Malory Towers: what an unpleasant bunch

[Hepzibar]

No idea what sparked this, I have started to read Malory Towers 40 years after the first time. I absolutely loved MT and read and re-read them. I loved Enid Blyton but MT closely followed by St Clare's were my favourites.

I so wanted to be Darrell Rivers with her 'posh' name (not a common sixties job like mine), how I envied her and longed to go to boarding school.

Reading it now what a thoroughly unpleasant, bullying, nasty bunch they were, including my idolised Darrell.

[TheFormerMrsPugwash]

@Smileymoon - oh no, don't be put off. They are still fantastic stories!

[QueenOfTheAndals]

In the Anne books Diana being "plump" isn't seen as a negative. It was fashionable to be curvy in those days and it's Anne's skinniness that would've been considered to unattractive.

[Skirmisher]

Anne was skinny and homely and Diana was plump (in a good way) and had a lot of 'snap' (which I assume referred to her rosy cheeks and raven hair)

She did become a chunk in later life when she married boring Fred

[BadlyAgedMemes]

Ah, I was probably projecting, as I strongly disliked Diana when reading the books as a child, so in my head there was a negativity that included her plumpness! Apologies to LMM (and Diana)!

[QueenOfTheAndals]

It's really only in the last 100 years or so that it's become fashionable for women to be skinny. Or so I've read!

[mollymawk]

I totally loved MT as a child, but now can’t remember any plot lines other than:
Someone (probably Bill or Clarissa) having to get up in the night and walk about for hours with a horse that had colic
Someone trying to teach June how to play tennis and her not wanting to
I hesitate to re-read them because I will then see how awful they all were. What I remember thinking at the time though was how they were all one-dimensional with a single Character Flaw. I think Sally’s was Jealousy and Darrell’s was her Hot Temper. And maybe Mary Lou was Timid.
The Marlow books by Antonia Forest were actually way better and easily survive re-reading. As do the Jennings books by Anthony Buckeridge which are works of genius!

[Hepzibar]

Smileymoon don't be put off. I'm riveted, can't wait to get back to my book ( half term activities getting in way!)

[CalvinJohn]

I preferred St Clares and Bobby was my favourite.
I read one of the oned written recently, totally awful and they were playing netball 🤔

[Ronsters]

I loved MT as a child but even then Alicia and her gobby sidekick Betty got on my nerves, they were horrible! I re read the books recently and disliked them even more.

Gwendoline was a pain, but not that bad. Her real crime was not being good as games, which seemed the pinnacle of human achievement to Darrel and her ilk. Id have had an awful time at MT as I was crap at PE!

Someone wrote some follow up books where Gwen does indeed return as a teacher. Not written by Blyton though.

[SnuggyBuggy]

In a weird way I quite like how many of the values in these sorts of books haven't stood the test of time. It could provoke some interesting discussions with children about what we value and how we should treat others.

[Igotmylipstickon]

I loved these books as a child too and the name "Darrell Rivers" is a real blast from the past.

Had never heard of midnight feasts or lacrosse before reading those books. Can't remember storylines but the bullying definitely rings a bell.

I always felt sorry for the girls having to live at their school and felt their families didn't want them.

[Topseyt]

I enjoyed them as a child. I think they are still fine for many kids.

Bloody hell though, what a bunch they were! I'd be mortified if any of my kids behaved like any of them. I don't know why it took me until adulthood to understand that most of them were dreadful and spiteful bullies. I really don't know how none of them ever killed each other.

Looking back, I know that I related more to Gwendoline than to the others even though I didn't actually particularly like her at the time. I was not sporty either, and being sporty and loving games such as lacrosse were prerequisites for being accepted at either Mallory Towers or At. Clare's. She was the subject of a fair bit of bullying, as was I.

I do wonder if Enid Blyton created characters like Darrell Rivers and Alicia in her own image, since from some articles I have read Blyton herself wasn't a particularly pleasant or easygoing character. Didn't one of her daughter's once describe her as "without a shred of maternal instinct". She did actually ship her own two children out to Benenden boarding school virtually as soon as she could get them in there.

