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No More School
No More School
128 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1977
About the author
William Mayne
136 books16 followersWilliam Mayne was a British writer of children's fiction. Born in Hull, he was educated at the choir school attached to Canterbury Cathedral and his memories of that time contributed to his early books. He lived most of his life in North Yorkshire.
He was described as one of the outstanding children's authors of the 20th Century by the Oxford Companion to Children's Literature, and won the Carnegie Medal in 1957 for A Grass Rope and the Guardian Award in 1993 for Low Tide. He has written more than a hundred books, and is best known for his Choir School quartet comprising A Swarm in May, Choristers' Cake, Cathedral Wednesday and Words and Music, and his Earthfasts trilogy comprising Earthfasts, Cradlefasts and Candlefasts, an unusual evocation of the King Arthur legend.
A Swarm in May was filmed by the Children's Film Unit in 1983 and a five-part television series of Earthfasts was broadcast by the BBC in 1994.
William Mayne was imprisoned for two and a half years in 2004 after admitting to charges of child sexual abuse and was placed on the British sex offenders' register. His books were largely removed from shelves, and he died in disgrace in 2010.
He was described as one of the outstanding children's authors of the 20th Century by the Oxford Companion to Children's Literature, and won the Carnegie Medal in 1957 for A Grass Rope and the Guardian Award in 1993 for Low Tide. He has written more than a hundred books, and is best known for his Choir School quartet comprising A Swarm in May, Choristers' Cake, Cathedral Wednesday and Words and Music, and his Earthfasts trilogy comprising Earthfasts, Cradlefasts and Candlefasts, an unusual evocation of the King Arthur legend.
A Swarm in May was filmed by the Children's Film Unit in 1983 and a five-part television series of Earthfasts was broadcast by the BBC in 1994.
William Mayne was imprisoned for two and a half years in 2004 after admitting to charges of child sexual abuse and was placed on the British sex offenders' register. His books were largely removed from shelves, and he died in disgrace in 2010.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
April 28, 2019
‘No More School’ was written in 1965.
It is set in a small farming village whose school has just 14 children and one teacher. After a holiday, word comes (via the village shop, as no-one has a telephone at home) that Miss Oldroyd is ill and the school must remain closed until she recovers - but the children, led by Ruth and Shirley, decide instead to hold classes of their own, first in various hay lofts and outbuildings then, when these prove unsatisfactory, in the school itself - the doorkey hanging on a convenient nail outside.
If all this sounds fantastical it probably is. I was at primary school in London around this time, and even then the chances of children being left unsupervised would have been slim. But this is the agricultural countryside, and in those pre-internet days life was very different. The parents of most of the children – and indeed some of the children themselves, for the older boys are already very part-time pupils – are out in the fields all day making hay. During the holidays the children are left to amuse themselves, and Mayne is excellent at evoking the endless boredom of long, shapeless days, especially when it rains. The children either stand about in the village street, paddling in the wet gravelly road or looking at sweets in the shop window, or huddling in damp front rooms, playing with golliwogs and peg dolls. Adults are largely absent, yet strangely the girls are served breakfast in bed by their busy mothers – I do wonder if this was to keep them out of the steamy washday kitchens.
Ruth and Shirley, already used to domestic chores, take over Miss Oldroyd’s role with panache. They are soon teaching the little ones to read, keeping the big boys in order, explaining fractions, cooking the school dinners, even leading prayers (a twice-daily occurrence I remember well). Maybe describes the little details of their daily lives without comment; pushing the pram to the shop to buy potatoes (their purchase of which apparently attracts no questions), tending to scraped knees, rescuing grasshoppers and wasps. When the school telephone rings all of the children are terrified.
There are great touches of humour in this story. To stop everyone getting everything right, Shirley
‘began to ask questions like What was William the Conqueror’s middle name, or Draw and explain a hen’
And when Ruth takes charge once too often, Shirley asks ‘Are you a sheepdog? Or just bossy?’
Geography is taught thus: ‘England is an island. That means it has water all around it. Except at the top, where it has Scotland instead.’
