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.

If you just google the book title and then add 'free pdf' you should be able to find them.

Oh yes I have found them all. Thanks!

I doubt Diana in AOGG was remotely fat as a child. LMMM was writing at a time when some poor children (including Anne) were painfully thin, so Diana was probably just a healthy weight with a roundish face and dimples. I seem to remember she got big later on in life though....!

Just finished second form at MT and in Darrell's words it's all come right

The girls all thought Ellen was the purse thief, and accused her without any proof (though she did steal the test papers as she was struggling to keep up)

Daphne was the real thief, and a con woman too, she pretended to be very rich and had Gwendoline Mary swooning around her.

Daphne parcelled up the empty purses to post off to a made up address (to get rid of the evidence) but Mary Lou took the parcel to post, and went over the cliff in a gale on the way to the post office.

Daphne saved her life by hanging over the edge of the cliff with her belt for Mary Lou to grab, and after advice from the headmistress, she came clean to the girls. They thought her good deed in saving Mary Lou cancelled out her bad deeds and decided to stick with her and give her another chance.

Phew.

Gotta I finished reading that one to DD literally last night!
Just got the rest of them to read back to back now 🙄😁

little I've got the day off today so have already started third year. Zerelda has arrived! Love these books, I re read every couple of years.

I'd forgotten all about Zerelda! And I thought I knew these books inside out!

It's always really annoyed me that they sneered at Zerelda for reciting Shakespeare in an American accent.

If they'd bothered to think about it, Shakespeare came before the English language travelled to America, so Zerelda's pronunciation was just as valid as their British one; and both would have been far removed from the 'original'.

I really want to 'pop up' as a character in those scenes and point that out.

I flirted with naming my daughter Mallory for a while

Why Frog is your surname Towers?

I'm struggling with the 'third', maybe that's why I can't remember it much. Cannot remember Zerelda at all. The lack of acceptance for her from the teaching staff is uncomfortable.

Bill and her horse are annoying.

Mavis and her voice are falling flat.

It's making me warm to Gwen

Gwen is my soulmate .

I so wanted to be Darrell, but now, so far, none of them.

I am investing far too much in this I am a 55 year old woman - I need to get a grip.

Bill and her horse are annoying.

Yes, WTF was that whinnying in the classroom about?

I'd love to see a proper 'modern' biography of Enid Blyton. The Helena Bonham Carter film fudged over it but Wikipedia goes into a bit more detail.
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enid_Blyton

AIBU to bury myself in my writing?
After a miscarriage, I've just had DD2 and my first husband has stopped working and become an alcoholic. Full disclosure- he has shell shock from the Great War.
By 1939, my DDs are 8 & 4, I'm churning out articles and books to support the family while 'd' H is having an affair with a girl 19 years younger.
I can't get a divorce, what should I do?
In 1940 I've published 14 books along with lots of articles, I'm worried about not seeing the girls but stbxh is taking me to the cleaners.

this is quite interesting

MT, SC and Trebizon were responsible for me asking to go to boarding school. I did and I loved it, but thankfully it was nothing like any of them, probably because it was the 90s rather than the 50s and also mixed.

I always wondered about the name Alicia, I also pronounced it Al-lick-ee-a and didn’t hear it IRL as a name for decades after reading the books. I guess it must have been quite an unusual name in the 1950s?

i am reading the first three malory towers books for my book club.[i know, i know...]

They are really really horrible! the bullying, the lack of pastoral care, the snobbery etc are horrendous.
As you do, it's lead me on to reading the st clares books again and they're a different kettle of fish. The girls are much kinder, much more emphasis on understanding why someone is behaving the way they are and giving them a chance.
I wonder why the two series are so markedly different?

St.Clare's and Mallory Towers were rather popular in Germany too and I am currently re-reading my mother's old books. However I have no idea who you guys are talking about because they changed all the names in the German version 😂
But you're right, some of the girls are actually horrible and not quite as cool as I used to think they are

They changed the names? Now I'm imagining Darrell Fluss and Sally Hoffen!

DowagerDuchessOfSass

It should be easy to work out which one is Darrell. She's the one who regularly loses it and does all the slapping and pushing. Clearly they never had any anger management courses in those days.

Just logged in to say that Alicia was definitely pronounced A liss ee ah in those days, and there was the constant reminder on the radio via references to A liss ee ah Fonteyn, the ballerina

I still love these but agree there is bullying. The silent treatment is especially mean. I never really liked Darrell or the twins that much -a but square and mainstream for my teenage liking I think. My favourites were Carlotta, Claudine, Bobby and Lucy.

I pronounced Alicia "Alice-uh" but my sister gleefully told me I was wrong and it was "Alicka" crikey if you could turn back time...

Oops! Not Alicia Fonteyn! Alicia Markova I meant. Apparently her real name was Alice Marks, but her name was changed so that she sounded Russian and so a ''proper' ballerina.

Re the knickers thing, and being big enough to act as portable cupboards in emergencies. According to my mother, they were called apple snatchers for that reason. Didn't the girls at the Chalet School used to take out the elastic and use them to make breeches for some of their dressing up evenings so they must have been quite a length?