To not be feeling the love for the Chalet School

[doingthesplitz]

Inspired by a few threads on here, I rooted out a couple of old Chalet books the last time I was at my mum's and brought them home, looking forward to a nice few hours wallowing in the past. However, I tried both of them and couldn't get past the first couple of chapters.

They just didn't have the same magic anymore; the girls were either ridiculously prim, or chortling, jolly hockey sticks types. When they weren't all chuckling merrily their eyes were darkening as they remembered Joey/MaryLou whoever's recent brush with death. The teachers were far too wrapped up in the school and needed to get out and go to the pictures occasionally and maybe find themselves a boyfriend. And the 'old girls' needed to "move away from the schoolgates. Nothing to see here anymore".

AIBU to think they are not as good as I remember and to feel a bit sad .

I bet they put archaeology on the Chalet School syllabus so she could come back as a teacher and never, ever have to leave the safety of school and Joey's loving care again

Nah, she'll have come back to fill the new but essential post of school archaeologist. A happy few years ensue, digging holes into which girls can fall, and then heroically rescuing them with her handy Girl Guide cord. That's until she bags a doctor of her very own, of course and lives on the Platz forevermore.

Chiming in to say that yes, The Chalet School Grows Up was disturbing, but that's what I liked about it. It's like thinking that your childhood neighbours were the perfect family, then years later you find out that the mother hid gin bottles around the house while the father shagged the nanny. It's not cosy, but it's an interesting new perspective.

I don't think Mary-Lou would come back and teach. She would find she couldn't interfere as easily and get away with it. She'd be more like Joey, dashing into school wanting them to lay down all their problems for her to solve. And leaves them saying "no one understands girls like OOAO does"

Ooh yes, school archaeologist cum counsellor. She can fill in for Joey when she's off on maternity leave (again!)

I bought a few 'Sweet Valley High' books in a car boot and re read them as I adored them aged 8/9/10 - utterly hilarious! The outfits, the green/blue eyes, the 'lovely figures'...

"Peggy" and "Mary-Lou"? Ooh! I see why you're not getting back into them!

Of all the later books, only "A New Mistress" really matched the earlier ones.

I agree that "Exile" was very ahead of its time.

Antonia Forest, now: she managed to make every book totally believable and up to date, in spite of the weird time-scale.
I think the two had very different methods of writing. EBD was a bit slap-dash, frequently muddled her characters and repeated her plots. AF was meticulous and incredibly detailed, planning her books and re-writing them again and again.

I was just going to say read Antonia Forest! Her books are sooo good (Although I struggle with The Thuggery Affair)
However for getting back into EBD (who I also love!) try the first 15 or 16 books....................

YABVVUR

Love this thread

Hi Ruey! Just finished reading my whole collection Might have a rest before I get into the La Rochelle ones...

For those wondering about cuts in the Armada paperbacks, here is a list showing how major/minor the cuts were. Exile, Three Go and Problem all have chapters cut out and are much better with the chapters in. There are about 5 more with 'very major cuts' but I don't have full versions of them as yet!

There is a chalet school fanfic community out there on the net and wow do they hate MaryLou with a collective passion.

I loved her. And the Highland Twins and Exile ones were fascinating as a child.

The difference between the abridged and unabridged books is quite big for most of them, especially out of school parts.

Agree about Antonia Forest. No disappointments at all on rereading now.

Having fallen in love with the CS when I was about nine & re-reading the books frequently (sometimes all of them (I have most of the series), sometimes just s couple) until well into my 30s, I was devastated to get some off the shelf when DC2 was tiny to read during night feds & be really disenchanted with them. It was as if I suddenly realised how you were either in the inner circle or out, if you were out of it & a bit different then you'd probably be really miserable especially if one of the "leaders" (bullies?) decided you were a project & would conform & how dangerous it would be to go there. I keep trying different ones as I can't believe that, after 25yrs, the love affair is over but it seems to be.
Mary Lou etc are not role models. Len was possibly OK...until she goes & gets engaged at 18.

I wonder if the obsession with staying in touch with the school (ie former pupils going back to teach there) was something to do with how constrained women's lives were at the time most of the books were written. For most upper/middle class girls, leaving school was an immediate shutdown of their lives; waiting around to get married, getting married, being up to your nipples in infants... There's even a bit in one of the fairly early ones where Joey (as a teenager in the 6th form) says to one of her friends that she hates the thought of leaving school as she will have nothing much to do 'help my sister with the babies and practise my singing, it just seems so LITTLE after the life we lead here.'

It was probably unconcious of EBD who also has Jo say in a later book that she's 'not a feminist'. but at the same time there must have been an awareness, at some level, that going to boarding school was a time when you could be yourself and not an appendage of your male owner, and leaving school meant the end of anything interesting.

Ok will have to climb up into the attic and see if any of my earlier Chalet School books survived.

I never realised the Armada paperbacks were abridged. Most of my old ones would probably be those. Any other versions would be ones I borrowed from the library or maybe one or two my dad found for me at Sales of Work. Pity, as it's quite expensive to buy old ones now.

I'm currently re reading a brilliant book called Susan at School by Jane Shaw. Does anyone else remember this. It's very funny in ;a tongue in cheek way and the girls are very believable - not nearly as prim and proper as the Chalet girls, but not quite St Trinian's either.

I agree they're pretty bad considered as novels, but I have a sneaking soft spot for their particular flaws and madnesses. The cult of St. Joey, who is both a madcap schoolgirl (despite being almost 40 with 11 children and numerous wards) and a wise, warm, womanly counsellor on everything from bereavement to naughty Middles. Appalling, bumptious Mary-Lou who starts off plain and stocky, has an accident saving someone's life and ends up blonde, willowy and gorgeous. And supernaturally wise, which somehow comes from growing up with her tyrant granny. The sickly sweet Robin who ends up a sickly sweet nun. Doctor husbands who keep doping their wives for the most minor excitements. All the interesting characters being 'delicate'. The obsession with exciting foreign cakes and 'nectar'-like coffee. And the miraculous healing powers of milk!

And my favourite - the fact that no one ever seems to have proof read or edited for consistency, so that characters who start off the same age get older (or sometimes younger) at completely different rates, end up in the same form as people five or six years behind them, change names, religions etc, and in one case have three different fiancé/husbands...

Arabesque Oh my goodness! I adore the Susan books, and have never really heard of anyone reading them for ages!
Lazy Midge, dopey Tessa...and the books set back at home and abroad are really good too. Especially when the Gascoigne family feature, their clashes with Susan etc. are hilarious. Now dying to go back and reread

I think though when reading the Chalet school you sort of blend out the inconsistances. I don't really notice them most of the time.
However I was reading one of the Monica Edwards books last night to ds and noticed a very minor inconsistancy between books (which pony likes to go ahead) and it really jarred because usually she's very careful.

The Jane Shaw books are very funny. If you find the Susan books funny, try Breton Adventure and (I think) Bernese adventure. They're funnier.

I hate Mary Lou.

Glad I've got that off my chest.

Miss Annersley! I'm shocked! You're not supposed to hate any of your pupils. Particularly Mary-Lou. However rude she is you must look at her with your piercing grey eyes that never need glasses and think "It's only Mary Lou so I'll tell her this confidential information that no one should know..."

You hid that pretty well all those years Miss Annersley!

I love Breton and Bernese Adventures too! Prefer Susan though.
And Miss Annersley - I'm SHOCKED!

I would like someone to write a chalet school sequel where Miss Annersely is discovered to have been wearing contact lenses all along.

Grey tinted contact lenses?