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 .

Well that's true. Even by the 1950s she was hopelessly out of date with the modern world and still seemed to be in a 1930s time warp.

Margot was in danger of being the shagging type though with her devil.

So thank god she married god.

Arabesque, I fear poor dull, obedient Len was too brainwashed by the CS world view. She would have spent her Oxford days making her bed the only way Matey approved of, always stepping to the right of her chair at Hall meals, and earnestly lecturing her fellow students on nightly hair rushing and prayers kneeling at the bedside.

Thanks for the Reg info. I obviously have not read the earlier Reg appearance either. Which one was that?

Did Margo really become a nun? In an EBD book?

Jo to the Rescue. I think. No, the series ends with the triplets' last term at school, but Margot says her plan is to study medicine and then join an order of medical missionary nuns. This being the Chalet School world, there's no worry about not getting into her chosen medical school, nor any possibility a religious order might be dubious about accepting someone who almost killed a schoolmate in a fit of rage...

She was always the cleverest though

So, Len engaged to the groomer
Margo a nun
What happened to Con? She presumably became an author?

sorry to keep asking questions, I just don't ever come across new chalet books any more. When I was a child and teenager I thought I was the only one who was interested, no one in RL was! Mumsnet was a revelation for me, all those other people who read Chalet/Kingscote/Malory Towers as adults..

Yes, Con (who gets hardly any airtime compared to Len and Margot from birth onwards) is clearly going to be a writer.

I wonder what happened to the boys? It always freaked me out that Stepehen, Charles, Michael etc get eliminated from the books after they reach potty training age. It's like a parody of a radical feminist fantasy.

OK it's massively Not Canon but the Merryn Williams book has Len married to Reg (who then leaves her for Mary-Lou) and having about 15 children; Con becoming a writer but struggling for a while (I think she ends up writing risque romances) and Margot becoming a nun, then getting into radical politics and ISTR going to Greenham Common for a while...

Sat down again with Peggy and Mary Lou of the Chalet School and began to get some of that luvin' feeling back. Obviously loads of daft stuff in them and hard to believe Mary Lou of the Chalet School was written in the late fifties. The girls still behave like something out of a Louisa May Alcott novel.
I have to laugh at the idea that someone leaves school with one plan: I'm going to become a highly successful author. I think a career guidance teacher would have come in useful in the CS. Might even have managed to steer some of those teenagers away from rushing down the aisle with some guy they've been on one date with.

I'm currently reading Jo of the Chalet School to DD1, and we were at the medical treatment - Jo gets a cold, and they put a pad soaked in turpentine on her chest! DD1 says 'What's turpentine, Mummy.' Well, sweetie, it's the stuff Dad used to clean the paint brushes and told you not to touch

Con gets poor treatment all round.
She's generally the middle one who's ignored with Len as the responsible oldest, and Margo as the little naughty one.

She's constantly referred to as tactless-but if you look at what she actually says it's usually sensible and shows a lot of insight-certainly what she says is as insightful as Mary-Lou and more tactful than her too.

The only really silly thing she says is the Daniel in the lions' den affair-which is not really funny despite everyone going on about it being.
She's never let have a good best friend-usually gets given Len's cast offs when Len is needed to move onto the next "naughty new girl making good".

And you never hear her English (which must have been notable) being particularly praised. And she must have been a hard worker too, despite her dreaminess, because she's up with Len in the higher forms, albeit not as high, but she's noted to struggle at maths, so that would bring her form position down. But then Len's talking about going to Oxford, and I don't think Con's talking about university at all (?). Just going to stay at home until she writes that book.

Mind you, I suspect that saying she was "Josephine M Bettany's daughter" would almost certainly increase her chance dramatically of being published, however good it was as a book, so it might be more realistic expectation than it would for the ordinary person.

Also, was there no data protection rules in those days? Jo seemed to be privy to a lot of personal information about the pupils even though she wasn't a staff member or technically anything to do with the school other than a parent of some of the pupils.

But usually an old pupil/teacher who wasn't particularly friendly with her during the time they spent together (but had to name their daughter after her anyway) wrote to tell her. Naturally you write to Joey rather than the head of the school
But there wasn't data procection in the same way in those days. Even when I was at school things were said in front of parents that would be considered strictly confidential nowadays.

Their notion of data protection was to increasingly consult Jo about the most intimate details of the latest recruit's troubled past at a meeting prior to term starting where only the 2 heads and Rosalie Dene were present. Instead of telling Jo all the details halfway through the term at an after-dinner confab when all the staff were present and Jo turned up.

Jo then confides the story to Mary-Lou, Len or similar. Or brings new recruit to proper English tea and lets her know her headmistress has confided the details of her home life to the school's next door neighbour.

What was the precious commodity that Miss Annersely used to bring when the staff invited her to join them after dinner? I'm thinking coffee somehow but didn't they have enough of that? English tea?

Con was going to Oxford too -English literature. She was a bit overlooked though, she did get to edit the Chaletian which is obviously a big honour

The precious commodity must have been whisky

Just want to say a big thanks to jengnr who has gone to quite a bit of trouble sending and then resending the e-books to me.

You are a star.

Chalet School fans are clearly all good sports

All except Mary Lou.