It’s the birthday of bestselling English author Doris Saint, better known as Miss Read, a schoolteacher writing about life in the villages of Fairacre and Thrush Green. About 20 novels are set in Fairacre and feature Miss Read writing in the first person; the Thrush Green books number about 13 and are written in the third person but still credited to Miss Read.

Saint was an only child born in 1913 in South Norwood, a part of London, but her family soon moved to the countryside and she went off to village school when she was four. Saint already knew how to read and was bumped up to a higher grade right away. (Saint was reading by four, Beverly Clearly didn’t learn to read until third grade. You just never know.) Saint studied to be a teacher at Homerton College, Cambridge, and taught in West London but then at various village schools until her marriage to fellow teacher Douglas Saint in 1940. She began writing short pieces about village life for publications like Punch and the Times Educational Supplement. One of these pieces caught the attention of publishing house Michael Joseph and the character of Miss Read was born. The first Fairacre novel, Village School, was published in 1955.

The novels are flawlessly written and feature an extensive cast of well-drawn and often eccentric characters; close attention is paid to the details of surrounding nature and the changing seasons. Life in both villages tends to center around the school, and a recurring theme is the threat of school closure—the fate of many real-life village schools. Closure is averted in various ways and the quotidian details of village life really carry surprising drama, given that Saint rarely wrote about violence (beyond the occasional shocking break-in) and never about sex, though such is alluded to: Miss Read’s wealthy and sophisticated best friend Amy has a sometimes wandering husband, but as Miss Read believes, “Least said, soonest mended.” (Saint and her husband did have one daughter, Jill, so it is entirely possible that Saint had first-hand knowledge of sex. I can’t think about that. This woman is like my mother.)

Other recurring events include “bottoming out” one’s cupboards during spring cleaning; holding fêtes to raise money for the church roof fund; and wondering whether various characters will make a match of it or continue on in a single state. (Miss Read has a refreshing appreciation for the joys of single life and herself strongly resists matrimony.) Occasionally someone will marry or die or acquire a cat. The stories are punctuated by extremely well-written and often tart dialogue. Oh, and tea: there are tank loads of tea drunk in each and every novel. As Miss Read says in A Peaceful Retirement (1996), the last book of the Fairacre series, “We drank from our replenished cups in relaxed and companionable silence.”

Saint died in Berkshire, England, in 2012 at the age of 98.

Enjoy a cup of soothing tea on this cold Tuesday, get those cupboards bottomed out, and stay scrupulously honest to the data.