Peter Dawson’s books of short stories are always a treasure trove of delight and enjoyment, and this one gives us more stories about the world around us. Told with humour and that little bit of whimsy, but also, in the way of al great story tellers, they make us think a little more and question a little more those everyday things that go on around us. In this, the fourth collection produced for me by Scotforth Books, as was the first nearly ten years ago, the stories range far and wide across human experience. Some of them owe something to actual events, some are pure invention. ‘Once Upon a Time’ is the most extreme example of the latter as its climax involves a rocket carrying passengers to Mars.

A graduate of the LSE, a career in teaching reached its climax with ten years as headmaster of an Inner London comprehensive school for two thousand boys and girls. His account of that, published in 1981 by Basil Blackwell of Oxford with the title Making a Comprehensive Work, became a bestseller and compulsory reading for teachers in training. Peter Dawson has been the leader of a teachers’ union, an Ofsted inspector, a UK delegate to the EC in Brussels when we still belonged to it and a lay member of the Employment Appeal Tribunal. He is an OBE and an ordained Minister of the Methodist Church. In retirement, he enjoys a quieter life writing short stories. He is a husband, father and grandfather and a sponsor of the Family Education Trust which promotes traditional family values.