Is there a current chalet school thread? Anyone fancy it?

Isn't there someone called Parker123 who had access to the Dropbox? Btw if you want the GGBP versions (and they are worth getting) and don't want to fork out a shit ton of money for them, there's a site called Topsy Turvy Books that sells them: www.topsyturvychildrensbooks.co.uk. Betula is usually the one I buy from, I'm not sure how many CS books Sally has.

Herr von Francius was totally stalking them. Maybe he had a grudge against Joey.

@FelicityBeedle do you have all the books or -ahem- the infamous transcripts?

At least even EBD doesn't try to convince us that he was devoted to Joey like every other hotel keeper / apple seller / servant / random Tirolean.

[quote FelicityBeedle]I was just googling to try and remind myself of the name of the dentist in Tirol (no luck!) and found a wonderful old CS thread with a great little quiz if anyone wants to test their self. I didn’t do too badly I don’t think
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/childrens_books/1335219-Chalet-School-fans-Radio-4-programme-with-Val-McDermid?pg=4[/quote]
Isn't that Herr von Francius, who somehow follows the school from Innsbruck to Interlaken (presumably not via Armiford and the Island).

Thanks for the quiz - will try

@BinocularVision it is fascinating how much EBD implies without realising it, and how people can read the books and take away something completely different. Like the Maynards being EBD's perfect family but they're actually deeply screwed up. Read Jo to the Rescue and then Trials, and you can see very clearly how the Maynard triplets behave exactly the same way, even though they're toddlers in the former and teens in the latter. (Btw are you CJ/Sunglass? I know CJ is on here. She namechanges from time to time.)

I always imagine the cubicles to look like Laura Ashley. Actually, the yellow rooms sound quite pretty. Somebody in another thread asked if EBD was on the spectrum and I do wonder, because of her obsession with minute details and special interests showing up in the books (cellos and folk dancing being the most obvious). I also think one reason why the books appeal to autistic people - I'm not the only one in this thread! - is because they're fairly repetitive. I could recite the sheepdog's speech to new girls in the Swiss era in my sleep. Hat goes here, hankies go there, hump your mattress, take your baths cold or chill off, keep your drawers tidy or Matey will have something to say, etc. Same with the prefects' meetings. You know some girl will go on a tangent and the Head Girl will say, "Back on topic, please, there's a lot to get through and we don't have any too much time." Or "Look at the time! We'd better scram or we'll be late for Kaffee und Kuchen, and won't the kids crow?" And there will be whole chapters devoted to things like picking a tennis team or the new copies of the Chaletian coming out.

(Ruey is the one with the new dresses. And the lacrosse. Oh, the lacrosse.)

@BinocularVision

I haven’t read it yet, but I’m cherishing the possibility of Giles (much my least favourite Antonia Forest character) keel-hauling OOAO after she suggested he cast his eyes up to the hills.

There is indeed some lifting up of eyes ... unto Rum Beacon.

It's a lovely comfort read - just reread it. Both universes in character. There may even be an EBD doctor as a prize for one of the Marlow girls ...

[quote YesToThis]It must have been recommended here before, and you need to know Antonia Forest, but my favourite fan fiction on the whole of the internet is the terrifyingly convincing romance between Giles Marlow and his one and only ...
www.livejournal.com/tools/memories.bml?user=rose_and_lizard&keyword=Giles%20Marlow%27s%20One%20And%20Only&filter=all[/quote]
I haven’t read it yet, but I’m cherishing the possibility of Giles (much my least favourite Antonia Forest character) keel-hauling OOAO after she suggested he cast his eyes up to the hills.

@FelicityBeedle, are you also ultra-blonde, quiet and a natural peacemaker?

That was thoroughly enjoyable @YesToThis, and cheered up a pretty horrid day. Thank you!

True, and there is quite a hair theme going on in book 1, when you think about it. Arrive in Austria - get hair washed (and never hear the end of a tiny slip in your German). Want a friend - cut off hair. And then that baffling bit where the doctor sees Joey through her - brain fever - and orders Madge off to get her hair washed ...

That line is telling us something Very Important about Verity

In fairness, though, when so many of the girls, especially in the early novels, have huge swathes of very long hair, and are only able to towel-dry it by a stove or fire in winter and no doubt Matey has a total horror of girls having even slightly damp hair for a second longer than necessary a magical hair-drying super-power would be pretty useful.

I remember being fascinated by that episode where some of the Middles cornflour one another's hair and the punishment is for the miscreants to wash the hair in question, and it's clear that it's considered quite a big deal, the whole shampooing and drying thing. I mean, you can see why they didn't wash their hair often, especially the ones with masses of thick waist-length hair, and why the short-haired girls in the earlier books are so reluctant to grow it you couldn't wash it often, and when you did, it was a real faff. When Joey and co get back from their night on the Stubai glacier, Joey has a bath, and we're told she's clean 'even to her hair, as she had given it a rubbing' presumably if you were short-haired, this was mostly what you did, just give it a quick scrub in the bath?

