Some Fretwork and the Interminable Christmas Play at the Chalet School

Unfathomable things in CS, why didn't Carola's mother fly out to see her dd with her husband?

I like Carola as a book. But it really doesn't stand up to any adult scrutiny.

1. Why on earth doesn't Carola think of writing to her parents and asking to go to the Chalet school. Surely her cousin/aunt/whoever couldn't have made that decision anyway and a 14yo would know it. That's what her cousin/aunt/whoever would have said. I know she's not meant to think, but that is ridiculous.
2. That bit where Carola is looking at Joey's house and saying "ooh they must have children" is totally . She's stayed in it for not inconsiderate time. No way she wouldn't have recognised it.
3. Why didn't her mum come? Dad is apparently incapable of looking after himself, so no way would the mum on that basis entirely let him go on his own. Surely she'd want to go anyway.
4. The bit where the dad can't believe she's 14yo. Are we to believe they've had no communication at all over that time. (see point 1)
5. At the end when Len's been set on fire (but is apparently relatively unhurt-no signs of bandages etc in the armada version anyway. But Carola is heavily bandaged because she put out the fire with her bare hands. Len would have had far more contact with the fire than Carola.
6. Something that always irritates me in children's books: Teacher says "oh I know we've used cotton wool for years, but it worries me that it's flammable, and I've never worried about it before..." and then that's the year that Grizel throws a match into it.

Particularly given Joey's insistence, at Len's age, that she was never going to get married and wanted to be an old maid! I've read somewhere though that Prefects was finished off by someone else either during EBD's ill-health or after her death. I've never really thought of the engagement as what would "really" have happened

Yes good points. Honestly why on earth would joey have encouraged len to get engaged at 18 just as she's starting adult life and the adventure of uni and all those other boys! Poor Len.

I bet Margot had a ball at uni never mind the nun stuff.

Infathomabie things in CS, why didn't Carolas mother fly out to see her dd with her husband?

How on earth was Sybil born 7 weeks premature and seems fine when it was around 1936/37?? No health issues at all.

Why do people develop curls after cutting their hair? Isn't that genetic? Ooaoml, the saintly Adrienne and that's a basket case of a book etc.

I think they both felt pressurised because of the gossip.

If Len hadn't got engaged before she left she'd have had people saying "she doesn't really like him" and Joey accusing her of playing fast and loose.

Not sure it would have lasted college-both Len would have met other men which she hadn't had much opportunity for, but also I suspect with Len not there and Joey's expectations of his behaviour round her, I suspect Reg would have seen it as it was-an infatuation because he wanted to feel accepted and part of the family.

I did know a couple who had the sort of similar "when's it going to happen" type nudges. They got engaged at the time when people were saying "oooh, they've been going out a long time" and were expecting this to happen. And, I think, fairly quickly realised that it wasn't right after that. They didn't break the engagement immediately, but there was fairly quickly a change in their relationship and they drifted apart fairly quickly.
I think they got engaged because the expectations were there, and once they'd started feeling committed the worries came forward.

And! If time had been no object, would creepy Reg still have got poor Len to pledge herself to him when she's no more than a schoolgirl? Or would he have waited for her to at least start uni and maybe even finish it before asking?

I always think it a bit of a shame, and slightly surprising given that Millies is right there. I think probably she was much more comfortable writing the main school, for a number of reasons - including the age of the girls but also her familiarity with the sort of school it was/had become - the 'finishing' school is a particularly peculiar one (with an unusually academic culture, probably mostly to justify Miss Wilson's headship but perhaps also because EBD had so little understanding of what a normal finishing school was really like) and I guess (?) finishing schools generally were becoming more and more unusual at the time of writing. I mean, if they were real, I suspect it's very unlikely the triplets would have gone to a finisher, especially since they were already at school in the Alps (ie it wouldnt have offered any benefits related to having a year or two abroad).

I wonder what she would have done if she'd lived to write another, say, 5 or 6 books: the triplets do one last year (=3 more books!) at St M's, or the mantle passes to Jack Lambert / Felicity Maynard? Or would she actually have ended on Prefects anyway?

Guten Abend everyone. What's everyone up to this evening, hobbies club or enjoying a spot of country dancing?

I always assumed that EBD had just run out of steam by the time the triplets were old enough for Millies, and it was easier to keep them in as characters. Maybe after Oberland she decided she didn't really enjoy writing about the older girls - it certainly seems out of her comfort zone! I always thought it would be more fun if the focus passed on to say Felicity towards the end, but I don't suppose she was planning for the future of the series much by that stage.

