Mr Gwynne is the much loved and passionate educator who is on a crusade. He believes in old-fashioned values, that the modern school system is hopeless – and that keen and close study is the only way to become an enlightened and better person. Now living in County Wexford, Ireland, and in his 70s, N M Gwynne was formerly a successful businessman in London and Australia. On retirement in the 1980s, he took up teaching and soon found that his traditional methods, universal up to the 1960s and refined and perfected century after century up till then, had become all but unique. Subjects he has been teaching – in classrooms, in lecture halls, and nowadays mostly privately – include English, Latin, Greek, French, German, mathematics, history, classical philosophy, natural medicine, the elements of music, and "How to start up and run your own business”. He has taught all over the world and thanks to the internet and Skype, he has sometimes found himself, at different times in a single day, teaching as far apart as India, Europe and western USA.