when the posh children in Enid Blyton have an "ice", I always thought it meant "ice lolly"...

[sadpapercourtesan]

...but I was reading "Five Go To Billycock Hill" last night, and they talked about having an "ice" in a tub with a little wooden spoon...surely that's an ice cream?!

Yes, I have too much time on my hands. I should be doing stuff

And yes, we're told clever Alicia is allowed into the fifth form because she can work for the School Cert independently after she fails due to illness, but Gwen, who also fails, is similarly allowed to progress with no such explanation, though Connie is kept in the Fourth to have another shot.

And this even though Gwen pretended to be ill (with a weak heart, inspired by Clarissa's genuinely weak heart which meant she could not do any games or swimming, but which she miraculously recovered from) to try to get out of taking school cert, for which she suffered no real consequences other than having to do more swimming and walks.

I thought Gwen is allowed up because she's already too old to stay down.

I also get the impression that they think she won't pass however many times she does it, so staying down is pointless. Presumably they think Connie might well passif she redoes it, plus having the advantage that it separates her from her twin.
There may have also been an element of parent decision-do you want them to stay down and retake, meaning an extra year's school fees, or would you rather that didn't get it and continued up the school.

@IWouldBeSuperb I had outgrown Enid Blyton by the time I was in Y5, so I'd say the ideal time to read them would be between 6 and 9. Although I've come back to them as an adult, so you're never too old!

Does anyone remember what happened to Katherine, who was head of the first form in Darrell’s first term but does not feature in any of the other books?

I don't think we ever hear about her again she's just one of those pleasant, responsible background characters who fade out as soon as the central characters stop being new and start being able to be Head Girl and lay down the law to other people! Like Jean, the Scottish girl who is invariably described as 'shrewd' and 'plaintalking', is HG of the third form, and who then goes up a form and away from Darrell, Sally and co and is never heard of again to allow Darrell to be HG of the Fourth--.

Yes I remember in Claudine at St Clares the head of the fourth was someone called Susan (Susans always seemed to be nice in EB books) who had been left down a year. But in In the Fifth she had disappeared and Hilary Wentworth was head of the form again. She then had to be got rid of for the twins to become joint head girls of the school, so it was said she was leaving at the end of that term to join her parents in India.

She then had to be got rid of for the twins to become joint head girls of the school, so it was said she was leaving at the end of that term to join her parents in India

Good old Empire!

The bit I remember being fascinated by as a child in St Clare's (because it was one of the big divergences from Malory Towers) was the fagging system that the twins fall foul of when they're new, and refuse to clean Belinda Towers' muddy boots, stoke her fire and put her kettle on to boil. (I think I didn't grasp as a kid quite how long it would take a kettle to boil over an open fire, and was a bit puzzled Belinda was so furious that Isabel hadn't put the kettle on to boil first while she cleaned the boots.)

What occurs to me now is that the twins, who are from a privileged background, have been at a 'luxurious' prep and wanted to go with their friends to the 'exclusive' Ringmere (snooty Pat complains that the dormitories at St Clare's 'aren't nearly as nicely furnished as the maids' bedrooms at home') will simply never in their lives unless they were Guides, maybe have cleaned their own boots, made up a fire, or boiled a kettle. It's not even just a matter of feeling it's outrageous that the lower forms fag for the upper ones, or that the tasks are 'beneath them', it's that servants will always have done that kind of thing for them. Isabel stares at a muddy Wellingtons and has no idea how to start to clean them because she's literally never had to do it.

Weren't they outraged that they had to mend their own clothes, because there had been sewing maids at their old school to do it for them?

I'd forgotten that -- yes! And they wanted to go to Ringmere because only 'well-bred' girls went there, and you got to wear evening dresses after lessons, and their friends had got long evening dresses like their mother's! (Can you imagine school meals in a big dining hall with a couple of hundred schoolgirls in long 1940s evening dresses?)

Weren't they outraged that they had to mend their own clothes
Yes. Having to repair clothes seems to have been a theme through most school stories, whether Blyton or otherwise. There are girls who can quickly do amazing invisible darns, and those who struggle even to sew a button on. Not something boys ever have to worry about, though I am sure they must have had holes in socks, lost buttons, torn shorts and so on.

@VirginiaWolverine - I can now read Worralls. This thread has been quite expensive. I also have new Biggles books to read (new to me, obviously.) Still, I must do my bit to support the economy.

