will be scenes that are darker but there's generally a good feel factor there.

"It's about human nature and people who are genuinely caring.

"I'm about a quarter of the way through it and it will be out next year.

"It's very busy at the moment trying to write it and I don't think my family can cope with it. There's a lot of adrenaline going all the time."

In Gervase's show the audience will enjoy some amusing tales of school life and how children come out with the funniest things.

"A little girl said to me once, 'When I'm 21, you'll be dead.'

"There was a little four or five-year-old boy in a nursery once who I spoke to who said 'When I'm 21 you'll be dead'.

"There was also a little boy who was sat in a cardboard box making some 'brum brum' noises.

"I said to him 'Are you in a racing car?' And he replied 'No, I'm in a cardboard box'.

"I think the schoolchildren of the dales can be quite blunt and forthright - one boy said to me 'if you've got 'owt to say then say 'owt.'

Gervase is a seasoned performer on the stage now - this is his 12th tour.

He said: "The show is two hours or just over, it's observational and it's anecdotal.

"There are stories, poems and tales of incidents and some very poignant parts about children who have special needs and who have written me poems.

"It's all very old fashioned humour. There are no offensive jokes. The stories are based on real life situations.

"The theatre tour has a real buzz to it and I love meeting people before and after the show.

And, as Gervase tells me, it was a woman called Esther Rantzen who transformed this teacher into a writer and a performer.

"She changed my life," he said.

"The phone went one day and it was a patron of Childline who told me that Esther was due to speak at a dinner but wasn't well.

"She recovered and she turned up and she said 'Why don't you do half an hour and I'll do half an hour?'

"Afterwards she said to me 'You must come on my television show'.

"I ended up going on there three times and I got hundreds of letters after the show and one of them was from Penguin, the publisher of James Herriot's books who invited me to London for a meeting and it all started from there."

Gervase and I go on to discuss whether your schooldays are the best of your life.

We agree that the local comprehensives we attended could be better viewed as character building rather than through a rose-tinted lens.

"Going to a Yorkshire school with a name like Gervase didn't make me very popular!

"I was named after a character in the Miller's Tale in the Canterbury Tales by Chaucer.

"I think that's why I've been so involved with anti-bullying schools and with Childline.

"I was at a secondary modern school and it worked out well for me - I was a big fish in a little pond."

Today Gervase still takes a keen interest in schools from each end of the spectrum.

"I think the public school system still had the old boys' network.

"I was at a school once with acres of land, tennis courts and wonderful lawns.

"I said to a pupil there 'how lucky you are to be here.'

"He looked at me and said 'I don't know of anything else,' which is true, if you are there you don't know of the alternative.

"I was working in a school in Leeds where 63 different languages are spoken.

"The pupils told me that they think education in this country is fantastic - they couldn't believe that they were able to take books out of the library.

"One of the boys spoke eight different languages, these youngsters have got real ambition.

"There was a Kosovan child who spoke not a word of English, when I went back there he said 'Give me a high five.'

"I remain very optimistic about young people."

*Gervase Phinn is at Weymouth Pavilion on Thursday June 25 from 7.30pm.

GERVASE PHINN BIOG

“Gervase Phinn is one of the most accomplished public speakers of any kind. A natural storyteller, he combines the timing of the professional comedian with palpable warmth and the ability to deliver a message that is more than just a series of jokes.” (The Times)

Gervase Phinn – comedian, author, poet, broadcaster, lecturer, educational guru, after-dinner speaker and “born raconteur” (The Guardian) - is perhaps best known for his warm-hearted reminiscences (published by Penguin) about the life of a schools inspector in the Yorkshire Dales and for his best-selling series of novels in the Little Village School Series with Hodder. Affectionately dubbed ‘the James Herriot of Schools’, Gervase has written a wide range of academic books, short stories, children’s poetry and fiction.

A regular contributor to a range of education conferences he has spent the last twelve years developing a rollickingly good stand-up routine based on his unique and comprehensive knowledge of life in and around education. Having reached an audience of over 300,000 people, he is one of the most consistently popular live performers in the country, selling out theatres throughout the UK. Two best-selling live DVDs bear testimony to his engaging and thought-provoking brand of educational stand-up - Tales From the Dales (2007) and Live Again: The Inspector Calls (2008).

When he’s not signing books, public speaking, lecturing on cruise ships, touring theatres and weaving stories and tales into comedy gold, he’s writing more books and supporting the twelve charities of which he is the patron.

With an incisive memory and an expansive catalogue of diaries, Gervase obviously has a keen eye for a story: “I save up funny anecdotes. I’ve got this catalogue of notebooks and a journal I’ve kept for 40 years.”