Interesting to note is that the pseudonym Darrell Waters was one that Blyton herself occasionally used. Her second husband's name was Kenneth Fraser Darrell Waters.

[TheresACatInMyLaundryBasket]

Was it MT or SC that had the unbearable games captain and some first former set off the fire alarm to rescue everybody from the meeting she called?

All I remember from SC is them bullying a homesick girl by calling her misery-girl and refusing to talk to her (because that'll help) and the first years having to clean the sixth formers shoes- and the clever French girl doing everything so wrong that she got dismissed from the duty (something I would have done at 14, too!)

[QueenOfTheAndals]

That was SC! Mirabel was the unpleasant games captain and Claudine's sister Antoinette (who used Angela's expensive face cream to polish shoes) set off the fire alarm.

[QueenOfTheAndals]

Another thing I found odd about the school stories was how some girls would've moved up a form by the following year when others stayed back. 3 of the SC books are set in the first form but by term 2 the head girl from term 1 has moved up into the second form, while the twins and the rest of the class are still in the first.

[SarahAndQuack]

No, I don't think you were unfair, because there definitely is the issue about boring married women getting fat (which is a bit sad), it's just it's not as much of a simplistic thing as in Blyton.

I think it's interesting you disliked Diana. I really like her in the TV adaptation of it (the one with Colleen Dewhurst being fantastic and poor lovely Jonathan Crombie as Gilbert). But in the books she is a bit of a foil to Anne at times, I suppose. I think nowadays we'd think her parents were pretty awful to her, too. I always thought that was a subtle message that blood family aren't always the best - because there's Marilla managing to be actually rather great for Anne, whereas Diana's dad refuses to let her carry on her education and her mother seems constantly to be finding fault with her until she lands Fred.

[SarahAndQuack]

QueenoftheAndals - yes, but that's what they did. They'd move people up according to how advanced they were, not according to age.

[BertrandRussell]

One of the reasons Blyton was banned in my house when I was a child was that my mum said they were all so bullying, snobbish and generally horrible.

[LordTubbington90]

I remember arriving at uni and finding it baffling and hilarious that not only was there was a lacrosse team, but that was all male, burly and considered an aggressive sport.


In my mind, it was a twee sport played by upper class schoolgirls in the early 20th century

[noraclavicle]

Bloody hell - I used to read MT and think the school and the characters seemed an awful lot nicer than the boarding school I was actually confined to. What does that say??!

[Jellycat1]

Oh my goodness I adored MT. I still remember the excitement of going to buy the next one each time I finished one! I liked Darrell but she annoyed me a bit. I thought (and still want to think) Alicia was pronounced Allissiya. St Claire's was good but MT rocked my world. I was actually at boarding school when I read them and wished I could transfer!

[Ronsters]

Daphne was an interesting character (for an Enid Blyton book) , Mary Lou's friend who risked her neck to save Mary Lou when she slipped off a cliff on a stormy night.
She was also revealed to be a liar and a thief, expelled from many schools. She was both heroine and bad egg, probably for the first time in a Malory Towers book the girls had to ponder grey areas rather than purely good/bad.
Luckily, Miss Theobald (I think that was her name), sorted her out with a few of her wise words.

[MissLadyM]

I've just ordered them to wallow in again! Has anyone read the new 6 written by someone else? I'm not keen on the idea of any new author continuing a series or James Bond, Christie etc

[toffee1000]

Just googled and Miss Theobald is St Clare’s head. MT head is Miss Grayling. They were both good with their wise words.

Also interesting that MT had one Mamzelle who wasn’t a pushover and was actually strict and not to play tricks on. Obviously she was unpopular.

[ScreamingValenta]

Someone (probably Bill or Clarissa) having to get up in the night and walk about for hours with a horse that had colic

It was indeed Bill's horse, Thunder, who had colic, but it was Darrell who got up to walk him round the stables. That was in the third form - Clarissa didn't arrive until the fourth form, and then spent the first half of term in Gwen's clutches (as the inspiration for her 'weak heart' ruse to get out of the School Cert) before revealing herself as a horsey person and making friends with Bill (to Gwen's chagrin).