High Hopes

De: Billy Hopkins

Narrado por: Christopher Kay

It's September 1945 and Billy Hopkins is off to London to train as a teacher, with only 10 bob in his pocket. Despite his dad's warning, Billy survives two years in the Big City, and returns to take up his first teaching job in Manchester on £300 a year!

The catch is his first class, Senior Four, who bitterly resent the raising of the school-leaving age and are all set to take it out on their teacher. Luckily, the kid from Colleyhurst has some tricks of his own up his sleeve. And Billy's about to fall in love with the beautiful Laura. But is she, as his dad says, "too good for the likes of us"?

©2000 Wilfred Hopkins (P)2001 Soundings

Gentle, Nostalgic and a bit too trite for me

I know this has been a best seller, but maybe people bought for the same reason I did ... because the 'blurb' sounded so attractive. It certainly did evoke another time and mention things I thought I'd forgotten. It certainly reminded me of people from my childhood, but ... the tone was too 'Woman's Weekly' for me. There were no sharp edges at all. There were many unbelievable attitude moments even for the late 40s & 50s. It smacked of 'polite, proper lady writing as a man of the world'. Not for me, but many will like it I suppose. The Narrator did a splendid job.