If you want some light humour after a hard day then The Papers of AJ Wentworth BA is definitely worth reading.

The book is the chronicles of a teacher or master from before the War and is full of little bits of light hearted humour and cute observations.

Recommended

This was an interesting read. While not my favorite, it was entertaining. It was humourous at times and I found myself laughing. I would recommend it.

I would like to thank Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with a copy free of charge. This is my honest and unbiased opinion of it.

A fun enjoyable read a schoolmaster whose life never runs smoothly a catastrophe around every corner..I found myself laughing out loud a perfect read to help escape every day routine.#netgalley #farragobooks.

A fun and humorous short book. A style of it's time which is utterly charming in it's own old-fashioned way. A light hearted read which is written in a very easy manner which elicit some real chuckles.

A bygone era.

Mathematics master A J Wentworth is out of his league at a boys school.This book is anecdotal and opinion based.Fun,light read.Thankyou Netgalley and prelude books for this ARC

This book purports to be excerpts from the diary of an English preparatory (prep) schoolmaster written just before the Second World War. Readers of a certain vintage who enjoyed the Jennings stories will suck up this book with relish.

Reader, I sniggered. The tale of Wentworth attempting to teach Pythagoras’ theorem that starts “This morning, we are going to prove that the square on the hypotenuse of a right-angled triangle is equal to the sum of the squares on the other two sides”, to which one of the class (young Mason) responds “Is that a likely thing to happen?” set my expectations. Those expectations were met beautifully:

Sapoulos was looking for his pen. Wentworth throws up his hands and exclaims “Where is the boy’s pen?”, to which Mason replies “It is in the tool-house of my gardener’s aunt.” Oh, that brought back memories of French lessons “Ou est la plume de ma tante?” “C’est dans le jardin.” Or similar – it was fifty years ago that I tried to learn that stuff! The dialogue ends with Wentworth warning Mason “There will be have to be a big change, Mason, or you and I will find ourselves at loggerheads.” “You may,” he said. “I’m going to Cheltenham.”

The book is a joy to read. Although it depicts a world that may no longer exist (if it ever did – since I didn’t attend a prep school, I have no means of knowing one way or the other), that doesn’t matter at all. The humour is timeless.

I do hope there’s another Wentworth book…

#ThePapersOfAjWentworthBa #NetGalley

I laughed out loud and loved this book. It's full of gentle humour and you cannot help loving the helpless main character.
Highly recommended!
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine.

This book was originally published in 1949 and is one of the many books being republished to bring to the attention of people like me, who would never have read it otherwise!

I was torn between my emotions for poor Mr.Wentworth. I wanted to think of him as a pompous man who deserved the treatment received from both his pupils and his fellow teachers, but in those rare moments when he laughed at the situation himself, I had to think again. Mr. Wentworth is very sure of himself, but his students sound like terrors!. They start the most random of arguments to deviate the class from the topic and hand and he struggles to bring them back to the course and even has the occasional victory. There is a chapter of two to show how his fellow teachers succeed in pulling his leg and another chapter or two when he gets drafted into the army. Some actions towards our unlikely protagonist could be put down as bullying but then a wider background is given it seemed harmless enough for me to find funny. It is lighthearted and simply written, so much so that I have nothing left to talk about the book!  If there was more in this book itself, I would have given it five stars but it ended abruptly leaving me wanting to know more. 

I received an ARC thanks to NetGalley and the publishers, but the review is completely based on my own reading experience.

The Papers of A.J Wentworth B.A is a classic series about an ineffectual mathematics teacher who first appeared in Punch magazine from 1938. Written as a diary he recounts his time teaching in the all boys Burgrove Preparatory School in the fictional county of Wilminster. Each comic entry details how A.J Wentworth spends his days trying to control his class of unruly boys as he tries to teach them and their attempts to avoid being taught anything.
There are times A.J Wentworth pomposity can be a little annoying but H.F Ellis always manages to bring his character crashing back down to earth through his clumsiness or through the boys continuing attempts to befuddle their tutor.

The humour is light-hearted and as it only over a hundred pages long, is a good way to spend an afternoon.

Laugh out loud

Wentworth is an assistant master of mathematics in a small English Prep school just before the Second World War. His collected papers and diaries paint a hilarious picture of this priggish, pompous, self-deluded and accident prone man. As his colleagues, pupils and parents run rings around him, he continues to consider himself the only teacher in step.

I read this slim volume over thirty years ago and found it just as funny second time round. It might be imagined that the context of the private middle class school and the world of assistant masters (junior teachers), matrons, locker rooms and boarding pupils would render this wholly out of date, but human nature being what it is, what was very funny then, is just as funny now. Highly recommended.

Poor Mr Wentworth- somehow his best intentions always seem to end in catastrophe! As Maths master in a Prep school he does his best, but somehow one thing leads to another & he finds himself trying to explain how he got himself into such a muddle. Anyone who has had any experience of Prep & Public schools will recognise A. J. Wentworth! Even as recently as the 80's & 90's I can recall some people who, like A. J. has made this setting his home. His bravery at signing up for war really took him out of his comfort zone, but somehow he slipped into the same niche- slightly eccentric, somewhat humourless, fixed on what he thought he should do & ending up in a pickle!

This was a fun read. A.J. was a character that really made you want to try & help him, even though that was probably doomed to failure! Thanks to Netgalley & the publisher for this fun read.

This book is charming and funny. AJ Wenworth is a math teacher at an English prep school. The book reminded me of the Jeeves and Wooster stories by PG Wodehouse, it's that kind of humor.

Quite entertaining the predicaments he finds himself in. Innocent humor from a bygone era. If uni enjoy brush humor, you will find this book amusing. I'm interested to see where it goes from here. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC in exchange for my honest re iew.

Princess Fuzzypants here: If you want a giggle, check out this book. It reads like St. Trinians meet Abbot and Costello. School Master Wentworth is a walking disaster, totally oblivious to the chaos that follows him and thinks each thing must be either the fault of an other or bad luck. A lot of bad luck.
He is the butt of pranks and jokes both from his colleagues and the little darlings under his tutelage. His Headmaster is more inclined to laugh at his antics but said Wentworth would be the death of him. Oddly enough when Wentworth joins the military, his Commanding Officer says the same thing. The “diary’ covers the year before the outbreak of WWII and then picks up again during his service and finally at his return to academia. Poor Wentworth is a sad sack but a rather funny, if not pretentious one. His is a world that we shall not see again.
More is the pity.
Four purrs and two paws up.

Charming, Deadpan, Buffoonish Chaos

A. J. Wentworth is a marvelous character and his adventures are sure to delight. With a deft touch the author leads us to admire, appreciate, and sympathize with a character, who, in other hands, could end up being pitiable, or worse. After all, Wentworth has no sense of humor, a well developed sense of his own importance, and a tedious lack of social skills and awareness. Somehow, perhaps through Wentworth's essential innocence and well intended block-headedness, we still cheer him on.

This book struck me as a dip and smile book. It is arranged around discreet scenes, events, and bits of business, so there are natural points at which to drop into and then step out of the tale. It, (and reading glasses), may explain why bedstands were invented.

(Please note that I received a free ecopy of this book without a review requirement, or any influence regarding review content should I choose to post a review. Apart from that I have no connection at all to either the author or the publisher of this book.)