Goodbye Mr Chips

By: James Hilton

Narrated by: Robert Bathurst

Length: 1 hr and 53 mins

Publisher's summary

Mr Chipping is a quiet, unassuming teacher at Brookfield Grammar School. Wholly conventional, he never veers from his established routines. Until, that is, he meets Katherine, who charms him and his students and teaches Mr Chipping that education is about more than just the hours spent in the schoolroom. As his love for Katherine blooms, Mr Chipping develops a sense of humour and a broad view of his role as a teacher and a friend to his students, becoming the beloved 'Mr Chips' to generations of schoolboys.

Sweeping across four decades, Goodbye, Mr Chips features an extraordinary period of history, from the Franco-Prussian War of the 1870s to Hitler's rise to power in the 1930s, and demonstrates that, through it all, love and a good sense of humour can make all the difference.

Goodbye, Mr Chips is the beloved classic of generations of audiences and sure to delight people of all ages.

©1984 James Hilton (P)2022 Hodder & Stoughton Limited

Critic reviews

"A tiny, catch-in-the-throat story...perfectly done." (New Yorker)

"One of the most endearing creations of modern fiction." (Telegraph) 

Wonderful

After watching the movie I wanted to get the whole story. I loved this. The performance captured the characters and the story was vivid in imagery.

narration is superb

Such a cozy short listen reminiscing about a life well lived. It reminds me of Good Morning, Miss Dove. I loved the narrator's character voices.

Te azz aching - a different time, a different world

"Goodbye, Mr. Chips" is an endearing story written in the early thirties about a British teacher, Mr. Chipping. It leaves me with a doleful reminiscence for that art and craft of teaching. It is a gentle recollection of how one dedicated teacher influences students’ lives for generations to come. Unfortunately, it appears so distant and unattainable as I reflect upon this upcoming week’s lesson plans.

Recollections of future accomplishments remain but a distant shore.

Mr. Chips’s generation of educators seems to have missed is the lack of support, indifference, or even levels of attack and dismissal of poor student behaviors on the part of students and guardians.

Teaching has become a game of “blink” where learning comes second and false progress is normative: assessment is a false god, and grades reflect a record of student desires over unbiased demonstrations of competency.

Effective teaching is a social contract requiring compliance, which causes nearly all students and a large contingent of parents to bristle because they conflate obedience with soul murder. I recently received this correspondence from an irate single parent when I asked her freshman student who was failing her junior-level elective class if she might want to consider transferring out of the course because she had not completed even one assignment during the entire first grading period: “FROM NOW ON, YOU TALK TO ME, NOT MY CHILD.”

Romantic ideations notwithstanding, themes of love, loss, and the enduring influence of a good teacher have gone by the wayside when helicopter parents dictate the terms under which their children are to be treated whenever they either refuse to work or disrupt class.

<i>Goodbye Mr. Chips</i> is a charming reminiscence of times passed when teachers allegedly did not abuse their power and students were angelic beings.

Abuses of the past have given way to regulatory prohibitions for violating students’ fundamental rights and common dignity. Still, experience reveals the ugly flip-side and how far the pendulum of intolerance has swung in the direction against expectations for self-discipline and common decency on the part of students who can say whatever they want, and egregious misbehavior goes unchecked, seat-time is correlated with accomplishment and performance assessments remain open until the student achieved the desired grade.

Unfortunately, my portrayal as a kind, gentle, and dedicated educator, making making me a memorable protagonist is not in the works. My charm does not lie in my ability to evoke a sense of nostalgia and sentimentality . And, while it is my hope that students will one day reflect on their own school days and the teachers who left a lasting impression on their lives, I'm not holding my breath.

I hold limited expectations that anyone - particularly post-COVID angry America will contemplate the profound impact teachers have on their students.

But, like Mr. Chips, I believe every one that has passed through my classroom’s doors are mine every single one of them.

Finally

In high school in the 1960s, we were particularly in joined from reading goodbye Mr. chips on our summer reading lists. I have often wondered why clearly whatever teacher in charge thought it was far too sentimental a story and simplistic. But, as a retired historian, I can see its value, as about, a life lived during the sweep of a period of history and of its effect on the individual. It would make a useful teaching tool for any era of history class.

The narrators performance

All my life I had been aware of goodbye Mr. chips but had never read the story or seen the movie. I am absolutely charmed by the book. Also, if there were Oscars for narration, Robert Bathurst would win an Oscar!

Wonderful!

I have been a huge fan of the 1939 movie of the same name for many years but I had never read the book. The book did not disappoint. It is a wonderful story. The narrator did a fantastic job!