Any Noel Streatfeild fans here?

I was also fascinated as a 1970s dungarees wearing child by what they wore, they seemed to be always having to let out an old fawn frock to go to a birthday party.

I adored Noel Streatfield and still remember how I felt 40 years ago when I read in The Vicarage Family that John had died. @pollyhemlock I remember that bread and butter story too and that some dangerous person had wanted them to wear purple, green and white to some event or other and of course they weren't allowed to. @MargaretThursday I didn't know she had written further autobiographies, I'll definitely look for those.

I love them. A Vicarage Family , Theatre Shoes, The Growing Summer, Caldicott Place are amongst my favourite.

Enjoyed Ballet Shoes a lot, I think my favourite ballet books as a child were the Drina series and Ballet Twins by Jean Estoril, and also the Sadler's Wells series.

Me!!!!

Have you read The Wicharts, OP - the unsuccessful adult novel which was recycled to become Ballet Shoes? It's a really interesting read from the Ballet Shoes perspective.

@MargaretThursday I don’t think her father was exactly weak, just very very holy. The awful bit in Vicarage Family where he reluctantly allows his daughters to go to a birthday party in Lent, but they’re not allowed to wear party dresses or eat anything except plain bread and butter!

Have you read her autobiographies?
The first one A Vicarage Family gives a lot of insight into how she wrote characters, the later ones are quite sad because she's desperate for the approval of her mother, but knows she'll never really get it.
Interestingly the original illustrations for Ballet Shoes were done by her sister (Ruth Gervis-"Isabel" in the autobiographies), not planned by them, but the publisher suggested it, not knowing they were sisters.

The sulky middle child, typical of her stories, was really her. The weak father figure was really her dad. I don't think he was really weak, just weak with his family, and she felt didn't stick up for her when he'd have liked to. He became a bishop, but died relatively young, running for a train if I remember rightly.
She did have a love, an older cousin, "John", who died in WWI. I don't know whether it would have gone further if he hadn't died.

Yes! Could you guess?

Did you read Curtain Up too? Another one which the Fossils appear albeit as side characters.

Yes me 😀 my eight month old was nearly called Posy as I adored Post Fossil in Ballet Shoes. I think my favourite was White Boots though

I've not read all of them, or anywhere near, but The Circus is Coming (reissued, I think, as Circus Shoes to capitalise on the success of Ballet Shoes) is an excellent novel, though quite a realist one for a children's novel of the period. The two main characters run away to find an uncle who works in a circus when they're facing being sent to separate children's home, and they're insufferable cosseted snobs at first, but the arc is just that they learn to be normal, and have a fairly low-key future with the circus as a low-grade acrobat, and a rider. They don't have enormous, earth-shattering talents, and their uncle doesn't come to love them, just tolerates them and is prepared to house them until they can earn their keep.

Yep me! Read pretty much all her books as a teenager, totally loved them!