It must have been recommended here before, and you need to know Antonia Forest, but my favourite fan fiction on the whole of the internet is the terrifyingly convincing romance between Giles Marlow and his one and only ...
www.livejournal.com/tools/memories.bml?user=rose_and_lizard&keyword=Giles%20Marlow%27s%20One%20And%20Only&filter=all

And yes, absolutely me too, having an affectionate sense of the absurdity of some of the key components of EBD's visual aesthetic -- I also adore the lingering descriptions of the new uniform dress ideas, and all her approving descriptions of Joey and Madge's salons (and of course the terrible comedown that is Joey's house in Carnbach after Plas Gwyn...)

Those famous Chalet School superpowers ...

Weather prediction
"French" fingers to set clothes / hair straight
Eyes that have never needed glasses
...
Uncanny knack for towelling hair dry

Well, that's the thing, isn't it? I don't think for a moment EBD was conscious that she was writing a scene in which the power of a charismatic, wildly popular sister-of-the-Founder HG over a gentle, ineffectual and unwilling Head is being demonstrated, but it's certainly open to that interpretation. Especially when it's followed shortly by the whole Matron Besly fiasco, which largely comes down to her not having been properly briefed on school rules (prefects don't get order marks, are allowed to read in bed, and staff don't enter their bedrooms) and not realising she's supposed to recognise that Joey is a 'dear girl' and be given special treatment.

This is one of the things I find most compelling about the CS, and why IMO it supports so much dissecting (and also fanfic for the same reason). There's this gloriously frequent disconnect between what the author definitely wants to say, ever so didactically, and all the other stuff which definitely happens and which is completely at odds with the deliberate message! It's like her own world is misbehaving.

I love the dormitory descriptions. As a child I just straightforwardly enjoyed them (although I'm sure i had no clue what a 'cretonne' was). These days it's a sort of nostalgic affection for the absurd. I love the lengthy discussion of new dresses in one of the later books (Ruey?) in much the same way.

Also, Margot Venables. As a child I didn't really notice that there was anything odd about her just 'fading away', but isn't she like... 40?

Thinking about the new prefects' rooms in New House is making me think about one of the things I've always found charmingly dotty about the CS -- EBD's adoration of a detailed description of a lovely matchy-matchy bit of interior décor. The prefects' rooms in the new chalet are completely individual and insanely matchy, and from what I remember there was some 'rule' Mademoiselle was evidently following about which direction the room faced dictating the colour scheme? And two of them have pink colour schemes, but with different flowers on the cretonne?

It's a bit of a step up from the Green dormitory and a cubicle which is presumably identical to everyone else's! And it must have been a bit crappy for the other prefects who presumably stayed in cubicles in ordinary dormitories at the main school, while the Quartette are larging it in their individually-designed private rooms.

Just tried to join CBB to have a look but I can't make head or tail of the confirmation codes. Totally unreadable. Total fail on accessibility.

Being mean to Margot Venables would be like kicking a puppy. Even for Naughty Middles.

Matron Besley is a jumped-up little arsehole but she does have a point about Joey's face, and how the hell is she supposed to know when Joey's ill when she's naturally pale? Matey knows Joey, Matron Besley doesn't. And she is right that Joey gets preferential treatment. Of course, she undermines her argument by making a huge point of humiliating Joey in front of the others and making up her own rules all the time and refusing to take advice from anyone, and then the storm comes and she has a massive panic attack (and gets no sympathy).

I think EBD wrote realistic characters and interactions at this stage - the moral she drew from them could sometimes be utterly bizarre, though.

Well, that's the thing, isn't it? I don't think for a moment EBD was conscious that she was writing a scene in which the power of a charismatic, wildly popular sister-of-the-Founder HG over a gentle, ineffectual and unwilling Head is being demonstrated, but it's certainly open to that interpretation. Especially when it's followed shortly by the whole Matron Besly fiasco, which largely comes down to her not having been properly briefed on school rules (prefects don't get order marks, are allowed to read in bed, and staff don't enter their bedrooms) and not realising she's supposed to recognise that Joey is a 'dear girl' and be given special treatment.

The new Matron is not a nice woman, but it's hard not to feel for her when she's just been told to leave Joey alone and not interfere in her morning reading or enter her room, and a second later is being scolded by Matey for not realising that the always-pale Joey has toothache she's concealing because she's afraid of the dentist. Matron could be forgiven for retorting that if someone is senior and responsible enough to be HG, she could be expected to report her own minor health conditions.

(Which leads me to how poor, fragile Margot Venables ever hacked it as a CS Matron. Unless it had been drummed into even the most mischievous Middles that she's one of the Russell-Bettany clan, and anyone messing with her will be quietly terminated. )