Denis Campbell

First Year Teacher Denis Campbell

Clive Monroe is English, but takes up his first teaching position at an independent secondary school in the USA. The school is co-educational, mixed day and boarding, and about to undergo a transition mandated by its Board of Trustees, who have appointed a new headmaster for this purpose. At the same time the school is affected by the general "student revolutionism" of the late sixties. The way the new British teacher, shouldered with unexpected responsibilities, faces up to these and other crises creates a compelling dramatic interest. His new challenges when he finds himself in charge of the boys' dormitory and later Head of History are bedevilled by the hostility of the 'Redneck' element, certain long-term conservative teachers. But the levelheaded way in which he faces problems, leads a school expedition to the Kaieteur Falls in Guyana, and establishes and supervises a student club ('The Theosophists') for discussing philosophy in general and the religions of the world, will win the reader to his side.