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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to think all UK schools would be better off being Chalet Schools?

233 replies

quirrelquarrel · 20/02/2012 20:17

French, German, English days- hikes up the hills- Kaffe und Küchen- Prees and Joeys and Mary Lous rounding up the miscreants.....would it be impossible, do you think?

Wonder if there is a school like this left!

OP posts:
WilsonFrickett · 20/02/2012 21:26

Or like being in a film. I always thought the producer in that one was Leni Riefensthal.

misslinnet · 20/02/2012 21:26

ISayHolmes - acid squirting was The Chalet School and Richenda.

There were also several incidents where parties of girls out on hikes got marooned in huts for hours or overnight due to sudden storms and blizzards.

TheyCallMeMimi · 20/02/2012 21:29

Chalet School was whay I studied German at school - and uni!

MissAnnersley · 20/02/2012 21:30

Yes, I ended up working in Austria because of the Chalet School.

StickyProblem · 20/02/2012 21:35

Yes Holmes as MissLinnet says the acid one was Richenda. A bit hard-core I thought!
I think reading lying down was meant to strain your eye muscles, but it was OK as long as you sat right up with your bedjacket on.
Ah Joey and her magical "healing" singing!
She did it to Maria Balbini as well...I am such a saddo. I just paid about £5 for a 1980s paperback of the Highland Twins because I wanted to hear about Jack's near miss with death.
I'm afraid the older I get the more irritated I am by Joey. Shut tf up love!!

VeryHungryKatypillar · 20/02/2012 21:41

YANBU. And this thread right here is one of the reasons I love mumsnet. No-one of my aquaintance IRL gets why the Chalet School books are so great!

Every morning I think, shall I air my mattress by throwing off the bedsheets and making a hump in the middle, before going off to wash in the Splasheries? Then I think, nah, fuck it. It's a memory foam heavy bugger. I'll do myself a mischief.

MissAnnersley · 20/02/2012 21:45

I remember driving through Moreton-in-Marsh in the 80s with my parents. One of the bookshops had a kind of side room/cupboard full of Chalet School books.

It genuinely felt like being in heaven (aged 12). They seemed to have all the books that were missing from my collection. My mum bought me 6 Chalet School books that day and I didn't say a word for our entire two week family holiday.

I honestly believe the Chalet School would be a happier place without Mary Lou. Grin

swanker · 20/02/2012 22:12

ah, 'splasheries' Grin

It is time I re-read them all.... then I can introduce them to DD!

swanker · 20/02/2012 22:14

ha- missannersley- I think I bought my first ones because there were about a dozen or so at a jumble sale, and I concluded that they must be quite good if someone had taken the time to write so many in a series!

Smile
Tricycletops · 20/02/2012 22:21

I hated Mary-Lou so much. All that inappropriate bluntness. But "it's not cheek, it's just Mary-Lou"...

Original poster
quirrelquarrel · 20/02/2012 22:23

A good number of the girls seemed to lose their hair as a result of all these accidents, only to have it grow back curly.

I tried to get stuck into the Elsie books because of Joey writing on her reams of paper the first time she almost popped her clogs (or was it the second?...). Went a bit off her once I found out just how good she was and stuck to the one Jalna book I had.

OP posts:
Llareggub · 20/02/2012 22:24

I wanted a daughter called Richenda. The heroines of all my primary school short stories were always called Richenda, much the delight of my fellow Chalet School adoring teacher.

grimblesmother · 20/02/2012 22:27

I have never read any of these books.

I've just ordered the first one for DDs birthday and I intend to read it first.

It'd better be good, it's only 'cos of you lot on here carping on about it that I've bought the damned thing.

redrubyshoes · 20/02/2012 22:28

I have a pencil sketch by Nina K Brisley, the illustrator of the Chalet School books hanging in my bedroom.

It is very pretty.

MerryMarigold · 20/02/2012 22:29

I always wanted triplets because of the Chalet School. Then 25 years later I have a scan and they tell me I'm expecting...TRIPLETS! Shock. Anyway, turned out they got it wrong and it was 'only' twins, was soooo disappointed. No Chalet School re-enactment for me Sad.

RueDeWakening · 20/02/2012 22:31

IABU to keep my entire collection of Chalet School books up on a high shelf where DD can't reach them? :o

Don't forget the sinking in a muddy bog and immediately coming down with peritonitis (Julie Lucy).
Annis ran away and ended up shipwrecked on a bird sanctuary.
Mary Lou and Jo were out on the lake in a rowing boat when a storm came up, they had to climb a cliff to escape I think (mind you, they were both proper grown ups by then...)
There's an accident involving a glacier or avalanche and Miss Ferrars I think too.
One of the last books, the girl (can't remember which one, Erica maybe?) fell into a big hole in the school playing fields that suddenly appeared for no reason.

Mary Lou would have got a big slap upside the head if she lived in this house.

NonnoMum · 20/02/2012 22:32

Watch out for snow blindness!!!!

RueDeWakening · 20/02/2012 22:34

Marigold - I wasn't listening when the sonographer told me I was expecting triplets (previous MC, I switched off after she said "there's a heartbeat" the first time) :o then she repeated herself several times until I "got it". Sadly DS is the only survivor - carrying triplets is hard work, and there's no way that Jo would have gone full term with them I reckon!

nothingoldcanstay · 20/02/2012 22:36

Loved the "no slang" rule too. Those poor American girls.. Clem especially was just beyond the limit.

Bewilderedmum · 20/02/2012 22:36

Oh I LOVED these books - Simone was a bit scary/stalkerish though.

Last time I read them, I was in hospital in 2000, and for some bizarre reason, the ward had a bookshelf chocka with them.

I spent many a happy hour between pissing the odd kidney stone (3!) Shock revisiting old times.... It livened up having to strain, sieve and record my urine - actually I was off my face on painkillers which added to my excitement and I think I'll stop now.

MerryMarigold · 20/02/2012 22:38

Sorry RuDe. There were other triplets I'm thinking of - Margot, Len & Con.

stubbornstains · 20/02/2012 22:42

I can only remember the morning choice of bath in the Splasheries....either cold or "chill off" Sad
(the above emoticon has been repurposed from "sad" to "blue with cold")

MooncupGoddess · 20/02/2012 22:42

I love the way pregnancy could only be hinted at very delicately, which as a child I totally missed. In fact I seem to remember Jo herself didn't notice that Madge was up the duff and was quite surprised to find she suddenly had a new niece.

The triplets thing is ridiculous, surely she would have been huge and given birth prematurely?

RueDeWakening · 20/02/2012 22:49

Around 34 weeks (some say 32) is considered full term for trips...you'd think all those Drs would notice, maybe they just thought Jack and Jo had been up to mischief before they got married and were too polite to mention it? :o

occasionalposter · 20/02/2012 22:49

I love the Chalet School - wish I could afford to buy them in hardback but can have all bar three in paperback. My school Junior library had a complete set of hardbacks (although I didn't read them until I was in the Sixth Form) would be worth a fortune these days.

DD (12) is has got as far as Shocks for the Chalet School. I started her on Chalet School as I was fed up buying Diary of a Wimpy Kid!
She is enjoying them but she does have to keep asking me for a translation - and that isn't just for the French and German words!