sections:
Take a nervous Englishman with no previous experience of teaching. Drop him into a ghastly Kenya prep school in the middle of Rider Haggard country. A school where cricketing news comes by carrier pigeon, leopards are assaulted with a red-hot poker, and runaway boys are hunted down with spearmen and a pack of foxhounds.
For Martin Riddle the experience is unforgettable. For the riding mistress, Lady Bullivant, it is all part of the day’s work. And for the headmaster, a disgraced ex-Guards officer, it is simply a means of staving off bankruptcy for a few more weeks.
As for the Masai, tennis may be on the curriculum at Haggard Hall, but midnight meetings with naked warriors definitely are not!
book reviews
- Sir Alec Guinness
‘Very good entertainment’
- Daily Telegraph
‘The funniest book of the year’
- Sunday Times
‘The funniest book I have read since David Lodge’s Small World’
- Daily Mail
'Wickedly funny’
- Evening Standard
‘Less savage than Evelyn Waugh, Best is every bit as sharp... an immensely enjoyable book’
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