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Original poster

Monica Edwards! books

34 replies

JPinkertonSnoopington · 24/01/2018 20:39

Having seen threads on here devoted to the Chalet School, I feel I will be understood when I say that I love Monica Edwards' books even though I am nearly 64 years old. Most of all, I love the depiction of happy, harmonious family life because mine was anything but. I had half a dozen of the books already and the remainder came to the forefront of my mind recently. I thought of those that I had lost and not been able to track down the last time I tried (some time ago).

Recently I posted about my mother deciding that I was "too old" for them any more, and throwing them away. It had taken me ages to track down some of them and I was bitterly upset and extremely angry. It made me feel that I didn't have any right to own anything or to make any kind of decision about my own life.

This week I went on to Amazon and found that the majority of the books were now available at fairly reasonable prices ( I hadn't known about girls gone by publishers before). So I ordered the bloody lot except for one which was eye-wateringly expensive and I now have a nice row of Monica Edwards books on my bookcase. (I have started reading Punchbowl Midnight). It is great to know that nobody is going to be coming into my home shouting the odds and chucking my belongings away. (I do read books other than Monica Edwards'!)

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Witchend · 19/02/2018 12:52

Oh, the ME society I think grew out of the ashes of the first one as irritated people who had paid joined together. I think I had a quite impassioned email on the subject, but it was about when we were moving house and I didn't get any further.
The first person that set it up I think was also in the MS society, so I don't know what actually went on.

Witchend · 19/02/2018 12:49

Yes, he has loads of red-heads. Jenny was my favourite.
Penny always irritated me though. I suspect once she was away at college and meeting boys other than Jon he's be dropped like a hot stone.

Monica Edwards was the reason I got into book collecting so I will always have a soft spot for her.

Jim covering the sign is the hoodwinks I think. I could see the glint in ds' eyes as he pondered the local possibilities!

Meet ups vary between Saville places. So lots in Shropshire, a fair number in Rye and then others in other places he used.

TheWomanTheyCallJayne · 18/02/2018 21:46

Somehow managed to miss a whole paragraph of your post about the society. It seems very similar in style, suspect it’s maybe one of the others you did it with and they’ve restarted it. I still have my magazines somewhere.

I may have to look at the MS society. Wonder where the meet ups are. I could possibly manage a Shropshire one as my parents live near Montgomery.

TheWomanTheyCallJayne · 18/02/2018 21:42

Ah yes. I was thinking of the actual Lone Pine, which was in Shropshire of course. Have you noticed that he seems to be a bit of a fan of redheads.

One of my favourite bits in a Westling based book was when Jim kept covering the sign stopping people parking on the shingle.

I’ve just been googling something and discovered her society is still going so I don’t know what happened when they took my money years ago and then claimed they were stopping.

Thought I have loads of Saville books I’m so much more of a fan of Monica Edwards. She’s my second favourite author after Elinor Lyon. All of them are my comfort. I have books I’ve never read and plan to but always end up going back to the ones I love.

Witchend · 17/02/2018 22:07

Monica Edwards Tamsin books are set in Rye Harbour, Malcolm Saville's Lone Pine have ones set in Rye. (Gay Dolphin, Elusive Grasshopper, Treasure at Amorys, Rye Royal).
They have some places that they both use with different names (eg The Gay Dolphin is in reality the Mermaid, which appears as the place Tamsin beds down with after she's swum Cascade to get the doctor in Storm Ahead.)

I may have spent a few holidays nearby dragging the family around to squeaks of "That's Tamsin's vicarage" and "Look at the Martello Tower" etc.) Ds has appreciated that. The rest don't count.

I was one of the founder members of the ME society. I was sad when it stopped. I am though a member of the MS society, although I've never been to a meet up.

I have about 70 of the MS books, I think he wrote 89. I have a soft spot for Strangers at Snowfell (2nd in the Jillies series) as it was the first non-Lone Pine I owned.

kingjofferyworksintescos · 17/02/2018 16:07

Such happy memories , Monica Edwards , Joanna Cannon , KM Payton , Joanna , Christine and Diana Pullein Thompson et all
Loved them to read , l loved having a big stash of books ready for the holidays although my mum would often root me out and say I should be making my own adventures rather than reading someone else's she didn't really mind as it was a good foundation to being a bookworm

TheWomanTheyCallJayne · 17/02/2018 15:53

Sorry for spamming. I want to be able to edit. I can spell ‘sail’ and use punctuation etc. I just got a little excited about one of my favourite subjects, that I never get to talk about, and went a bit silly.

buckleten · 17/02/2018 15:52

I love these books, and still have them all! I wanted to name one of my daughters Tamzin but my husband didn't like it.. we have been to Rye Harbour to to see the Vicarage, pub etc too. Storm Ahead was one of my favourites!

TheWomanTheyCallJayne · 17/02/2018 15:44

Witchend. I may have misread your post. What did you mean set in the same place?

TheWomanTheyCallJayne · 17/02/2018 15:38

They were both rather prolific authors weren’t they. Monica’s take up more than one shelf, Malcolm’s more than two.

TheWomanTheyCallJayne · 17/02/2018 15:33

I have pretty well all the Monica Edwards Tamsin and Lindsay books as well as a couple of others such as the unsought farm.

Meryon was also my childhood crush. I just happened to marry a dark wavy haired man who could sale by coincidence. When I read them now, I adore Roger.
I used to belong to the Monica Edwards Society but it stopped.

I also have a huge quantity of the Malcolm Saville books.

I’m feeling very grateful to my lovely Um who not only encouraged my reading but would pick up another copy of any of those books if she saw it in a charity shop.