EB's school stories tell us about a lost era of independent schools often started by single, educated women. I find them fascinating.

Anyone read Angela Brazil?

I had an Enid Blyton compilation and I can remember one story about a naughty fairy who had to paint the tips of daisies pink and another about a greedy child who ate all the pink and yellow sweets and ended up missing a party - I don’t suppose this rings a bell with anyone and they can point me towards the title.

One thing that intrigued me about Malory Towers was when Maureen Little arrived as a new girl, she said that her old school had had to shut down when the head died suddenly. Now why on earth would that have to happen, couldn't one of the teachers have acted up while they recruited a replacement?

Not something boys ever have to worry about, though I am sure they must have had holes in socks, lost buttons, torn shorts and so on.

Yes, presumably there were flotillas of sewing maids at boys' schools, and their presence was not a sign of luxury or snobbery, as at the O'Sullivan twins' prep.

Yes, I've also read a fair bit of Angela Brazil, @YetAnotherSpartacus. Definitely an earlier generation, both in terms of settings, and earlier sets of assumptions about girls' education and the comparative novelty of middle-class girls needing to train for careers, and thinking about medicine or 'settlement work' or horticulture or setting up their own schools.

Much more historically detailed than EB -- I remember a character going in for a high school scholarship during WWI in one AB novel who says she's wearing a swastika, because she's never lucky and wanted to see whether it would help!

@SerenDippitty, I think I assumed (especially given that the school in question was the joked-about 'Measley Manor') that this was code for 'It was a very small, probably not very established, school set up and largely run by one woman and a couple of assistants, maybe in an ordinary house', not a flourishing establishment with a few hundred girls, like Malory Towers. That kind of tiny establishment probably wouldn't survive the death of the main instigator...?

EB's school stories tell us about a lost era of independent schools often started by single, educated women. I find them fascinating.

There's A World of Girls by Rosemary Auchtermuchty and its sequel, A World of Women, which talks about all these stories if girks' schools, with strong, independent women and girls getting into difficulties which they sort out themselves with men only being involved as a minor part as plot requires (e.g. servant providing access to garden shed with crucial ladder, policeman or father to tie up the official bits once scoundrels have been apprehended by girls etc,) and it offers strong models to girls reading them. There are chapters focussing on particular series, like the Chalet School, and also a chapter on EB.

Ah you're probably right. Maureen went off to train as a secretary and get a job in an office (much to the disdain of Gwen who had forced her father to agree to pay for her to go to an expensive Swiss finishing school) and didn't feature after the Fifth Form so it's quite possible her parents could not really afford the Malory Towers fees.

Much more historically detailed than EB -- I remember a character going in for a high school scholarship during WWI in one AB novel who says she's wearing a swastika, because she's never lucky and wanted to see whether it would help

I missed that one!

I have been long intrigued about the special friendships. There were quite a few in AB and in EB - 'Bill and Clarissa' spring to mind.

old school had had to shut down when the head died suddenly. Now why on earth would that have to happen, couldn't one of the teachers have acted up while they recruited a replacement?

I'm guessing the Head funded it out of a bequest of sorts?

@RedNun didn't Maureen boast about the two swimming pools at Mazeley Manor and say "you should have seen the playing fields!" though? I thought it sounded quite established and also thought it was odd that it had shut down when the Head died. I wondered whether it had had other problems and the Head dying wasn't really the reason.

Doesn't Gwen end up the horror! having to get an office job, too, in the end, when her father becomes an invalid and can't afford to send her to her Swiss finishing school? (Clearly the ultimate punishment in EB's eyes...)

I don't think I see the Clarissa/Bill relationship any differently to any of the other girls' friendships, except that it's mediated primarily via horses. EB does very much depict the norm as having an exclusive 'best friend', rather than looser groups, and sees anyone who doesn't have one as anomalous, eg Bill, before Clarissa arrives, is depicted as not needing a BF because her horse Thunder fulfils that role.

Oh, I think I assumed Maureen was lying/exaggerating about the facilities! Maybe you're right, though!

@TwentyViginti my Granny definitely says 'tuthbrush' and lots of other relics.

Bill and Clarissa were so gay! They went on to set up a riding school after they left malory Towers!
The two teachers as well.....games mistress? Miss Collins?