Not to have realised until now that Joey Maynard’s ‘displaced organ’ was a prolapse?

[QuaterMiss]

I know there is or was an enormous Chalet School thread but I can’t spend six weeks trawling through that.

Fascinated to note (because I’ve been reading the complete synopses how all the CS women taken seriously ill either went straight to the San or journeyed - over days - for a consultation with Sir James Talbot. It was he who diagnosed said ‘displaced organ’. At which point Joey had iirc nine children. May be wrong, lost count.

(I read and reread the entire series over my first three decades.)

[AuditAngel]

I guess it is something that we aren’t aware of when younger, and certainly not at the age I was when I first read them. Makes perfect sense though.

[QuaterMiss]

I wish she could come back and re-write them today.

And I wish my GP would prescribe an extended stay in Canada or Switzerland to salve whatever ails me ...

[Papergirl1968]

No, I didn’t realise that. Not surprised though, lol.
Thanks for the link, I can fill in some gaps from books I haven’t got.

[HeroicAlien]

I didn't realise it either - and I only read that book last week! Must admit I had no idea what it was meant to be, but I'd already decided that most of the books are so improbable anyway, I could just add that to the list.

Re-reading the series in one go, I do fear I might be starting to lose my love for it I'm not sure I even want to go there any more; I worry that I wouldn't be Joey/Mary Lou/Len's friend as I just wouldn't be able to live up to their standards...

[Aroundtheworldin80moves]

How many children do Madge, Joey and their brother produce in total? I only have up to the end of WWII books (would love to read the others) and lost count...

[QuaterMiss]

It is a most fantastic resource Papergirl1968. I lost an entire afternoon and evening to it - and hadn’t realised how much I’d been missing even the covers of the books.

I’m sure someone else will know Aroundtheworldin80moves!

[Ionacat]

Madge has 6 children - David, Sybil, Josette, Allie, Kevin, (twins)
Mollie produces 7 Rix and Peggy (twins) Bride, Jackie, Maurice and Maeve (twins) and then Daphne the after-thought.
Joey has 11 - Len, Con and Margot (triplets) Steve, Charles, Mike, Felix and Felicity (twins) Cecil and finally Phil and Philippa (twins)
So 24 in total!!

[Ionacat]

Oops should read Kevin and Kester under Madge.

[NewSchoolNewName]

Weren’t Joey’s last pair of twins Geoffrey and Philippa?

And then didn’t she have a bunch of adopted / foster kids around too? Like the Richardson children.

[LosingLola]

No, it wasn't.

It was a historical diagnosis that came from the now more common use of x rays. X rays were taken standing, so organs were displaced downwards due to gravity when compared to dissection which was d done lying flat.

www.newscientist.com/letter/mg17924124-600-displaced-organs/

The operation was to unnecessarily shorten the suspensor ligaments.

[QuaterMiss]

Lola ... Where’s your poetic soul?

Prolapse makes a much better, and more specific, story. (Plus, the thought of unnecessary operations makes me shiver with horror.)

But thank you - that’s fascinating.

[QuaterMiss]

[Jemima232]

As if EBD would have mentioned delicate gynaecological details, QuaterMass


Not her style at all.

What happened to "the" Robin? Did she kick the bucket?

[QuaterMiss]

But that’s my point - Jemima232- she was vague to the point of obfuscation on the matter of ‘female’ illness - and yet so many CS women were struck with ‘grave’ illnesses requiring dangerous surgery and months if not years of recuperation. (Generally involving the threat of some blameless teenager being dragged out of school to ‘keep house’ and look after said recuperating mother. )

[QuaterMiss]

And no. She was last heard of, iirc, having been recalled from a nunnery in the South of France to her original nunnery in Canada. Hale and hearty. Definitely alive.

[Jemima232]

Ha!

It's fortunate that the vast majority of the CS women married doctors, given that they were all doomed to have severe (possibly gynaecological) disorders. Not surprising when none of them seem to have heard of contraception.

Or they got TB, of course, which required them to be in a sanitorium in the Alps.

The husbands never seemed to get ill, funnily enough.

And none of the CS girls menstruated, either. Not knowingly.

EBD would have had the vapours at the very thought.

[SetPhasersTaeMalkie]

Thanks for the link. That's me set for an afternoon's reading.

[ladypenelopeplum]

I dread to think of what she'd make of education in 2019

[Bezalelle]

Why so many multiple births? Was there clomid in the waters??

[QuaterMiss]

Jemima232!

[Basketofkittens]

I haven’t read the books for years! I love how so many of them are “delicate” and need to live in a “bracing climate.”

Why is nobody delicate these days and going to convalesce in Austria and Switzerland?

[iolaus]

I figured it was ovarian tortion

I think when you work out the time scale she was in the early stages of pregnancy with the second twins

[stellarparallax]

Why is nobody delicate these days and going to convalesce in Austria and Switzerland?


A: Beacause we’ve pretty much eradicated tb among the classes who can afford to recuperate in the Alps.

[woodpigeons]

I always wonder how many teeth Joey Maynard had left as an adult as she frequently seemed to have them extracted. Cue her fear of the dentist.
Must count someday.

[QuaterMiss]

woodpigeons I’ve just started reading Pat Barker’s The Silence of The Girls and the most striking sentence so far has been about a woman revealing gaps in her teeth caused by long years of childbearing.