What’s the appeal of boarding school stories?

omg, @erinyes, I had forgotten all the layers of weird!

Like Helen wouldn't be sitting in her bed seething at her faithless lover and the strumpet next door he'd taken up with.

There was a book called Deborah’s Secret Quest that I read umpteen times. It was about a girl whose family pile had been turned into a girls’ school by her uncle. Deborah was fuming at this and vowed to find a way to prove that she was the rightful owner of the house. I wonder if I re-read it will it still be as enjoyable.

[quote StrychnineInTheSandwiches]@ClariceQuiff, to be honest, no I wasn’t a massive fan of the other Katy books either. Same with Little Women, read a few of the series but just never really connected with them. I think it was maybe all the piety and selflessness that characterized the writing of that era. All the ‘be a good little invalid’ stuff. Too much emphasis on self-improvement.[/quote]
Oh, the moral lessons of The School of Pain, and Cousin Helen selflessly releasing her fiancé from their engagement once she had her accident, so he could live next door with the woman he replaced her with and call their child after her — no arguments from me that this is the most sinister of Angel in the House stuff.

The bit about holding your forehead smooth with your fingers so it doesn’t wrinkle unbecomingly when you’re in pain stayed with me!

Thanks @Erinyes

All the ‘be a good little invalid’ stuff.
I loved reading about sickly children who had to stay in bed. I'm surprised I didn't develop Munchausen's syndrome!

I think you're right, and Dr Carr thought Katy had become overburdened by adult cares and housekeeping and so needed a break.

Possibly Hillsover was simply a convenient and 'safe' place to send your adolescent daughters until they were of marriageable age. Dr Carr chose it on Cousin Olivia's recommendation but I wondered if its being so far away was actually a benefit, to give Katy a proper break from housekeeping by making sure she wouldn't be home for the holidays.

Like a PP, I tore my way through the usual series and ended up reading some quite obscure boarding school books - Brownies at St Brides was interesting as the children were younger than usual www.amazon.co.uk/BROWNIES-AT-ST-BRIDES-TALBOT/dp/B000SHOTMU?tag=mumsnetforu03-21

@ClariceQuiff, to be honest, no I wasn’t a massive fan of the other Katy books either. Same with Little Women, read a few of the series but just never really connected with them. I think it was maybe all the piety and selflessness that characterized the writing of that era. All the ‘be a good little invalid’ stuff. Too much emphasis on self-improvement.

It's a form of escapism. I loved Malory Towers as a child. My daughter has discovered the new series of it on CBBC and I have dug out my old books for her!
It's all very jolly hockey sticks, but it's almost like a period drama - a different way of living that most of us didn't/won't experience.

Does anyone remember which one had the drawers which they could take out and crawl through into the room next door? I thought that was brilliant. A Big Brother producer must have read it too because they did something similar in one series

Boarding school stories create a way to "kill the parents" without killing the parents. Child protagonists need to be somehow separated from the parent characters otherwise they wouldn't have the same level of agency and independence that allows them to navigate the elements of the story. You can do this by killing them off, or by separation. (Or do both, a la Harry Potter!)

Personally I think part of it is a fantasy about being rich. Only the rich get sent to boarding school. I remember reading these stories about girls who spent holidays in the south of France, and attended schools where they had tennis courts and swimming pools, and they rode horses and put on plays. All of which would have been inaccessible to me as a child being raised in a council house on benefits.

Strychnine Just out of curiosity, did you enjoy any of the other 'Katy' books?

'School' is rather odd in that it takes quite a while to get to the school bit - there's the unrelated episode of Elsie and Johnny's disastrous visit to the Worretts' before the events leading to the older girls going to school even starts.

Re. the education on offer - I got the impression the school was almost more of a 'finishing school' than a place where the girls were expected to learn a lot.

"I think the romance is in the camaraderie of the girls, the way the SSUC rallies round when Katy is falsely accused, their cosy meetings and so on."

This^

I think when I first read it as a child I was mostly intimidated by the SSUC’s facility with writing spontaneous verse!

I only read What Katy Did At School once. A sure sign it didn't chime with me.

I used to be fully obsessed with boarding school stories. Ripped through all the usual suspects like St Clare’s, Mallory Towers, Chalet School and then moved onto all the boys’ boarding school books of the 1930s and 1940s. You used to be able to pick these up easily at jumble sales in the 80s and 90s (I miss jumble sales). They had titles like The Pride of the Upper Fourth, For the Honour of St Cuthbert’s, A Jolly Sporting Term. Devoured them all. It’s amazing I didn’t turn out to be a Ukipper.

It’s the combo of the quaintness of a bygone time, the lack of parental figures, the everything comes right in the end-ness, the jolliness, the japes, controlled peril, the Fair Play.

See I think that’s a deeply unromantic view of boarding! The good head is replaced by a poor one, the food is inadequate, the building is cold, they have to parade down the public baths weekly to wash, the authorities get it wrong on a disciplinary issue, and the education on offer sounds pretty poor…?

I think the romance is in the camaraderie of the girls, the way the SSUC rallies round when Katy is falsely accused, their cosy meetings and so on.

The teachers do eventually realise they did Katy an injustice and Miss Jane goes so far as to apologise. When Katy marries Ned in 'Clover' both Miss Jane and Mrs Nipson send her wedding presents!