From his first day of teaching in one of the most deprived towns in the United Kingdom to the end of his career as headteacher of a large international school, Graham Lacey reflects on thirty-five years at the 'chalkface', through a number of specific experiences that helped shape his views, practical and theoretical, on educational matters. While Graham is convinced there are certain prerequisites for a successful career in the profession, his tales illustrate that there can be no substitute for bitter experience. They reveal the steadily narrowing gap between the heady idealism with which Graham entered the profession and the painful reality as he progressed through it. His anecdotes are laced with humour and predicaments that are likely to resonate with members of the teaching profession and shed light on human behaviour for other readers. In short, Graham suggests that a comical or chastening experience may turn into a salutary lesson learnt. In that sense, Graham implies, the school classroom is perhaps no more nor less different from the world outside it.