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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

to want to re-read the whole Malory Towers and St Claires series?

212 replies

SlightlyJaded · 04/11/2010 16:26

Oh the twins. And drippy Gwendoline Mary, and Darrell Rivers... although I can't quite remember who went to which school.

OP posts:
thedollshouse · 04/11/2010 16:28

YANBU. I always thought that I would get to re-read them if I had daughters but I have two boys so don't really have an excuse. I loved those books.

pagwatch · 04/11/2010 16:28

Gwen and Darrell were Malory Towers, along with Belinda and madcap Irene and Miss Greyling etc.

malory towers is the better series. I can say that having never read St Claires.

I liked the hats

DastardlyandSmugly · 04/11/2010 16:28

I've recently started reading Secret Seven with DS and thoroughly enjoying them. The boarding school books were my absolute faves though.

Wheelybug · 04/11/2010 16:30

I bought a box set of malory towers a couple of years ago. DD1 was about 3 at the time Grin. I have re-read them myself. Waiting for the book people to do a St CLaire's one and then that will be mine too !!

MrsJohnDeere · 04/11/2010 16:36

YANBU. I reread them when og with ds1. I started just after having my 20 week scan and discovering he was a boy (and so was unlikely to want to read them himself at any point).

moondog · 04/11/2010 16:37

God no you are not!
I do so very regularly indeed.
/madcap Irenbe'

mozette · 04/11/2010 16:37

I would love to but think I probably won't feel the same about them after I have read them.

Mind you have have been reading Heidi & Anne of Green Gables with DD and it has been enjoyable.

GrimmaTheNome · 04/11/2010 16:38

YANBU, though Enid Blyton doesn't read so well when you're an adult. There are other childhood favourites which are a joy to re-read.

coatgate · 04/11/2010 16:38

Mallory Towers where they had the cliff steps down to natural sea swimming pool... My parents gave all my books away years ago, or I would be happily settling down with them. Was there a Carlotta in the St Clare's series - was she of Romany stock?

Have just bought Jill's Gymkhana for DD which has been rerprinted. Can't wait for the rest.

Cortina · 04/11/2010 16:39

They are her amongst her best! :)

I love the Adventure books too, The Valley of Adventure is perhaps her best book ever.

Also The Secret Island is very good which was also her elder daughter's favourite book.

bruffin · 04/11/2010 16:40

I used to reread them regularly as a comfort read. DD quite liked St Clares (she heard those on tape) but I don't think she ever tried Mallory Towers mainly because mine were old fashioned looking 70s copies which put her off a bit.

Cortina · 04/11/2010 16:41

Great as a comfort read. Currently reading the Barney mysteries for exactly that reason. Blush

Deliaskis · 04/11/2010 16:45

Oooh nostalgia thread! I loved both Malory Towers & St Clares, although I think with a slight preference for MT - Darrell and Sally and Alicia and Better and Belinda and Irene and drippy Gwendoline Mary. And a girl called Bill in 3rd yr who had a horse. How exciting it seemed as a child to imagine going to a school with a swimming pool in the rocks, and where you could take your own horse. And where they had French teachers who were always a bit nuts.

And yes there was a Carlotta in St Clares who was of romany stock I think, and the twins Patricia and Isabelle, and I can't remember the rest really.

YAsoNBU.

D

Wheelybug · 04/11/2010 16:51

OOOh Jill's Gymkhana...

(off to Amazon).

pointissima · 04/11/2010 16:52

Darrell looked at herself in the mirror and admired her smart brown and orange uniform....

Chatelaine · 04/11/2010 16:54

I wonder what they are all doing now? I have lovely memories of innocently growing up through reading. Smile

MaryMungo · 04/11/2010 17:09

I buy old Bunty and Diana annuals whenever I see them. I suppose they're in the same category. Takes me right back evertime I open one up....

VivaLeBeaver · 04/11/2010 17:10

Not at all. I'm currently reading Chalet school books.

Fernie3 · 04/11/2010 17:10

I loved chalet school I sold them all on eBay a few years ago i want them back :(

octopusinabox · 04/11/2010 17:17

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

twirlymum · 04/11/2010 17:24

Wasn't Carlotta seen as 'wild' because she had curly hair, and did cartwheels?
I thought she was Spanish.

tubsywubsy · 04/11/2010 17:30

Don't do it! I read a St Clare's book which had been left in a holiday cottage we stayed in last year. What a disappointment. Characters were so one-dimensional, awful class-consciousness, thin plot lines, not at all as I remembered. Just keep those fond memories and don't revisit.

nymphadora · 04/11/2010 17:36

I don't like the re prints or extension ones. dd1 currently reading them at me and I don't like them changing things!

I have Chalet school though. Collecting the GGB ones atm.

Ariesgirl · 04/11/2010 17:39

Ok, I think I can help here. Carlotta was at St Clare's and she joined in the Summer Term and was a wild, half-Spanish gypsy, or a "nasty little circus girl" as Prudence (the ghastly new girl) called her. She ranted at Mam'zelle in Spanish, but Mam'zelle understood her, being of fellow Latin stock and she was in big trouble!

But Malory Towers was better.

daisyj · 04/11/2010 17:43

YABU - you should be rereading the Chalet School books Grin. Actually, I loved all three series - but had a hilarious argument with my best friend about whose Chalet School books were whose a few years ago, as I spotted some on a shelf at her parents' house that I'm SURE were mine... (we were 30 at the time).