The principle of recycling found material also informs his stand-up routine: “The kind of humour I have is life-affirming – it’s optimistic, observational, anecdotal. The stories, readings and poems I do isn’t cutting-edge - it’s not got the acidity of Jonathan Swift or Oscar Wilde, which can be bitingly cruel but very funny. We’re all interested in the stories in life where the pompous person is knocked off his pedestal, the do-you-know-who-I-am character is brought down to earth and the conceited person has the conceit taken out of them. It’s also about children, ostensibly, who are naturally very funny and often come out with the most amazingly philosophical, profound and highly amusing commentaries on life. They don’t know anything about skin colour, race, background, religion, they are brutally honest and will ask questions we as adults feel a bit tentative about asking.”

His ongoing live show is an ever-changing mixture of old favourites and new stories, honed into a magical routine that works time and again: “I’ve been doing stage shows for ten years”, he says, “and when they first asked me, I said ‘let’s do four or five nights in Yorkshire and see how they go’. Then they sort of snowballed. I’ve got people who come and see me again and again. I get to a lot of people.”

And at 68 years young, Gervase has no desire to take life easier either: “I suppose I don’t like the idea of getting older. I can’t retire, play golf, do the Telegraph crossword, tidy up the garden and put my feet up. It’s never been in my nature to do that. I’m not one who picks things up very quickly but I’m very persevering and I’ve been very determined and ambitious. I had parents that always believed I would succeed in life and they went to great pains to build up my self-esteem and self-confidence.”

‘The Little Village School’ published in July 2011, is Gervase’s first novel for adults and became an instant best-seller. Since then there have been two more novels and in March 2015 the next in the series ‘A Lesson in Love’ will be published.

Professor Gervase Phinn taught in a range of schools for fourteen years before becoming an education adviser and school inspector. He is now a freelance lecturer, broadcaster and writer, a consultant for the Open University, Honorary Fellow of St. John's University, Honorary Fellow of Leeds Trinity University, Doctor of Letters (D.Litt) of the University of Leicester, Doctor of Letters (D.Litt) of The University of Hull and the Fellow and Visiting Professor at The University of Teesside. In 2005 the highest academic award of Sheffield Hallam University, Doctor of the University (D.Univ.) was conferred upon him by the Chancellor, Professor Lord Robert Winston. In 2006 he became President of The School Library Association and is President of the Society of Teachers of Speech and Drama.

He has published many articles, chapters and books and edited a wide range of poetry and short story collections. His academic texts include: Young Readers and their Books, published by David Fulton, Touches of Beauty: Poetry in the Primary School and Reading Matters. Additionally he has published collections of his own plays, poems, picture books and short stories, including his anthologies of verse : Classroom Creatures, It Takes One to Know One, The Day Our Teacher Went Batty and Family Phantoms, His books of stories for children, What's the Matter, Royston Knapper? and Royston Knapper: The Return of the Rogue were published by Child's Play and became bestsellers. His picture book Our Cat Cuddles appeared earlier this year.

Gervase Phinn is probably best known for his best-selling autobiographical novels: The Other Side of the Dale, Over Hill and Dale and Head Over Heels in the Dales, published by Michael Joseph, which he read on the Radio 4 programme 'Book of the Week.' Head Over Heels in the Dales was a number one bestseller.

Television and radio appearances include Esther (BBC 1), Midweek (Radio 4), You and Yours (Radio 4), Open House with Gloria Hunniford (ITV), North East Tonight, (Tyne Tees Television), Today (Radio 4), Calendar (Yorkshire Television), Breakfast Television (BBC1), The BBC World Service, The Heaven and Earth Show (BBC 2), The Des O 'Connor Show (LWT), Quote-Unquote (Radio 4), Look North (BBC 1), The Big Toe Radio Show (Digital Radio), Just One Chance (BBC 2), Book at Bedtime (Radio 4), Book of the Week (Radio 4), A Good Read (Radio 4), The Sunday Programme (GMTV), Christmas Voices (BBC1), The Politics Show (BBC1),The Alan Titchmarsh Show (BBC1), The Book Programme with Mariella Frostrup and Clive James (Sky), With Great Pleasure (Radio 4), The Alan Titchmarsh Show (ITV) and Good Morning Sunday with Aled Jones (Radio 2)

A worthy successor to James Herriott, and every bit as endearing. (Alan Titchmarsh)

Gervase Phinn has a unique understanding and love of children, and a wonderful gift for storytelling ... a real star (Esther Rantzen)

Laugh-out-loud funny (Women's Weekly)

A colleague once said that Gervase's enthusiasm and encouragement

of teachers should be bottled ... an outstanding practitioner (Guardian Education)

Gervase Phinn is one of the most accomplished public speakers of any kind. A natural storyteller, he combines the timing of the professional comedian with palpable warmth and the ability to deliver a message that is just more than just a series of jokes (The Times Educational Supplement)

A bom raconteur (Guardian)

Funny, touching and entertaining (The Daily Express)

Gentle and warm with a wry sense of humour (The Yorkshire Post)

He tells a cracking good tale! (The Times)

One of Britain's best loved comic writers ... he writes with enormous warmth and wit His books are uproarious and touching by turns (The Daily Mail)

www.gervase-phinn.com