Those of you who follow my blog will be familiar with the many stories I have told over the years about Nottingham High School…its Founders, its coat of arms, its war heroes, its caretakers, its heroes and its one or two villains. These stories all appeared in “Nottingham High School, the Anecdotal History of a British Public School” which was published some time ago now:
The reason I am reminding you now of this book is that the price on Amazon has now gone down to £23.48 with Free Postage if you are a member of Amazon Prime. This is fantastic value for money.
Most non-fiction books cost roughly £10 for every hundred pages, so £23.48 for a book of this length is an excellent price. The book has 394 pages (and my computer says around 130,000 words, which is roughly the length of either “The Two Towers” or “Return of the King”).
Above all, this is a hardback book with a nice dust jacket and to be honest, it surprised me with its quality in terms of its looks. It looks really professional for a book written by an amateur author.
The book is written in diary form and runs from Thursday, June 30th 1289 to Thursday, July 12th 2012. I have divided it into forty chapters whose titles range from “Lost in the Mists of Time”, “A Personal Friend of Guy Fawkes”, “The School is Closed Today because of Plague”, “Old Boy Cuts Off King’s Head”, :
In the more modern era, the chapters run from “The DH Lawrence Years”, “Major General Mahin : A Yank at the High School”, “Albert Ball and the High School go to War” to “The Golden Age of Teachers”:
I have tried to keep the tone of the work an interesting and light one, but at the same time, as you know from my blog posts, I can show my more serious side when occasion demands. A very large number of former pupils from the High School died in the two World Wars and their sacrifice is reflected in my book:
What a price !
£23.48
And more than that, what a price for 394 pages of new, original and interesting ideas!
Incidentally, please don’t think that I’m being greedy and I’m trying to make loads-a-money from this. I am merely pointing out the existence of this new, lower price, because previously the two companies publishing the book have both asked for a higher price. In one case, a much higher price.
John Knifton 
You would never be greedy. Thank you for the information.
You are very kind. I’m afraid that I find food much more difficult to resist than money. Especially chocolate biscuits.
Good luck
Thanks Derrick. The trouble with writing for love is that when you calculate the money you receive and the hours you spend doing it, it makes the minimum wage seem a princely sum.
🙂
Thank you for letting us know, John. It’s the shipping that gets us here. My usual dealer has one copy and it’s going for $92.64. (70.77 British pound)
That is awful. I wanted to buy a book about Bigfoot recently and with postage it was over £100 so I didn’t bother. Still, my wife was pleased.
OK John I have placed my order with Amazon.
After all your research, when, in your opinion, was the High School’s most golden age.
I would say the thirty-odd years after the end of WW2 when the school had a large proportion of local boys from the 11+ stream and before the fees became less affordable for the ordinary middle class.
Yes, I would broadly agree with that, although the 1930s also had a lot of very clever boys in the school, thanks to the scholarships offered by the school itself and by the various councils.
I would argue that David John Furley was the cleverest of them all. His family lived at 18 Markham Crescent to the north east of Edward’s Lane. Nowadays, he has his own wikipedia page.
Good luck with the book John. If the posts are anything to go by it’ll be a real winner!
Yes, I’ve already got my open topped bus journey around the ring road organised. Norwich City were kind enough to give me the name of the firm they had used.
You might get a slap-up meal too, curtesy of Delia!
John, you have inspired me to delve into DJ Furley’s writings. Some of the most stimulating periods (not really lessons as such) I remember were with Ted Kettel during General Studies. To be honest, much more mentally engaging than learning to regurgitate the received wisdom about themes in Wuthering Heights.
The one thing you can guarantee is that DJ Furley’s writings won’t take you very long to read! I presume that you can still buy them somewhere but I’m not sure I shall bother. I always find Philosophy a different language which, try as I might, I can never understand.
I am sure Nottingham University Library will have copies of his, dare I call them, pamphlets.