Can I join too?

I have been busy all day cutting monster jigsaws for the sale with Aunty Joey and just stopped for while I have Anna's matchless lemon biscuits and the nectar of her coffee.

I live with Aunty Joey now as both my parents died yesterday in s train smash but I am quite happy as starting at the chalet school tomorrow and Aunty Jo says it's naughty to fret and they were both glad to go even though they were only 30!

Can I ask a question that always intrigued me though? Why didn't the triplets become Millie's.

Hi can I join? My papa has taken a job at the San and my mother's aunt's best friend knows Mrs Trelawney and recommended the school. I've been practising my needlework and bending my knees when hiking so my legs don't get tired. I don't want to stand out as a new girl...

I always thought it meant something like "isn't it?"

Emmy Hope? Yes, she's spiffing, isn't she?
Order Marks? But I'm not even a Chalet School girl! (Though for many years I have dreamt of being multilingual,and doctors and fretwork, not necessarily together, are very appealing.,,)
Disclaimer: I am pretty sure nicht wahr does not actually mean no worries!

Ooh, how exciting - I say 'no worries' at least twice a day. I'm going to start saying 'nicht wahr' instead!

Apologies, as I am not actually enrolled in the CS, just passing by on a healthy walk, as you do - but I read 'nicht wahr' as No Worries ( in spirit if not in the letter of the translation!).
I'm now at the thought of cries of "no worries!" drifting along the CS corridors!

True! But the ones usually making this sort of observation are usually not-yet-Chaletians, upon seeing Peggy Bettany or Mary-Lou for the first time...

I'm not really persuaded that your average schoolgirl consciously contemplated the determined nature implied by a firm chin upon first meeting Peggy, though.

What you are forgetting is that Chalet girls are not your average schoolgirl are they??!!

... He was a physiognomist, according to Wikipedia. I think this is perhaps more what EBD is employing (isn't phrenology just about skulls? Although it says that in late C19th physiognomy kind of got tagged onto phrenology and thus discredited by association). Rich history of C19th literature using it - Dickens, Balzac etc.

I'm not really persuaded that your average schoolgirl consciously contemplated the determined nature implied by a firm chin upon first meeting Peggy, though.

Isn't it phrenology? I don't know if Lombroso was a phrenologist though

Welcome Northerner! You'll pick up the languages in no time, just by being surrounded with them and learning ten words a day, nicht wahr? (After a lifetime of CS books I still don't actually know what 'nicht wahr' means. )

mornington I actually had a girlfriend once who recognised her own chin to be lacking in CS (prob also wider girls' own / light literature of the early C20th) terms and had, in her salad days, been troubled by the implications of this. Is it a bit the legacy of Lombroso etc? Reading people's personality traits through their facial features? (Is it Lombroso I mean? That Victorian criminologist, anyway.)

Welcome! I expect OOAO will be along soon to greet you properly, but if you hurry towards Mushy Pea you may avoid her and find someone with special milk to welcome you instead!

I can't tell you how excited I am to find that the school is still accepting new pupils. May I join, please? Of course, my French is rusty and my German non-existent, but I have been reading lots of J. M. Bettany books in preparation for coming to the school...

So, what is it about chins that so fascinated EBD? I've made a start on Oberland and a couple of pages in there's the obligatory description of Peggy Bettany's fairytale loveliness, but those looking at her agree she has to be much more than a fairy princess with a chin like that. A chin like what? And even if the qualities of a 'firm chin' could be pinned down, I wonder which way EBD thought the causality went - are people born with firm chins and that turns them into firm characters, or does the development of a firm character have a knock-on effect on chin development?

OK, Oberland is next. I've had a short break from Chalet School and friends, having recently rediscovered my Virago collection, but now that I'm nearing the end of Surfacing it's time for some light relief.

Time. Not term.

Heh. It's a kind of paternalism that sits awkwardly today, but of course the Russells would throw a party for the staff, and expect them to be delighted by their children's singing as the entertainment etc. OTOH, the Maynards - who employ only faithful Anna for the first six(?) children and all other housework - totally wouldn't...

Do re-read Oberland. Partly because I want to know the answer to the question above re: the extent of Elma's illicit plans which run out of her control, partly because I wonder why EBD never wrote another book about the finishing school - I'm surprised there wasn't a book covering Mary-Lou's term there, for example, and the triplets could have had a year there rather than staying at school forever and ever and ever, but they don't.