What was your favourite Noel Streatfeild book?

Sorry, that was completely off topic

Note to self: strongly encourage dcs to get on out and earn enough to support me in the style to which I wish to become accustomed! (Eyes ds sprawling on sofa reading…. No money in reading….)

Thinking about this, I always bristle somewhat when reading about Sylvia Plath’s financial struggles. Ludicrous compared with the average joe! I suppose one always compares oneself with one’s peers (or hoped to be peers) and if one’s lifestyle falls short of theirs then you may feel dissatisfied. But it is still rather galling to read the woe is me stuff when they are really quite well off. (I would say many Plath biographers are a little generous when repeating her biographical entries and display a distinct lack of critical analysis of her declared pecuniary difficulties.)

It's about class and entitlement and who people surround themselves with. A recent customer told me that her family was not wealthy, despite both parents being bankers and sending their son to an international boarding school.

The Growing Summer and Ballet Shoes for Anna.

It's not that different now. Mumsnet is full of people 'making sacrifices' to send their children to private school, when most people would have to sacrifice actual food/rent to afford the fees. It's about what a family considers essential or most important and how easily they can afford it.

Reminds me of the start of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, where we're told the family are really poor, as the 2 children come home from boarding school for the summer holidays.

They also take a house for the summer with catering - I can’t remember if someone paid for that too.

Actually irl I know a few people like that - consummate freeloaders who always know someone with a holiday home, or London flat, or a Wimbledon debenture…. And they never seem to have to reciprocate.

And it was only towards the end of the book that Garnie found that the house was in her name so could sell it, and once she'd found that she did. So you can't really blame anyone except GUM for not telling her, and for going away for so long.

I suspect the dad getting given a car in the Gemma books is simply a way of explaining how they got a car when they couldn't really afford it.... hope the orchestra paid the running cost too.

My dd gets completely outraged at the unfairness of Apple Bough - the fact that the parents are so oblivious to their other children’s needs.

I think in general she didn't have great experiences with men, and her father was weak for sure (or at least as reported by her).
The father in White Boots is a terrible businessman, and rather than getting a proper job persists in running a business which doesn't support his family which is pretty typical of her representation of fathers

It’s interesting how many of the fathers are weak and ineffective.
I wonder if that was deliberate or if Noel was writing from her own experience? My memories of The Vicarage Family is that the mother was a forceful personality.

Oh, I would take in boarders… if only I had the staff…

Poor old Peaseblossom; I imagine her as a Joyce Grenfell-alike in a gym slip mooning after the vague, weak, entitled mother. How they had the brass neck to gobble up her money is one of fiction’s great what the? moments.

definitely - they're doing genteel poverty!

A bit like a woman I know who claims she's "poor" because she can't afford to take her dc abroad, but goes to Butlins 3-4 times per year. I can't even afford a camping trip! But compared to her childhood she feels poor. Maybe I should take in boarders. Not that I have any spare rooms

[quote Tanaqui]@rogerponny, that's Ballet Shoes for Anna, and not nearly as good as Ballet Shoes! (Although the earthquake at the beginning is vividly described).

In the Gemma books, one of the songs Robin swirls is Peri, Meri, Dixie- a song I didn't know, but thanks to another thread, have just discovered there is a version from a couple of years ago by The Wiggles! So I am imagining Robin's swirling as similar to that .[/quote]
Now imagining an embarrassed Pauline, Petrova and Posy being the Red, Blue and Yellow Wiggles for the cash to pay Nana. Wearily chanting ‘Toot-toot, chugga-chugga, Big Red Car!’ 😀

@rogerponny, that's Ballet Shoes for Anna, and not nearly as good as Ballet Shoes! (Although the earthquake at the beginning is vividly described).

In the Gemma books, one of the songs Robin swirls is Peri, Meri, Dixie- a song I didn't know, but thanks to another thread, have just discovered there is a version from a couple of years ago by The Wiggles! So I am imagining Robin's swirling as similar to that .

I'm fairly sure the book says Nana had refused to accept wages for several years and something like 'time enough to pay me when the professor gets back'.

it's a very specific form of privilege isn't it, to be so poor you can't pay your staff, but you do have a house that's big enough to take in three sets of lodgers each of whom can contribute meaningfully to the careers or education of your three children. What are the chances!

Though if she came on here to ask 'AIBU to have given up my career to act as an unpaid mother's help to my wet former schoolfriend and to spend my entire inheritance on giving her, her three children and her moody writer husband an extended holiday in California during which I will continue do lessons with the children while also doing housework to pay for my keep?' she would be told she had No Boundaries and lectured about being an Enabler and Learned Helplessness.

Aren't we told in Ballet Shoes that the cook and parlourmaid haven't been paid in ages? Does Nana even get paid at all? Or is this one of those situations where Nana, as an older impecunious spinster, would have nowhere to go after Garnie aged out of her care and was too older to find another situation as a nanny, so in fact Garnie/GUM are kind of doing her a favour by giving her a home?

Just properly read the post about Peaseblossom on the last page - fair point, sorry Peaseblossom. "Oh! An aunt I never knew has died and left me everything! We can all go to California!"

She was still rotten to Jane though. And also, what a weird doctor that family had, to prescribe winter in California to get you over the fact you ran over a child.

Oh what a great thread! I loved Ballet Shoes, especially all the descriptions of clothes!

Also like Painted Garden, although sometimes even as a child you feel you're being shown how Decent People Behave and Parent, in all of them, and especially that one. And why the hell did Peaseblossom get to hang around forever and be foul to Jane? Also a similar parenting style to that endorsed by Antonia Forest, where you must never ever make a fuss of a child's achievement - poor Jane got to do one thing her whole bloody miserable life, and they're all like 'well that was a decent show old girl, but we mustn't forget it's your turn to make the beds. Don't let it go to your head'.

Pardon