Antonia Forest fans: your favourite parts or lines?

My ds sang Once In Royal David's City" the Christmas before last- and I tried the "with regret" thing on him- I think he thought I was touched.

Remember when Laurie refused to believe that Jesus was a Jew?

I've always had a bit of a soft spot for Esther, too. Very difficult to be like her among all those hearty types. Maybe Patrick and Esther could get together in the future......

Ah! Sadly 'Autumn Term' is the only one I have a spare copy of, spero!. Would anyone like it? If you pm me with your address I'll post it to you. (First come, first served folks).

(Don't suppose anyone's got a spare copy of 'The Thuggery Affair', have they? It's the only one I've never read).

sowornout - I thought I was the only one!

how many woman are out there right now using MY phrase? An awful lot, judging from this thread, I had no idea there were so many fans.

I had the whole set of books as a child, lost them all in a house move, PLUS a letter from AF herself thanking me and my friend for sending her a carved elephant in a bean - I think Patrick gave Ginty one?

I have just got Autumn Term off Amazon but all the others seem too difficult to get. It is so sad. Those books are the only things I regret losing from my childhood. I would love to re read them all now.

You're right, it must be Thuggery - only one without Nicola. I think GGP used the same intro for all the books?

I think you mean Thuggery? All Lawrie does in traitor is get knocked over by a bus (which really upset me the first time I read it - the edition I had was illustrated and the picture of poor run over Lawrie looked very sad).

Lawrie is very good in the Thuggery Affair. She's nicer and more likeable and just.....BETTER....when she is away from all the girls who baby her and pander to her, and instead left to the tender mercies of Peter and Patrick who most decidedly do not. The Sophia Lawrence episode is especially entertaining. Although god knows what film she and Red Ted were seeing.

I loved the bit where they wonder who wrote the Nativity Play and AF mentions that the girl had moved to Canada, would be.very surprised to hear her play was still being performed, 'and to tell the truth, not more than momentarily interested'. Much more realistic than the prospect of turning into simpering alumnae.

And Lawrie's shock that there are more than a few freaks like Ann who actually still believe in God etc - I had a similar surprise around her age. I tend to sympathise with Lawrie, surrounded by all these super-competent females, and loved AF's intro to Traitor when it's explained 'Nicola must go visiting' so Lawrie can actually do stuff for the plot.

Did anyone else notice that the paragraph opening the Cathedral nativity is almost identical to the one closing it? I didn't for years
It's a bit like that Coleridge poem she describes when Tim and Miranda are composing their carol ("here we sing", "now we have sung").

I, too, have found myself saying dryly for years, 'My grief would be controllable'. It's such a fantastic, Rowan thing to say.

I loved all the bits where Edwin was sending snippets of the old farm logs to Nick - loved the history of it and the tantalising glipses of Elizabethan life. Also loved the descriptions of the Nativity in the Cathedral and the various plays.

I spotted this thread this morning and have been longing to contribute to it all day!

I always think of Kingscote when singing See Amid the Winter's Snow ('Lo, the tender lamb appears/Promised from eternal years'). Or when I read The Lykewake Dirge and imagine Nicola and Patrick reciting it as they ride home in the dark.

Antonia Forest is amazing at depicting emotional and aesthetic development - like when Nick doesn't get Persuasion at the beginning of The Ready-Made Family, but starts to understand it by the end. Esther is terribly believable with her nerves and tendency to flunk things... as is ruthless Tim. I always remember the bit when Ginty makes a would-be funny comment about Karen now being 'just a missus' and realises she has misjudged the tone, and will wake up in the middle of the night kicking the sheets in shame for years afterwards. And when Ginty gets irrationally terrified that Monica has died after her accident, so makes Nicola ring up Monica's parents instead (hence the Conduct Mark).

As a Sayers obsessive I also love it when Nicola and Edwin bond over Lord Peter v. the Brotherhood, and both simultaneously realise the other one maybe isn't so bad after all.

IKWYM MrsFox about being tantalised by the stories you haven't read.

The prices for some of the books are steep even on e bay, but some are reasonable.

Oh, and I love tracking down all the obscure book references, too. It's like a potted guide to English Literature.

