The Naughtiest Girl In the School series has a major plot hole

[TheKrakening3]

This bothered me as a child and is bothering me again now I am reading the series to my kids.

The school money box just wouldn’t work, would it? Parents wouldn’t send their kids back to school with pounds and pounds of holiday money, knowing it was going to be put in a school box and redistributed evenly to all kids. Parents would either-

1. Send their kids with no money, but heaps of stamp sheets and sweets;
2. Send their kids with a small bit of money in keeping with the ethos of the school but not send pounds and pounds for birthdays etc in the school term as it would disappear into the box;
3. Send their kids with nothing, knowing their kids would be getting weekly money from the box.

The whole system would collapse in days.

I agree. I always thought it do unfair kids had to put birthday money in.

So unfair. Not do.

Depends on the parents surely? The money system is in keeping with how the school is run in general. So parents who didn't agree with the whole ethos wouldn't send their dc there.
I was desperate to go to Whyteleafe!

Kids would bug their parents for money because they're idealistic that way. They like to contribute to the group

You are so right.

It was like a magic box. Most kids stuck in £10 at the start of term, and every week they each took out £2.
With money left over for a new shovel or tennis racket? Madness.

Ha. I was tormented my whole life by bossy older siblings. That school seemed like hell. Even those "good" older kids seemed fake and liable to turn bad any second. Shudder.

I always used to wonder where they got all the change from each week. And why the money box looked so small for so many children. And yes, why would parents send so much money to school knowing that it could be spent on buying Harry a new music book.

Overthinking. Possibly.

@WhenSheWasBad

You are so right.

It was like a magic box. Most kids stuck in £10 at the start of term, and every week they each took out £2.
With money left over for a new shovel or tennis racket? Madness.

£2? I thought it was 20p!

I absolutely agree! You’d just be like ‘granny will you send me a sheet of stamps and a pound of toffee and a book and a hair ribbon, cheers now!’

I mean after you’d been denied pocket money a couple of times for blotting your homework while watching your mortal school enemy pop off to the tea shop with your aunties birthday pound paying for it.

Oh it was 2shillings in the original version apparently. As I've never read theshit updated ones I didn't realise it had changed!

@TheFormerPorpentinaScamander

Oh it was 2shillings in the original version apparently. As I've never read theshit updated ones I didn't realise it had changed!

It’s two pounds now. I have the originals and updated ones. Fortunately not much has changed. Kids still get slapped. I do believe Nora threatened to spank Elizabeth with a hairbrush in the originals but that is not in the new ones. Or maybe that memory is from Malory Towers. Will have to check!

Pretty sure that's The Naughtiest Girl.
In my memory its 20p. Maybe there was a middle version between the original 2s and modern £2.
I'd check but my copy is in the loft.

Malory Towers changed from being threatened with a hairbrush spanking to being threatened with a "scolding".

I know which I'd prefer . . .

They don't slap or spank in the updated Malory Towers - they 'scold'

I used to love the Naughtiest Girl series, haven't read in about 30 years lol!
Yeah, never thought of it that way.
You're right
As for the changing of language someone mentioned with the slaps becoming a telling off, why change?!
I remember coming across a newer version of The Magic Faraway Tree several years ago in the library and being outraged that Dame Slap at the top of the tree in a land whose name I have now forgotten lol doesn't slap anymore.
She just shouts loudly or some such bollocks

@Quaagars I think she was renamed Dame Tickle. At least she was in the absolutely terrible cartoon version they made of it. She had a 'big pink tickling stick'

Wasn't the money box system, and in general how the school operated, a nod to communism?

I reread them recently, and I thought the same thing. If you're only going to get 2/- a week (or whatever amount,) you make sure you only have that amount times number of weeks in term, and ask for any birthday money to go in your post office savings account or whatever.

I have reread a lot of Blyton lately and there are often gaps like that. I'm currently rereading Biggles, which stands up much better.

[quote TheFormerPorpentinaScamander]@Quaagars I think she was renamed Dame Tickle. At least she was in the absolutely terrible cartoon version they made of it. She had a 'big pink tickling stick' [/quote]
She is Dame Snap in my recently purchased versions. It’s infuriating- she is a bad guy and part of her bad guy actions was going around slapping children willy nilly. I could understand changing the slapping if she was meant to be a decent adult using the punishments of the day but the slapping in the originals was always presented as bad and unfair.

I think I am far too invested now I am re-reading all these book!

There are better writers of children's literature. noel stretfield

I re-read a lot of them a few years ago. Sometimes though I find the books I loved as a child should stay in my childhood because they just don't stand up to adult scrutiny!
@FlouncerInDenial I'm on a Noel Streatfeild kick at the moment and constantly grumbling to myself that they renamed so many of her books "...shoes". Once again I'm glad I kept my old copies!

@FlouncerInDenial

There are better writers of children's literature. noel stretfield

See also Antonia Forest

I remember being outraged at all the money having to be doled out by those judgmental kids when I first read it it at about age 8

I do believe Nora threatened to spank Elizabeth with a hairbrush in the originals but that is not in the new ones.

That's now only in the rare 'After Hours' special editions, which focus on what their parents get up to at home during term-time.

I think she was renamed Dame Tickle. At least she was in the absolutely terrible cartoon version they made of it. She had a 'big pink tickling stick'

Did she also have big buck teeth, mad hair and a lot of little men working for her?!

I read these but can't remember much except before the Naughty Girl gets sent away.... she pins her stockings to the governess. Stuck in my head as I didn't know what stockings were or what a governess was! I think I guessed from the helpful illustration and context!