Some Fretwork and the Interminable Christmas Play at the Chalet School

The better reason given is that Joey thought Margot wouldn't live so spoilt her. That's certainly much more plausible.
Although I don't think there was much talk about her being more delicate than the others except in retrospect. Ditto, I don't think we see any spoiling for that reason, although from an early age she expected to get her own way even among her siblings.

I think actually it was more along the lines that having had triplets then three boys, the boys were being conditioned to be gentlemen, giving way to the girls in everything (wish dbro had been ) and because she was the youngest the older ones were conditioned to look after her-especially Len, and you get the impression Con would do it for a quiet life.

But I think having put that out there, EBD then realised that it was a criticism of Joey as parent, so she then introduced the "struggling against her call" idea, as then making it look like a positive thing.

Yes - there is a bit about her temper and the juniors. Doesn't she actually snap at some juniors? The worse bit is, I think, in Triplets (?) where she throws a bookend at Betty Landon in a temper and knocks her unconscious. You do get the feeling that she's allowed to stay because she's Joey's daughter - Thekla was expelled for bullying but Margot is not expelled for her treatment of Ted (which is pretty horrible). I'm never quite sure I've understood the 'reason' for Margot's behaviour either - EBD seems to imply that it's because she is struggling against the 'call' to enter a nunnery. Maybe it's because that idea is just so far removed from anything / anyone I've experienced, but it seems a very complex reason for the unpleasantness of a teenager, and not in keeping with the rest of her characterisation (which is, let's face it, quite selfish, jealous, impatient, and often quite disrespectful of Joey compared to Len and Con).

On another note, I'd like to see a 'Con at the Chalet School' fill in. I like Con :-)

She's games prefect and we hear the juniors (?) talking about her nasty temper on the sports' field, if I remember rightly.

Ah, i've not read any of the books where Margot is a prefect - I.didn't even know she was. But I can't see how she became one, unless it's just because she's Joey's daughter and that isn't fair!

Lola I think that is meant to be the start of Margot reforming. However she doesn't show any other definite signs after that-even as a prefect she's shown as having a temper. Which is a pity, because EBD could have had her biting back her words and speaking mildly and Len/Con/Miss A being impressed with how much she's worked at it.
Even with the toboggan, if I remember rightly, she is tempted but doesn't go on it because of there being a row, not because "we shouldn't because we were told not to."

I've not read many of the later books, but I feel Margot does reform a bit. In Mary Lou she doesn't join Emerence with the sledge, but tried to persuade her not to.

Hello all! I'm new to the Chalet School books and I have been very kindly pointed here to ask politely if I may please have the shared drive details?

I love boarding school books. I've read the MT books about a dozen times, the St. Clares less so. I have those two series as ebooks, complete, if anyone wants/needs them. I also have the first five Chalet books - but that was all I was able to find!

(Since we're talking about characters EB wrote that are deeper than she intended, can we talk about George from FF???)

Margot Maynard, who is incorrigibly 'the naughty one' all the way through Jo's perfect parenting and the improving CS influence and all the possible turning points like the clock and the bookend and and and

Yes, the strange case of Margot. It's very odd, because almost all the way through the series EBD is at pains to demonstrate how her 'baddies' haven't really had a fair chance in life. Right at the start there's Juliet whose recalcitrance is shown to be the effect of neglect, and who reforms as soon as she's shown love and understanding. Grizel has her flaws which we're told repeatedly are the consequence of her stepmother's maltreatment (though I think her father gets off the hook rather lightly for failing to mention to his bride-to-be that he had a young daughter). Eustacia, Betty, Annis, Ted, and so on, all have a backstory to show them more sinned against than sinning.

And then you get Margot with her devil. Was EBD making some kind of point about original sin? Had she got fed up with excusing everyone's bad behaviour? Or just needed one of the triplets to be the bad girl, despite Jo's perfect parenting?

Alicia always scared me. Sort of person you didn't really want to notice you as she could be pretty nasty even to those she was good friends with-except Betty really. Betty in some ways is nastier (imo) because she encourages Alicia and pushes her to be nastier.
I kind of feel that Alicia didn't really see herself as being nasty, more funny and others didn't really have feelings to be hurt, she was pretty thick skinned herself, but Betty knew more that she was upsetting people.

EB did give comeuppance when Alicia fails her School Cert because she's got measles.
Actually I didn't find it very realistic. If she'd fainted and not been able to do them, fair enough, but Alicia was top of the class, she'd have scraped a pass (having done exams when really not very well, yes I did worse, but not that much worse). I think she'd have found it humiliating enough to be beaten by say Belinda and ML etc.

I have just 're-read island and was going to ask the same question!
Dr and I as reading first term at MT at bedtime. Already she thinks Alicia is very mean to Gwendoline. When I first read them I though Gwen was just pathetic. Clearly dd is kinder than me!!!!

Ooh, I'm also feeling rather tempted to re-read MT now! Have never been so inclined before - I remember hoovering them up at 8ish, but unlike the CS there was never anything that drew me back later on.

There are, of course, various notable CS girls who resist conformity and growth in some way or another - like Grizel, who suddenly regresses after Head Girl and doesn't really get to develop again for about 20 years until Reunion; or of course, Margot Maynard, who is incorrigibly 'the naughty one' all the way through Jo's perfect parenting and the improving CS influence and all the possible turning points like the clock and the bookend and and and.

I feel a re-read of Malory Towers coming on! I still think she'd have been happier at the Chalet School - OOAO Mary Lou would have sorted her out pretty quickly!

Oh, and Island - yes, that bit has always made me smile!

Primrose it is repetitive, but I think it evolves.
In the first year she's very much everyone is going to want to be my friend and I've got to pick the right one. She ends up with Mary-Lou. That may have been to spite Darrell (can't remember) but she's not the one Gwen would choose given the choice.

