As the 1982 school year begins, Jack Sheffield returns to Ragley village school for his sixth year as headteacher. Nora Pratt celebrates twenty-five years in her coffee shop, Ronnie Smith finally tries to get a job, and little Krystal Entwhistle causes concern in the school Nativity play.

Jack Sheffield was born in 1945 and grew up in Leeds. After a job as a 'pitch boy', repairing roofs, he became a Corona Pop Man before going to St John's College , York , and training to be a teacher. In the late seventies and eighties he was a headteacher of two schools in North Yorkshire before becoming a Senior Lecturer in Education. It was at this time that he began to record his many amusing stories of village life which form the basis of his popular 'Teacher' novels. He lives in York and Hampshire.