In the end Miss Oldroyd comes back, there are congratulations all round and life returns to normal. There have been no earth-shattering disasters in her absence, but so much has happened – which is, after all, what childhood is mostly like.
I discovered today that William Mayne was, in later life, convicted of child abuse. He died in disgrace, his books having been removed from shelves. (I found this copy in a charity shop.) For me, however, ‘No More School’ was still worth reading for the fascinating insights it gives into country children’s lives 54 years ago.
It is set in a small farming village whose school has just 14 children and one teacher. After a holiday, word comes (via the village shop, as no-one has a telephone at home) that Miss Oldroyd is ill and the school must remain closed until she recovers - but the children, led by Ruth and Shirley, decide instead to hold classes of their own, first in various hay lofts and outbuildings then, when these prove unsatisfactory, in the school itself - the doorkey hanging on a convenient nail outside.
If all this sounds fantastical it probably is. I was at primary school in London around this time, and even then the chances of children being left unsupervised would have been slim. But this is the agricultural countryside, and in those pre-internet days life was very different. The parents of most of the children – and indeed some of the children themselves, for the older boys are already very part-time pupils – are out in the fields all day making hay. During the holidays the children are left to amuse themselves, and Mayne is excellent at evoking the endless boredom of long, shapeless days, especially when it rains. The children either stand about in the village street, paddling in the wet gravelly road or looking at sweets in the shop window, or huddling in damp front rooms, playing with golliwogs and peg dolls. Adults are largely absent, yet strangely the girls are served breakfast in bed by their busy mothers – I do wonder if this was to keep them out of the steamy washday kitchens.
Ruth and Shirley, already used to domestic chores, take over Miss Oldroyd’s role with panache. They are soon teaching the little ones to read, keeping the big boys in order, explaining fractions, cooking the school dinners, even leading prayers (a twice-daily occurrence I remember well). Maybe describes the little details of their daily lives without comment; pushing the pram to the shop to buy potatoes (their purchase of which apparently attracts no questions), tending to scraped knees, rescuing grasshoppers and wasps. When the school telephone rings all of the children are terrified.
There are great touches of humour in this story. To stop everyone getting everything right, Shirley
‘began to ask questions like What was William the Conqueror’s middle name, or Draw and explain a hen’
And when Ruth takes charge once too often, Shirley asks ‘Are you a sheepdog? Or just bossy?’
Geography is taught thus: ‘England is an island. That means it has water all around it. Except at the top, where it has Scotland instead.’
In the end Miss Oldroyd comes back, there are congratulations all round and life returns to normal. There have been no earth-shattering disasters in her absence, but so much has happened – which is, after all, what childhood is mostly like.
I discovered today that William Mayne was, in later life, convicted of child abuse. He died in disgrace, his books having been removed from shelves. (I found this copy in a charity shop.) For me, however, ‘No More School’ was still worth reading for the fascinating insights it gives into country children’s lives 54 years ago.
February 8, 2015
Remember reading this book over and over when I was a child and I still have my original copy.
December 15, 2023
Bit of nostalgia made me pick this up in a charity shop in England last summer. Puffin books were a big part of childhood reading. The logo and design so evocative. I didn't have this particular one back in the day, and I actually decided to give it a whirl today out of idle curiosity. A classic trope I guess, children get the chance to take over - in this case running their little village school when their teacher is away sick. There is much 'of its time' parental distance, this time quite laughably so - none of them seemingly realizing that their children had not attended their temporary school in the next village all week and were holding fort themselves. These are infant school age children and in between this neglect, are often called upon by their farming parents to work the hay bailer machine late into the night etc.. Tsck, kids today, don't know how lucky they are.
October 15, 2022
Mayne is a strange case. The style is very knowing and has an interesting slant on the world (this is about children deciding to convene their own school) but I can't tell how engaging real children would find it. As an adult reader of children's books I really enjoyed it. If you mind about the personal biographies of authors you should look him up on wikipedia before deciding to read/recommend to children.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews