Village Diary Quotes

“How lucky country children are in these natural delights that lie ready to their hand! Every season and every plant offers changing joys. As they meander along the lane that leads to our school all kinds of natural toys present themselves for their diversion. The seedpods of stitchwort hang ready for delightful popping between thumb and finger, and later the bladder campion offers a larger, if less crisp, globe to burst. In the autumn, acorns, beechnuts, and conkers bedizen their path, with all their manifold possibilities of fun. In the summer, there is an assortment of honeys to be sucked from bindweed flowers, held fragile and fragrant to hungry lips, and the tiny funnels of honeysuckle and clover blossoms to taste.”
― Miss Read, Village Diary

“In any case, I see no reason why a good-tempered, steady-going cat should not be included in a country classroom. It adds a pleasantly domestic touch to our working conditions.”
― Miss Read, Village Diary

“For Amy is the victim of today's common malaise—too much self analysis; while I, finding myself remarkably uninteresting, am only too pleased to observe others and the natural objects around me. Thus I am”
― Miss Read, Village Diary: A Novel

“I said to ’em both: “There’s no one disputes that ’tis a pity the old crafts is dying, but you never hears people say how clever the youngsters has been picking up all the new ones. I bet old Burton couldn’t drive a combine-harvester, or a tractor, and dry the corn or milk the cow by electric, like his boy can!” That’s true, you know, Miss. There’s new skill taking the place of the old, all the time, and I don’t like to hear the youngsters becalled, just because they does different!’ said Mr Willet sturdily.”
― Miss Read, Village Diary: A Novel

“I knew that Miss Young took the infants’ class and that it involved teaching thirty-odd infants aged from five to eight. Miss Hodge had the juniors, from eight to eleven, which meant that they took the eleven-plus examination from her room. Mr Hopgood and Mr Annett took the older boys and girls, having about forty in each class.”
― Miss Read, Village Diary: A Novel

“knew that Miss Young took the infants’ class and that it involved teaching thirty-odd infants aged from five to eight. Miss Hodge had the juniors, from eight to eleven, which meant that they took the eleven-plus examination from her room. Mr Hopgood and Mr Annett took the older boys and girls, having about forty in each class.”
― Miss Read, Village Diary: A Novel

“The child today, used as he is to much praise and encouragement, finds it much more difficult to keep going as his task gets progressively long. Helping children to face up to a certain amount of drudgery, cheerfully and energetically, is one of the biggest problems that teachers, in these days of ubiquitous entertainment, have to face in our schools; and the negative attitude, in so many homes, of ‘How-much-money-can-I-get-for-how-little-work?’ does nothing to help them in their daily battle.”
― Miss Read, Village Diary: A Novel

“What I do feel that the modern child lacks, when compared with the earlier generation, is concentration, and the sheer dogged grit to carry a long job through.”
― Miss Read, Village Diary: A Novel

“With easy transport to Caxley and television in their own homes to supply entertainment, the people of our two villages certainly seem to find enough to occupy them, and whether one can expect large and flourishing clubs, admirable though they are, is a moot point.”
― Miss Read, Village Diary: A Novel

“Will organized activity come into its own again if and when the villages flourish again, when rural education is improved, and the drift from the countryside is halted?”
― Miss Read, Village Diary: A Novel

“The older people, like Miss Clare and Mrs Pringle, shake their heads sadly over the departure of ‘the good old days,’ when the gentry did so much for the village, sparing neither advice nor practical and financial help. They looked to the families in the three or four large houses, not only for employment, but for guidance in matters spiritual and temporal; and now that death or the cold hand of poverty has removed this help, the older generation seems rudderless, and at times resentful, for the stability has gone from their lives.”
― Miss Read, Village Diary: A Novel

“Supposing it rains?’ ‘My dear,’ said Mrs Partridge, with the utmost firmness, ‘it will not rain! You should know by now, dear, that if one starts to take rain into consideration in village life—well—there just wouldn’t be any village life!”
― Miss Read, Village Diary: A Novel

“Although we had had quite a long walk I was amazed to see how fresh and lively the very young children were on our outing. The longer I teach, the more I am convinced that it is wrong for children in their first year at school to have to attend school for the whole day.”
― Miss Read, Village Diary: A Novel

“The age range makes it rather difficult to choose a story that will interest them all, but the ‘Ameliaranne’ books are proving a great standby.”
― Miss Read, Village Diary: A Novel

“with a rather well-turned aside, about the Romans’ Lares et Penates—when I must have dropped off.”
― Miss Read, Village Diary: A Novel

“spent the evening huddled over the fire, refreshing myself mentally with The Diary of a Country Parson,”
― Miss Read, Village Diary: A Novel

“To the lone man ploughing steadily up and down a many-acred field, the sporadic activity of the dwellers in the cottage on the hill-side acquires an enormous importance to him. He will see smoke coming from the wooden shed’s chimney, and surmise that it is washing day.”
― Miss Read, Village Diary: A Novel

“I felt inclined to remind her of our early days together, teaching in a large junior school not many miles from this very hotel, when we thrived cheerfully on a salary of just over thirteen pounds a month, and visited the theatre, the cinema, went skating and dancing, dressed attractively and, best of all, were as merry as grigs all the time.”
― Miss Read, Village Diary: A Novel

“The children appeared to have forgotten the very elements of education. Five-times table eluded them altogether, and my request to write ‘January’ on their own, met with tearful mystification. Having walked round the class and seen such efforts as ‘Jamwy,’ ‘Ganeree’ and ‘Jennery’ I wrote it on the blackboard with dreadful threats of no-play-for-a-week for those who did not master its intricacies immediately.”
― Miss Read, Village Diary: A Novel

“We were talking of Miss Parr, who had died recently. She had been a manager of Fairacre School since the reign of King Edward the Seventh, and was a stickler for etiquette. It appears that one day she met Mrs Willet, now our caretaker’s wife, but then a child of six, in the lane, and was shocked to find the little girl omitted to curtsy to her. At once she took the child to its mother, and demanded instant punishment.”
― Miss Read, Village Diary: A Novel

“Oh lovely, lovely life that can toss us from horror to hilarity, without giving us time to take breath! No mater how dark it may be, yet, unfailingly, "Cheerfulness breaks in.”
― Miss Read, Village Diary

“When one is alone one is receptive - a ready vessel for the sights, the scents and sounds which pour in through relaxed and animated senses to refresh the inner man.”
― Miss Read, Village Diary

“[regarding a toothache] It made me realize how much one's mind is at the mercy of one's physical well-being, as at times I felt quite demented. My admiration for people who withhold information under torture has increased ten-fold since this ghastly night, for I am quite certain that even the threat of such pain would be enough to make me blab put any secret, and even to make up further disclosures if I felt that these might mitigate the pain at all. Truly a most shattering revelation.”
― Miss Read, Village Diary