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

Mind you, given that she’s grabbing a stone-wielding Nazi, this is presumably a somewhat unflatteringly dumpy, pudding-cheeked Robin on this cover?

And who is this confronting this nattily-uniformed Nazi on a different Exile cover — Joey and Robin?

And this 80s Eustacia cover cracks me up — she looks like a nosy, disapproving neighbour in a sitcom (all she needs is a bosom to hoik), and who on earth are the others meant to be? Is the toothy, dark-haired very boyish-looking girl Joey?

And Biddy O'Ryan gazing fetchingly into the middle distance in the hope of finding her doctor ...

Jo Returns is set in the 30s, yet Joey has sixties hair and a sixties dress. Oh, Armada. Actually, I did like some of the sixties hairdos on the CS girls.

@PigGondola yes, that's the one I mean. Angry manly Joan and her perm. One of the girls on the cover of '80s Armada Theodora also looks like a bloke, I think it's Margot?

Nina K Brisley's art is the best, especially in the early Tyrol books. Her little Joey is so cute.

It looks quite famous-five like, doesn't it.

Even as a child, I always thought the grandfather-from-Heidi figure on this one was just wondering what she was wearing ...

My first CS was this one, which was a very confusing cover - it actually belongs to Head Girl

I love all these covers. I properly love the original early covers (Nina K Brisley?), but the ridiculous Armada ones are their own delight.

It's an interesting point I'd not really thought about before, re: the 1980s covers having a very 1980s look. I guess the thinking was that it made them look more relevant and less dated for the (then!) modern readership, but it's then an interesting juxtaposition with the books themselves being very much of their time (and by the Problem era, perhaps anachronistic even then).

This cover always makes me laugh - is it Margot in the water? Not going to end well ...

Those are truly terrifying covers.
I can't see their PE/tennis skirts being that short in those days. They are similar to the ones we wore in the 80s.

Do you mean this one with a sort of terrifying Dolph Lundgren Joan Baker, @KevinTheGoat? I'd never even seen that one! Is that supposed to be Rosamund in the background, looking like she's at least 35 and extremely harassed? Though I suppose she should be, as Dolph Baker is clearly about to whack her with that tennis racket...

I had this one, where a permless, rather chic (even 'dainty') Joan looks a bit like Christine Keeler, and where the weird bit is Rosamund, who appears to be leaping across the road, grinning widely as if she's onstage in a big musical number singing about feeling very, very happy, rather than seeing an ex-friend-turned-bully unexpectedly on the street, while recovering from emergency dentistry...

The artist who did the '80s/'90s Armada books seemed to think so, if Princess is anything to go by. Joey does look a bit like Gollum on it. Although it's not as bad as manly Joan Baker.

God knows how she envisaged poor Sophie Hamel, who we’re always told is ‘big’. And if Joey was actually ‘goblin-like’ in her unhealthy early Tyrol days, did she look as skeletal as Gollum??

If the gym slips were woven wool, you could be fairly confident that they were only spot cleaned or brushed during term time except for complete disasters. It’s one of the reasons for the emphasis on smocks and pinafores.

I don’t know how available dry cleaning was (my mother, born in the 20s, considered it a luxury), but you could sponge woollen suits with turpentine at home.

I’ve seen a 1920s uniform list which allowed boys 3 suits including one for Sundays.

Imagine Matey having to deal with periods. She'd probably give them brandy.

I reckon Frau Mieders was always nipping at Matey's brandy stash after cooking classes. "What is it this time, Anna?" "Margot Maynard spilled flour everywhere. It took forever to clean up. I need a drink, stat."

Girls probably started later in those days, because they'd have been smaller, thinner and lighter than the majority of teenagers today, with a few exceptions like poor Sophie Hammel, who was always described as big!
I reckon the average would have been 14 to 15, but 16 or 17 wouldn't have been unusual.

Chalet School girls don't get periods!

Maybe that was why Grizel was so cranky. Bad PMS.

Grizel can be a bit of a bitch to Joey but honestly, it is refreshing to see a character who doesn't worship the ground Joey walks on and she is a very well-written character. She wouldn't be out of place in an Antonia Forest.

Thanks for your kind words @MinorCharacter

I do like Grizel - she is so 3 dimensional and being one of the originals does not bow down before Jo. Generally speaking I much prefer the earlier adventure books like Princess and of course Exile over the later ones.

Thanks to Parker I also read the Abbey series - so interesting, especially the early ones.