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.

I read these books to my sons when they were aged maybe 8 and 9. They enjoyed comparing characters in the books to real life characters in their school. They could name kids who behaved like all the different characters. I thought that was interesting. They didn't hero worship the naughty kids or anything, they didn't like Betty or Alicia. One of my sons was quite badly bullied in primary school so got quite angry about their behaviour. We read all of the books though so they must have enjoyed listening to them even though they didn't like any of the characters.

There are audio books of MT and SC with different people playing each character. They do leave some bits out but my kids love them (I quite enjoy them myself).
And yes Daphne was a real little fake who let Ellen take the blame for all the missing items, but the girls forgive her and she 'turns over a new leaf and becomes nice.

www.novelicious.com/2014/03/quiz-which-malory-towers-character-are-you.html

I copied one of the girls in the book in real life. I was convinced English teachers made it up (more of a factual mathematician, me), so I copied a poem from a book and handed it in for homework. I never did well at English and thought the teacher was so biaased Id get a poor mark because he hated me and Id prove his prejudice.

He had it printed in the school magazine.

The answer key was much too nice about Alicia! “You can be a little sharp tongued”... understatement!
I didn’t really fit with any of the answers, but I suppose I’d go with A and be Sally. Except Sally was described in the books as not really having any imagination, which isn’t true of me. Whilst I wouldn’t be able to come up with a whole pantomime myself, I do like writing stories.

Zerelda the American has made an appearance now (3rd book) along with Mavis (all vanity and voice according to DR).

I can remember Mavis but not Zerelda.

I suspect part of the bullying etc was, unfortunately, a fairly accurate portrayal of some boarding schools at that time. My dad boarded in the 1950s and was horrifically bullied and regularly whipped by teachers and prefects. He's never really got over it. My mum boarded as well, but her school sounded surprisingly gentle in comparison (albeit very dull in comparison with MT and SC!).

My mispronunciations of names in MT included Alicka, Mam'zelle Dunpot and Mam'zelle Rojiray.

It's a shame that EB so often created characters and then apparently got bored of them and shelved them after one book - Lucy and Margery in SC are two that come to mind - wasn't it a bit lazy to just 'move them up a year' so they could completely disappear?!

Also I often wondered why most of the girls had surnames but some didn't. Mary-Lou and Irene both never had their surnames referred to.

Zerelda wanted to be an actress (Hollywood actress, natch) - and was your 'typical' American: all make up, curled hair, drawl and affectation, unlike our fresh-faced, wholesome, sport-loving British gels....

I believe she was punished by being humiliated by a drama teacher, who thought she was being deliberately OTT, when auditioning for a part she really wanted.

I just did that quiz ^ . I am Sally. The girl who was rather boring and serious. Hmmm.
I now feel the urge to write some fan fiction of Whatever Happened to Sally.

They were very mean to Zerelda. She was a bit dramatic but she was good-natured and generous.

I also struggled with pronouncing Alicia and in my head Felicity is still pronounced Fletchy.

I didn’t know how to pronounce Antoinette, so rather than asking or guessing, I just renamed her Anita.

I always pronounced Alicia “A-lee-see-a” and completely mangled most of the French names and phrases in the books. I also used to pronounce Ethel to rhyme with lethal and was adamant that I was correct.

Does anyone else now look at Alicia and think “malicious”?

Has Alma Pudden already been mentioned? Or was she St. Clare's ?

Remember in the last book when Darrell was talking to the HT about her, sally, Alicia and Betty going to St. Andrews, and Grayling said Darrell would do better in college than Alicia and Betty as they would get distracted by (gasp!) dinners and parties?

The horror of it! Young women enjoying parties

Alma 'Pudding' Pudden was St Clares.

I’m very old- and Alicia was a name posh girls older than me were called, so I knew it was Alis-ia. A crisp sound-almost Alice with ia on the end. still get irrationally infuriated by the modern Aleeshia sort of pronounciation.

Cattenburg I look at Alicia and think what a nasty piece of work

How do you pronounce Alicia I have wondered about this for years, is it Alice ee ah

Or aleesh ia

English Alicias are, or used to be, Alyssia

New fangled Alicias tend to be Aleeshas

that was Amanda Chartelow (aka Amanda Shoutalot - I think it was Claudine's sister Antoinette who gave her that nickname, but may be mistaken).

Amanda was in malory towers-she arrived in the final term because her school had burned down. She wants to be in the olympic games and it's mamzelle dupont who says 'shoutalot'

I know because i've just been reading it again!
I thought this time round-apart the bullying and snobbery that the school's approach to a EAL learning was horrendous!
poor claudine and suzanne- with all the teachers getting cross with them for not understanding english!

But the class issue-Jo JOnes anyone? with the dreadful vulgar father who describes himself as a cheeky chappie?

Wasn't Jo American? I can't imagine any American calling himself a "cheeky chappie" yet he did in the book!

I was another one who thought her name was pronounced Alikia. I also pronounced Felicity as feely-city. And, never having studied French, Mam'zelle was mam-zeh-luh

I was about 6 when I read them and the St Clare's books and I presumed that's what secondary school was actually like. Decided I did not want to go as I hated sports and the idea of having to clean people's muddy boots horrified me. I also decided that the sensible thing to do at a school like Whyteleafe would be to tell your family to keep all your money at home for you!

I'm probably lucky that all the classism went over my head and I didn't realise that people like me only appeared in those sorts of books as the cleaner's daughter who gets teased for incorrect grammar or the scholarship girl who everyone presumes is a thief.

Speaking of Whyteleafe, it was fairly socialist for Blyton wasn't it? A council of students dispense justice and everyone puts their pocket money in a box and it's equally allocated!