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AIBU?

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Original poster

To not be feeling the love for the Chalet School

143 replies

doingthesplitz · 27/06/2013 10:26

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 Sad.

OP posts:
Beeyump · 03/07/2013 10:20

And I just don't like the name Reg, I imagine him looking a bit weaselly. Jo to the Rescue is one of my favourites though.

SolidGoldBrass · 03/07/2013 10:35

Beeyump: Yes, but he's only about 11 then and there's no suggestion of 'romance' at that point, it's not quite that creepy...

Arabesque · 03/07/2013 10:37

Poor Len! It always amazes me the way the girls go from innocent schoolgirl who has never even been to a dance to engaged to be married in the space of a couple of months. They just marry the first guy who shows any interest in them.

DeWe · 03/07/2013 10:52

It went from Len not really having any intererest in him other than as a collegue of her fathers, through Joey (who's always hated early engagements other than her own) saying "don't play fast and loose", to engaged because Reg has hurt his back in a storm.

I think the problem was that EBD knew that this was likely to be the last work that she wrote (or oversaw for someone else to write as has been suggested for the last couple of books) so she wanted Len settled.
Otherwise she could have had time for Len to gradually see him as a friend she could confide in, through perhaps him visiting her at Oxford, her coming back-perhaps with Joey wondering why she's insisting on coming home because it's only a short holiday, through to obviously being more than friends before the engagement.

But the one that always makes me Hmm is Margo anouncing she wants to become a nun-and that she always had. And saying "that's why I always had such a hard time with my devil...". No she was just spoilt as a child and thoroughly selfish. Becoming a nun was obviously Joey's way of making sure she didn't end up in prison for GBH due to her violent temper...

Beeyump · 03/07/2013 10:55

I wasn't suggesting that there was a romance then, just that he knew her from practically a baby and then developed feelings for her a few years later - I just find that odd.

Beeyump · 03/07/2013 10:56

Personally, I can't imagine being attracted to someone I had known since they were a toddler.

Arabesque · 03/07/2013 11:18

She did that kind of thing a lot with her characters though. One minute they were exceptionally demure schoolgirls, the next they were flashing an engagement ring around. It always looked odd even when I was an idealistic child and believed in happy ever after endings Smile

WhiteShakette · 03/07/2013 11:39

Yes, apart from poor Joan Baker, who is working-class, not religious, bored by paper games on a Saturday night, doesnt like cold baths, likes her make-up and flash clothes, and despite being a reformed character, is still the only Chalet girl who gets together in what most of us would consider a normal way with someone she meets at business college, and does not proceed immediately to marriage and umpteen children.

DeWe · 03/07/2013 11:46

She did Marie well though. Having the "pretty little romance" where the baron likes her at the boat race and takes her to give her ice cream afterwards. Then when she comes to anounce it, although the others are surprised to hear, they have already recognised that it was coming, just didn't expect it at that moment.
That's probably the best romance she wrote about though.

WhiteShakette · 03/07/2013 12:02

It's practically racy for the Chalet School! Generally her romances are cringeworthy. Not just Reg's non-proposal to Len, but Neil Sheppard's to Grizel is pretty bad. And she loves a good doctor-patient relationship the one that always strikes me as highly dubious is Phoebe Thingummy and Frank Graves - she's his chronically ill patient when he starts to pay court to her, and even more weirdly, his mother, who has just died, had the same condition, so it smacks of replacing one sick female figure with another...

Beeyump · 03/07/2013 12:06

Does Neil Sheppard not just go, 'Is it yes, then?' and Grizel doesn't even get to say anything in response, he just knows her answer. Hmph.

WhiteShakette · 03/07/2013 12:11

Yup. And then there's something about how they'll settle down and be middle aged together in a nice little chalet on the Platz. He practically has gorgeous, glamorous Grizel, who is 40, sounding like an OAP in support stockings.

Mind you, Neil Sheppard is a bit weird anyway. Doesn't he reveal in a bizarre conversation with Len that he's brought a book of baby names with him from NZ? Confused

Jengnr · 03/07/2013 14:07

MissAnnersley No problem. PM me an email and I'll send it.

