TEACHERS battling classroom stress with unruly pupils in Midland schools will be told: "It's not all doom and gloom." Best selling author Gervase Phinn will be in Birmingham on Sunday with an upbeat message based on his own experiences as a teacher and schools inspector. His four autobiographical novels based in the Yorkshire Dales have brought a vast following of delighted readers and earned him a place alongside country vetturnedwriter James Herriot. On Sunday night he will be on stage at the Alexandra Theatre for two hours with a show he calls a celebration of children and schools. "I don't tell jokes," he says. "With me it is more anecdotes which are really just as amusing." Father-of-four Gervase says his career really took off after three appearances on Esther Rantzen's TV chat show when he charmed the audience with his stories of the things children say and do. "Esther asked me to go on the show after she heard me speak in Leeds and it changed my life," he says. "The Dales books took off after she took a personal interest in me. "It was a writer's dream when I had a letter from Penguin saying James Herriot's editor would like to edit a book of mine." Over Hill and Dale, The Other Side of the Dale, Head Over Heels in the Dales and Up and Down in the Dales are the most successful of his output of 50 books and, at 58, he is now tackling an autobiography. He is a lecturer, broadcaster, Open University consultant and visiting professor of education at Teesside University, yet still finds time for some teaching and school visits every week. "I still think teaching is the best job to do and I try to depict it in a positive way," Gervase says. "People have got it into their heads that most of the schools in the country are blackboard jungles and talk about sorting out indiscipline in the classrooms. "As a schools inspector I went into hundreds of classrooms and found really nice youngsters with loving parents and great teachers, but they never get a look in. "I didn't find teaching stressful, but I started in the halcyon days in 1970." But he admits that some of today's teachers "deserve medals" for coping with abusive and difficult pupils. Adaptation of Gervase's stories into a television series is in the pipeline and his theatre tour will keep him on the road until July. Gervase has other dates at Tamworth Assembly Rooms on May 9 and the Gatehouse Theatre, Stafford, on May 27. Tickets are available from the box offices at all venues. | 