Witchend · 12/02/2018 17:42

Thank you

Original poster

JPinkertonSnoopington · 12/02/2018 00:14

@witchend
I have just seen some copies for sale on Amazon of Joan goes farming but they are £30 each! I thought I'd tell you so that you could decide if this is worth paying – I suspect you will want to!

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Witchend · 11/02/2018 23:40

I think I agree with Lindsey who finds Meryon a bit scary because he seems so perfect. He's fun, and I'd like him as a friend, but he wasn't one I had a crush on.

Original poster

JPinkertonSnoopington · 11/02/2018 03:58

That's a bit further down my reading list, so I am relying on memory. I think Meryon went out on the ropes to pull half drowned sailors in and then worked on resuscitating them on the beach, along with others who had this skill, including the vicar.

And talking of Meryon, he was a bit of a crush of mine when I first read the books. I find to my amazement that this has come back, and the description of him in "The Hoodwinkers" as wearing nothing but the briefest of brief underpants made me go a bit pink and unnecessary!

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Witchend · 09/02/2018 12:20

I just read the Hoodwinkers to ds, who's 10yo. He found it not as exciting as some of the others, so I don't think he picked up on some of the suspense, but also I don't think he found Hookey's brush with death as nerve-racking as the nicer characters. It always struck me that the sympathy in that scene is mostly because of Mrs Galley's reaction and how she clearly cares for him.

Meryon does resuscitation a few times, including on Tamsin in Dolphin Summer. There's also the popping back in of the dislocated jaw in the Hoodwinkers, plus the severed artery in The Outsider. Does he join in in Storm Ahead too, or is he just involved going in to rescue survivors?

Original poster

JPinkertonSnoopington · 09/02/2018 00:36

Yes, it is in "the Hoodwinkers". That book was somewhat dark, especially Hooky threatening to kill Diccon's bullfrog if he didn't tell him the bearings for the ruined church in the sea. The description of the expressions on Hooky's face were spine chilling. Later Hooky told everyone that Diccon had spilled the beans, and even Tamzin was cold towards her little brother as a result. Then he told her tearfully about his bullfrog being threatened, and she was more sympathetic – then the canny little lad told her he'd given Hooky the wrong bearings! Later Hooky's brush with death and resuscitation by Meryon (is there anything that boy can't do?) were pretty suspenseful.

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Witchend · 04/02/2018 03:47

I think I'd disagree about Mrs Lillicrop. I think Tamzin says at one point that she shouts at them but loves them all "even Ur who is bloodthirsty" or something along that lines. I think that's in The Hoodwinkers when Jim's touting for business for his undertaking business.

Original poster

JPinkertonSnoopington · 03/02/2018 21:09

Books saved me, even if I lost my beloved Monica Edwards books. I feel much less bitter now that I have acquired another set and I am enjoying reading them. One thing that struck me last time I read Storm Ahead was how unkind Mrs Lillicrop was towards her myriad children – even telling her daughter who was crying with fright in the flood that if she didn't stop it, they would all drown. What a hateful old cow! If this were real life, I would expect the vicar to have a word with her about being more loving to her brood.

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UnRavellingFast · 28/01/2018 19:57

*pinkerton sorry!

UnRavellingFast · 28/01/2018 19:41

Sorry to hear about that Pinkington. Books become a haven and thank god we had them eh. My parents were often loving but unbelievably dysfunctional and put us. Through stuff. Books saved me.

Original poster

JPinkertonSnoopington · 28/01/2018 18:32

If your mum said "Do as you're told, when you're told how you're told" and "You can make me a cup of tea" and "I don't have to be polite to you, you're only my daughter" and worst of all "I didn't want you. You were your father's idea – I didn't want a second child at all and if I had to have one I wanted a boy. I don't like girls." all of these repeated ad nauseam. If your mum said the same or similar, we must be related! What an old cow she was. She continued to bully me once I was married (to a man that she chose for me, by dint of telling me nobody else would want me because I was such a bitch). I was too scared to stand up to her and my ex too passive to stand up to or for on my behalf anybody who was rude and unpleasant. I only disengaged from her when my ex husband left me and she was completely foul about it. When I got the message that she had died, I felt nothing. Absolutely nothing.

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Witchend · 28/01/2018 11:20

I read a couple of Malcolm Saville from the library growing up, my dsis wouldn't touch them as one described Dickie and Mary as Identical twins.
During my GCSEs I was scouring the second hand shops for Monica Edwards when I came across a pile of Lone Pine books at 45p. I opened one up and realised from the map in the front that it was set in roughly the same place-before I hadn't realised it was really places. SO I bought the lot gradually over a number of weeks.

Monica Edwards books were harder to find though and I only had about 3 or 4 for some years.

reallyanotherone · 27/01/2018 22:57

Are you my sister? My mum was the same. She had a habit of “disappearing” things she thought i was too old for, she disapproved of or didn’t like. Then when i noticed and asked for it she’d say i obviously didn’t want it that much so she’d binned it.

I also went through a hippy/goth phase at 17/18. I’d put my clothes in the wash and they wouldn’t reappear. I’d go looking and “that old thing, you never wore it, so i binned it”. Leather jacket and doc martins also went. I also had a boyfriend with lovely long hair who didn’t last long.

I definitely read a couple of monica edwards books, can’t remember which ones.will have to google!

Original poster

JPinkertonSnoopington · 27/01/2018 22:38

I should add for clarity that my hippy days were when I was 17. By then she couldn't control me completely but she did split me up from a lovely boy because she didn't like his clothes and long hair. That was a source of great pain to me for a long time as we really loved each other.

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