Then years 2 and 3, she's looking for a good friend, a friend who will still see how great she is and force the others because of that friendship to see that she's important.
There's a big deal in year 2 about her being the only one who doesn't agree to give Daphne a second chance. But actually the crime against Gwen was worse. The others didn't listen to all her stories etc or be with her. Gwen would have had at the back of her mind. "that time when she asked me to check matey wasn't coming up the stairs-was that really so she could pinch something" or "When she told me she'd forgotten her hankie, she was really getting someone's purse" etc.

Year 4 (I think that's Zerelda isn't it?) she is bowled over by the glamour of her. So it's more that she wants to be friends with the important one, rather than have the others see her as important.

Year 5 is where she realises that it isn't the others that are wrong, it's her. And she does make an effort but no one bothers to notice. She really just wants to be accepted then.

Year 6 is a bit of a continuation. She wants to be accepted and doesn't really know what she's doing wrong. When she's telling about the situation with her dad, it's a bit like people posting on AIBU because they want to be told that they're right. When people say YABU they give excuses why they're NU and finally flounce off. She wants people to agree with her.

I think if they'd given her a chance in year 4 she'd have become a somewhat unremarkable outlier to the group. She's have not expressed an opinion of her own in case the leaders disagreed, but she would have tried, with a little help, to fit in. And I think she might well have been very generous.

I think Gwen's a much deeper character than it mostly appears. And I suspect deeper than EB meant to write her!

I'm currently reading and the Island. How did EBD think it was realistic to get a whole school's cases and 2 cellos in just 2 cars?!

I'd forgotten about the final letter bit - that's true. I think I just find the whole 'will she be my friend' plot a bit repetitive (not Gwen's fault, I know!).

Gwen does change though I think over the EB books.

First year she's malicious and genuinely nasty.
After that she's really just a snob and you feel she's in a lot of ways pushed into her behaviour because the others don't give her a chance to have possibly changed.
You can imagine her thinking each year "maybe there's a new girl that I can be best friends with"-all the others seem to have close best friends which wouldn't be comfortable if you didn't.
Yes, she goes about it in the wrong way, but no one's really taught her how to be a friend. And you can see that the new girl would work out fairly quickly that she has the choice of being friends with Gwen and no one else liking her because of that association, or breaking up with Gwen.

And then you have the final letter from her after her dad is ill, which shows actually some good character. She could have not written to Darrell at all. it took some courage to do that.

Just popping in to say my DS's headmistress is leaving for a job in school improvement- I know you'll understand that I'm imagining her travelling round Europe teaching schools to reason from cause to effect.

Careful Princess - you don't know who you should trust! I'll follow you and mornington from a distance. Just leave me some ribbons to follow.

Gwen coming back was the bit that really jarred for me too. Though I find her character annoying in the main series as well. I can't decide whether Bylton is wrong for making her stay exactly the same throughout, or Brent-Dyer is unrealistic in the way that almost all her characters are reformed and develop into 'real Chalet School girls'.

[evil cackle] Come with me, Princess, and I'll take you to your father who is inexplicably on his sick bed and asking for you. Meanwhile, the other princess (who is your twin but was separated from you at birth and brought up by my henchmen the Fartsoniras) will pretend to be you so that you don't cause any anxiety to Madame while we're away. Luckily there aren't any other identical twins at the school who might spot the switch and raise the alarm. Hurry now, and don't forget your clean hanky.

An imposter, masquerading as me, the Real CS Princess? There has to be a Redheads style plot here.

I like the books in a vague way, but found them a little bit trying too hard. Found Gwen coming back as a mistress not a good conclusion to her story. Really made me cringe.

The one I really disliked was the St Clare's one about the identical twins who are only spotted because they can tell Pat and Isabel apart so obviously the only people that can do that are identical twins. It also very much felt like the Trebizon story with the twins to me-and I've half a feeling it was written by Anne Digby though so not a surprise.

No Kaffee for me please, but can I have kuchen (sp.?) with lashings of whipped cream?

I've read the Pamela Cox books - thought they were OK though I always find the Malory Towers series seems a bit 'thin' compared to the CS books. The CS have a bit more to them in my opinion.

Also just finished The Bettanys on the Home Front. What do others make of it? I wasn't that impressed. Although it was interesting to see what Madge and Dick might have been like at that age, the story didn't really 'gel' for me - seemed like lots of separate episodes without anything really convincing holding them together. Is the other Bettany one any better?

Kaffee, anyone?

I've never heard of the expression "a scold", let alone in a school story. Is is a regional thing - or Scottish?

I'm reading Pamela Cox's Malory Towers sequels at the moment - anyone read them? In keeping with the originals, they're an easier read than the CS, so each book only takes an hour or two. I'm quite enjoying them and they seem reasonably faithful to the original. Two things have struck me:

1. She repeatedly uses a phrase that I find both irritating and out of place - 'Miss Potts [or whoever] gave the girl a scold'. I don't ever remember the word 'scold' used as a noun in any girls' school story - you can get into a row, or be given a ticking-off, but I really don't think anyone gets given a scold ever. Perhaps they might be given a scolding, but I don't even think that's used much. Or am I misremembering? (It's decades since I read the originals.)

2. It's striking me afresh how education in girls school stories is seen as a good in its own right, not necessarily because it's going to lead to a profession or job. So girls who realistically are going to get married fairly young and expected to give up any career they might be beginning, are still expected to study hard, presumably because being educated is a worthy goal in its own right. I'm not saying for a moment I agree with women being obliged to marry and become home-makers, but I do quite like the non-utilitarian view of education at a point where our own systems are moving towards employability as the be-all and end-all.