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Original poster

Any Noel Streatfeild fans here?

212 replies

JFDIYOLO · 06/10/2023 14:59

I love her books about children on stage, at Madame Fidolia's Academy - have done since I was very young and Mum first handed me Ballet Shoes and The Painted Garden.

💓💓💓💓💓

OP posts:
givemeasunnyday · 07/10/2023 02:18

Yes, I read her books when I was young in the 70s, and loved them. I don't have the books now, but did manage to find a copy of Ballet Shoes a little while ago so I'm looking forward to reading it again.

Original poster
JFDIYOLO · 07/10/2023 02:06

I read The Painted Garden before I'd ever discovered The Secret Garden - the 'oh I SEE!' revelation when I read it ... 🤗

Must look for The Witcharts.

Other books that are part of my theatre kids DNA are The Swish of the Curtain series by Pamela Brown and the Sadlers Wells books by Lorna Hill, who also wrote other series and they sometimes crossed over with characters from other series. Guy would be seen as ... problematic ... today ...

The Gemma books were relatively recent when I read them - I also had the paperbacks with the photo covers, and I really liked the combination of film star child and ordinary suburban life. It seemed so strange when Gemma remarks the school uniform skirts were too long and was told the girls just rolled the waists to shorten them - I was reading in the midi/maxi 70s and Noel was writing in the mini 60s, an alien concept then. Yet today ... any bunch of schoolgirls will be doing exactly the same thing over half a century on.

These books were my first encounters with Shakespeare, too, as well as the reality and discipline of theatre, skating, circus - she must have researched thoroughly.

OP posts:
ShermansSherberts · 07/10/2023 01:03

Going back to Noel Streatfield had anyone read Saplings yet? It isn't aimed at children. I would love to read it. I'm going to try eBay.

ShermansSherberts · 07/10/2023 01:01

RaeHitsEbSire · 07/10/2023 00:54

Yes, and the theme of Marianne being possessive over Abe while he, with the benefit of experience, wants to avoid a situation where he becomes dependent on her, is very well thought out.

Mobile phones would render much of the second book's emotional turmoil redundant. I love the ending where she literally falls into his arms!

Yes it's a beautiful ending.

RaeHitsEbSire · 07/10/2023 00:54

Yes, and the theme of Marianne being possessive over Abe while he, with the benefit of experience, wants to avoid a situation where he becomes dependent on her, is very well thought out.

Mobile phones would render much of the second book's emotional turmoil redundant. I love the ending where she literally falls into his arms!

ShermansSherberts · 07/10/2023 00:45

RaeHitsEbSire · 07/10/2023 00:42

Abe was very scrupulous about 'how far he would go' with Marianne but I think her age would be seen as more of an issue nowadays.

They might not have bonded by Marianne hustling him around the supermarket, either, as I imagine nowadays Abe would be using assistive technology to do his shopping online.

Yes I think the story wouldn't translate well to the 2020s. I loved how gentlemanly Abe was with Marianne. How he discovered her singing voice and helped build her confidence.

RaeHitsEbSire · 07/10/2023 00:42

Abe was very scrupulous about 'how far he would go' with Marianne but I think her age would be seen as more of an issue nowadays.

They might not have bonded by Marianne hustling him around the supermarket, either, as I imagine nowadays Abe would be using assistive technology to do his shopping online.

ShermansSherberts · 07/10/2023 00:35

RaeHitsEbSire · 06/10/2023 23:55

Sorry for hijacking a Noel Streatfeild thread with Jean Ure!

It was me started it !

I did wonder that about Abe and
Marianne? Would people have the ick about it now? I have a feeling it would be viewed differently now.

RaeHitsEbSire · 06/10/2023 23:55

Sorry for hijacking a Noel Streatfeild thread with Jean Ure!

RaeHitsEbSire · 06/10/2023 23:53

I wonder if Marianne and Abe's relationship would be seen as acceptable nowadays? Or Abe being part of 'The Thursday Group' with pupils from his own school?

I found it so romantic as a teenager - I still do! I pictured Abe as looking exactly like Bruno from Fame.

ShermansSherberts · 06/10/2023 23:48

@RaeHitsEbSire oh yes, Marianne and Abe! I loved those.

RaeHitsEbSire · 06/10/2023 23:46

ShermansSherberts · 06/10/2023 23:36

I think she understood teenage girls very well. I loved that she wasn't afraid to give her girls tantrums, self doubt and moods at times! Some children's books of her time could be a little priggish in how they portrayed their children

@RaeHitsEbSire did you ever read A Proper Little Nooryeff by Jean ure? And it's sequel You Win Some You Lose Some? Ballet training from a boys perspective. Also very good.

Show quote history

No - I'll see if I can get them! I enjoyed the 'Thursday' books - my copy of the second one (bought from eBay as an adult) is an American edition with some rather incongruous Americanisms, such as using 'public transportation' rather than the underground/tube - which adds interest.

Millybob · 06/10/2023 23:37

@JFDIYOLO That's in the National Portrait Gallery.

ShermansSherberts · 06/10/2023 23:36

JFDIYOLO · 06/10/2023 16:54

I love how her books begin in the 20s with the Fossils as little girls then they reappear after the war as young women with history, who the new young girls can look up to.

And how the area had been bombed and the academy was battered but still standing.

Noel wrote until the 1970s and so many of her books were set contemporarily so you get a sense of time passing.

One thing I only learned ages later was that she was gay - and on re reading the books it's striking how often they feature strong mothers and weak father figures - either completely absent like GUM, physical or mental illness, or general wet blanketness - and another strong female companion. An old nurse, a servant, a friend - it was so often two women running a home. And then the two Doctors who came to board at the Fossils.