Oh bother, there's the bell for prep! :)

I also like how the babies just appear with absolutely no warning. Joey just got summoned to the Sonnalpe because Madge has had a baby.

Arabesque · 03/07/2013 14:12

Yes, Madge was ridiculous in this regard. She treated Joey like a three year old who didn't need to be told these things. Even when Joey was married with umpteen kids herself Madge, writing from Canada, didn't let Joey know she was pregnant with twins because Joey would only worry!

Arabesque · 03/07/2013 14:13

Mind you, Joey could be a bit dim herself. Even when she was well into her teens she failed to notice that her sister was several months pregnant Hmm

MooncupGoddess · 03/07/2013 14:15

If you read carefully there is usually a hint that a baby is on the way (usually something about resting more, or a woman is going to get busier soon) but it's always very coy. Sybil is born two months premature and a lot is made of the fact that Jo had no idea Madge was pregnant; apparently she didn't pick up on Madge's hints. (Why on earth Madge couldn't just have said 'I am having another baby' I have no idea.)

GlitzPig · 03/07/2013 14:19

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Tanith · 03/07/2013 15:48

In those days, it wasn't the done thing to talk about pregnancy. My MIL once told me that, when she was heavily pregnant, she was about to have her photo taken in a family group and her FIL moved her to the back of the group and stood in front of her so it wouldn't show in the photo.

I can still remember the shock effect when I was a little girl and the "Mums The Word!" tops and dresses first came out.

As for the colds - pre-antibiotics, people really did die of them. I was absolutely fascinated reading the remedies they forced on poor Jo! I also remember reading an Agatha Christie from the same era where a maid had died from a cut finger that turned septic.

thebody · 03/07/2013 16:03

I think EBD's favourite was Len so she wanted her settled.

Mooncup,, biddys pregnancy is hinted at as 'her hands will be very full by then' ha ha.

Eleanor seems to consider doctors as fabulous husbands followed by bank managers or barons. How lucky the San is always by the school to supply a steady stream of them.

Miss Ferres indeed had the measure of MaryLou as matron Besley does of Joe but of course these come to naught.

But MaryLou!!! Miss Annersley am shocked. She's joeys mantel bearer!!!! For shame..

thebody · 03/07/2013 16:09

Also presuming Jo didn't have IVF would not triplets and two sets of twins be more rare than a meteorite strike.

Bloody hate the references to 'quads next time' as well. Mad as a march hair, especially with the teething problems of all her brats.

Arabesque · 03/07/2013 16:11

I wonder why she didn't think Len heading off to Oxford would make a nice ending. Particularly as that book was written at the end of the sixties and not in the 1920s when 17 year olds getting engaged would have been more normal.

SolidGoldBrass · 03/07/2013 17:15

One of the things that I always rather liked, actually, was the gradual progression away from people dying if they stood in a draft, which I think had a lot to do with the arrival of antibiotics and the massive decrease in tuberculosis-related death. Because in the 20s and early 30s, people did die of chest infections; medicine had only just got to grips with asepsis, and surgery was still very dangerous.

thebody · 03/07/2013 17:20

Yes but Len can't simply go to uni and Perhaps go to dances or the cinema or even ( whisper) drink and shag around. If EDB made her engaged then its like tying a knot in her hymen. 😄

Solid agree but miss the calfs foot jelly of earlier more simple times....

Arabesque · 03/07/2013 17:25

I don't think Len was the type to drink and shag around, but yes going to the cinema and to cafes and to other people's flats for spaghetti bolognaise (and one glass of wine even) would have been a nice normal life for a seventeen year old in the 1970s. She could even have worn mini skirts and wet look boots; back combed her hair; and listed to pop music on her transistor radio Shock

SolidGoldBrass · 03/07/2013 17:25

Again: while society was changing around her, EBD was pretty stuck in the mindset of her own younger days, when most people (particularly the middle and upper classes) had a fairly small pool of eligible husbands/wives and didn't travel all that far from home so you were likely to marry someone you had known since one of you was in nappies.