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

[quirrelquarrel]

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!

Ah yes the cold baths. I was so impressed by EBD's vivid descriptions of the energising properties of a cold morning bath that I tried it myself... let's just say that once was enough.

Ah, they don't make young gels like they used to, Mooncup.

There is actually a reboot available where Mary Lou shows her true colours. Oh yes she does.

www.amazon.co.uk/Chalet-Girls-Grow-Up-Sequel/dp/0953395200/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1329778929&sr=8-1

I want to win one of 'Tom's' dolls houses.

I have read that 'add on' it is horrible and destroys all illusuions.

I just loved that popping out babies was a competitive sport - there's some line, after someone has an unexpected birth of twins, about how Madge's daughters are really pleased they're now 'only one behind aunt Joey'.

I quite fancied all the trilingualism, too.

Btw, did anyone else wonder how come Len, Con and Margot were apparently identical, and with conveniently different-coloured hair?

MooncupGoddess - morning baths - just splash in, splash out, and leave the cold tap running for the next girl on the list for that bath! And woe betide you if you leave a mess in the bathroom!

I yearned to go to the Chalet School, even though I was one of the plump, slightly dull girls who would never have been the best sort of Chalet Girl. I would probably have ended up as Library Prefect.

Oooh, I loved them. Just loved them. Read and had the lot. Dunno where they've gone though, I reckon Mum got shot as soon as I left home.

I love them too. Can I add:

Hit by a toboggan and nearly died
Hit by a hammer dropped from height and didn't nearly die
Rescued from burning building entered to only to save a BOOK
Rescued from crush injuries caused by Frau Berlin whilst escaping burning building
Rescued from train crash at least twice
Rescued from cliff edge (various)
Rescued from roof whilst rescuing cat

to the accident book

WilsonFrickett - I read that ages ago, and ended up with the impression that the writer didn't actually like the chalet school series, as she seemed bent on ruining every character from the books (like Jack Maynard committing suicide)!

Yes, but don't you think Joey would be the bane of all parents, probably half the teachers, and a source of embarrassment to her own daughters (or probably by now granddaughters)?

Yep, I only read it once (as opposed to my originals which have been read to shreds) but I did like the author's passive agressive darkness. And the way Margaret ends up writing unfashionable books, just like her mother. Author - bitter much?

Ah - I am sure I remember two cookery incidents, no doubt years apart -

one where someone somehow manages to muddle up saffron and sulphur - cue immensely eggy smelling buns; and

one where someone somehow manages to muddle up cloves and garlic cloves, with disastrous consequences?

I'm sure one of these involves the younger Linton sister but I'm beginning to think I've dreamt them.

Saffron and Sulphur was Joyce Lindon.
Wasn't the cloves one Cornelia?
There's also Carola's one of using cod liver oil to fry donuts.
And one of the war ones (Lavender?) where a group of the children take over Joey's kitchen to make fruit cake and waffles. I think they added too much bicarbonate to the waffles which somehow made them inedible and something else went wrong with the fruit cake-wouldn't cook through or something. Joey got Anna to make a new fruit cake which struck me as unlikely she'd have had the rashions unless she pinched them from school.

SDTG - that would have made you a Chalet girl of the best sort. I'm sure Joey was library prefect for while (in Eustacia I think)

Cooking - who was it who made doughnuts fried in cod liver oil? I can't remember which book but i'm certain it was Chalet School

Not really to do with this thread, but I would like to share with you all the pride I feel. DD1 (11) has previously refused to read the Chalet School, using appalling language to describe it - calling it 'boring' and 'old-fashioned'. Yesterday she picked up "The School at the Chalet", and today she asked to read the next book. Sometimes being a parent is totally rewarding .

Stuff Toby Young's free school what right minded parents really want is a Chalet School.

AIBU to leave my children at the local railway station with a trunk and label and send then unaccompanied across Europe?

There are chalet school on kindle - go to Amazon and search! I have them on mine!

I don't think there are any Elinor M Brent-Dyer Chalet School books on kindle - they're just the tribute books.

But I will be ordering 'The School by the River' - thanks JoyfulPuddlejumper.

Oh I LOVED the one where they started Domestic Science and all the English gels were and the continentals were . Because some of them actually, you know, helped at home...

And Joey was the Librarian before she was head girl, and editor of the Chaletian since about primary 1 to be honest, only passing it on to poor bedridden Stacey when she attained head girl ship.

I'm off to check for Kindles now...

I loved it when Joey fainted at the Oberammergau Passion Play when overwhelmed with religious zeal.
And the uber middle-classness of them! They found an Irish urchin living rough (can't remember name - Bridget?) but it was OK as she had 'dainty table manners'. So the school adopted her. But of course. Thank God she didn't eat like a bog-standard urchin..

All that lovely fresh air, and hanging plumeaux out of windows. No damp and fust there.