I also loved how like E Nesbitt her children were argumentative, sulky, sad, scared, embarrassed, excited, joyful. I felt she understood adolescent girl life.

Here she is - trying to find whk the artist was.

I think she understood teenage girls very well. I loved that she wasn't afraid to give her girls tantrums, self doubt and moods at times! Some children's books of her time could be a little priggish in how they portrayed their children

@RaeHitsEbSire did you ever read A Proper Little Nooryeff by Jean ure? And it's sequel You Win Some You Lose Some? Ballet training from a boys perspective. Also very good.

Thally · 06/10/2023 23:35

@ShermansSherberts

It's a fun podcast. They do all sorts of books, very wide ranging Inc high brow stuff and sci-fi and the episode on one of Jilly Cooper's books was great. I like the guests, it's very warm.

Peregrina · 06/10/2023 23:33

Someone was saying once may be George from the Famous Five was really non binary and I wanted to scream.

oh please!

These are children's books, what's wrong with keeping her as an old fashioned tomboy! Can't agree more.

But Anne was so wet - I wouldn't mind seeing her modernised.

ShermansSherberts · 06/10/2023 23:33

RaeHitsEbSire · 06/10/2023 23:30

@ShermansSherberts I loved Hi There Supermouse and Nicola Mimosa!

Yes. That awful Rose!!

RaeHitsEbSire · 06/10/2023 23:30

@ShermansSherberts I loved Hi There Supermouse and Nicola Mimosa!

Peregrina · 06/10/2023 23:30

I loved Party Frock about children at the end of the War who put on a pageant and Apple Bough. Could any woman be as vague as the children's mother was in that book?

Now both annoyingly renamed as Party Shoes and Travelling shoes. There were shoes to go with the party frock, but no shoes particularly at all in Apple Bough.

Her books do seem to have one character who is not as talented and gifted as the other children in them. I never realised she was really writing about herself.

Must look out for some of her adult books.

Millybob · 06/10/2023 23:27

It wasn't a realistic side to ballet training, more that theatre wasn't respectable and the girls were no better than they 'orter be - I think there was an abortion. it's years since I read it though.

The modern covers look so trashy compared with the lovely original illustrations by NS's sister.

ShermansSherberts · 06/10/2023 23:23

@Thally I must check that out!

@Millybob i love when they show a realistic side to ballet training. I recall Jean Ure doing some brilliant realistic books about this, Nicola Mimosa was one of her older ones and then in the early to mid 90s she did a series of three books called Dancing Dreams about students at a ballet school, and they are brutally honest about the fact that not all girls succeed, one girl turned out to be too curvy for ballet and ends up doing Flamenco dancing instead! Although I remember a character in the Drina books of the 60s (Jean Estoril) becoming too tall to stay on at ballet school.

ShermansSherberts · 06/10/2023 23:18

aliasname · 06/10/2023 22:59

Loved Ballet Shoes and The Painted Garden… but Oh! The illustrations! That adorable one with the Fossil sisters making their pact. 😍

I must be getting old, but it seems children’s books nowadays have totally forgettable illustrations. Or they’re all realistic and grim and caricatures.

They are beautiful illustrations . I loved one of Pauline at her audition with long flowing hair all smooth but just a curl at the very end. Another favourite for me was when Pauline and Petrovna are in a play and they are playing too children in their nightclothes kneeling on their window seat looking out of the window. And Posy dancing on the tube station and Pauline and Petrova and Nana are shocked and telling her to stop being so vain! I had a soft spot for Posy, it may have seemed she was a little madam but I believe she actually genuinely knew she was gifted and had that focus and self confidence. It always struck me that the three girls were raised the same but their personalities were so different , proving that nurture is only part of it.

I completely get it about children's illustrations these days,what I especially hate is when illustrators draw characters in a way that doesn't accurately portray the time in which the books are set. I remember some ghastly early 90s editions of Enid Byton 's Mallory Towers , 1940s schoolgirls with long flowing hair sometimes with a bit of layering or feathering at the ends, high legged bathing costumes in the pool, nothing like how 1940s schoolgirls would have dressed or worn their hair! 11 year old me was grinding her teeth at the stupidity of it. I hate the modernisation of old books especially childhood classics. Someone was saying once may be George from the Famous Five was really non binary and I wanted to scream. These are children's books, what's wrong with keeping her as an old fashioned tomboy!

Millybob · 06/10/2023 23:12

The Whicharts is interesting; it's a brutally realistic adult version of Ballet Shoes.
And Saplings - about a family broken by the war.
She also wrote quite a few romances as Susan Scarlett which have been re-published -I wasn't that keen on the couple I read but you might like them.

Thally · 06/10/2023 23:06

There is a really good podcast called Backlisted about books. They did a feature on Ballet Shoes and NS. It might have been one of their Christmas editions last year. Absolutely worth a listen for fans of the books.

RaeHitsEbSire · 06/10/2023 23:02

aliasname · 06/10/2023 22:59

Loved Ballet Shoes and The Painted Garden… but Oh! The illustrations! That adorable one with the Fossil sisters making their pact. 😍

I must be getting old, but it seems children’s books nowadays have totally forgettable illustrations. Or they’re all realistic and grim and caricatures.

They've also got rubbish covers in my opinion - all bright colours and childish cartoon pictures. Growing up, I loved that my Puffins etc. looked like proper books with sober coloured spines and covers with proper illustrations.