Dd read them all when she was about 11- and the number of times we've used bits to discuss various teenage angsts! And she's re reading them at 17 because she's doing philosophy of religion, and all the catholic stuff is making sense to her now.

So many times, I read a description in AF's books and knew exactly what she meant.
I knew just how Lois felt in the Guide hut when the light diminished down to the single piece of paper on the table; I knew how Nick felt, sitting in the stable after the hunt, too tired to even move, yet I've never ridden a horse in my life. That whole hunting chapter is genius, as is the chapter describing the Nativity in the Cathedral.

They are so well written, and so demanding. AF really does deserve to be better known than she is.
I loved the Elizabethan books, too.

I understand the reason for the long gap between books is because she would rewrite them again and again. It really does show.

Love the idea of an AF and CS crossover! And definitely agree that the AF books are far better written and characterised.

Agreed. Ooh, someone on chalet school bulletin board did THE most amazing fanfic crossover with af and cs. it had Ann and the twins in it and was brilliant!

Have finally read some uncut Chalet School, and the first 30 odd really are fairly good, if you think of them as the travel programmes of the day. And then there's the move to Switzerland and she loses it and everyone ends up related to someone else and gets moulded into a proper CS Girl within one book.

Fun, but Forest could do complex and convincing characters so much better.

Oooh, chalet school! Me too! Af far better written though.

Love this thread! I had the four school stories as a teenager and read them into rags. I never managed to find any of the holiday ones at sensible prices and am now hugely tantalised by all the snippets talked about on here. Which is the one where Edwin appears? I may have to splash out...

In answer to the OP, I have masses of favourite bits, but for some reason one that stays with me is Janice's reference to not being 'an unpaid spy' despite being a prefect (when Lois wants to report Nick and Lawrie for swapping in the netball match) - so much more realistic than the Chalet School, although I did also love those books.

Nit - indeed. :(

Silent - Kay knew and didn't care. That was why she was forcing the wedding through. Kay, Gin and Lawrie - three of a kind. Although Lawrie has some redeeming features and wasn't a lost cause I don't think.....

For there are tears of things?

To be asked sarcastically what that meant?

Whats your favourite? Yes to our being so ssssss when nick realises about edwin and kay (prob not so sad as when kay twigged though). Also very adult theme for children s book.

Anyone read the players boy and sequel? Re read it recently and, blimey, can't believe that was set reading at age 11!

It was her first year. Not her first term. It happened around Easter, or just before....the girls were all at home because the school had closed early due to plague. Peter wasn't back yet though. He arrived a few days later.

It was ever so well done though. When Nick realises that Edwin didn't actually WANT to marry Karen, or love her, even, was just so very sad.

No I don't agree about the desks. It was sneaky to get the desk early I thought. That annoyed me quite a bit. Doesn't take much.

But as for the Edwin business. What mother wouldn't hit the roof if their daughter announced she was getting married to someone with three children and leaving Oxford. Was it not her first term and she was only 18. And then all moving back in with her parents. Imagine the AIBU. I'd have liked a sister like Anne doing everything for me. But alas I am an only one.

I got the 4 school stories in paperback just as I went to boarding school in the 80s. I loved the way the characters weren't all good or all bad, some of the teachers were partisan or nasty, and the endings weren't all neat and tidy. And you could be a main character (Lawrie) while still being scared of stuff. (I can't light gas. It bangs at me....Oh Lawrie, said someone exasperatedly, but did it for her, which was what Ann or Redmond or ... did too.)

I know quite a few cases where one sister ended up leaving the boarding school, often involuntarily, though the twins I knew wanted to be separated for 6th form. Was most entertaining when identical twin 2 came to visit. But certain oil companies would pay full boarding fees for all children but if parent was sent back to the UK, they wouldn't even pay up to the end of that year.

Ebay often has the other school stories - it's the holiday ones that are hard to find. What year does Peter's Room take part in? I remember being surprised by the lack of comparison with Dungeons and Dragons. Maybe if DnD had been based on Gondal rather than Lord of the Rings, it wouldn't have been linked to Satanism etc. Though given how Gondal ended in PR, might not have helped!