To wonder whether you'd prefer to go to Malory Towers or the Chalet School

[Vintagejazz]

I just heard to girls about 11 years of age having an earnest discussion about this on the bus. I didn't think kids even read Chalet School books any more.
I think I'd opt for Malory Towers. They seemed to have more fun. I'd probably be expelled from the Chalet School for cursing, wearing lipstick and forgetting to speak German every Wednesday or whatever it was.

She was new the same term as Susan and Susan took her under her wing. She was very musical but totally vague and impractical.

I think Dimsie was a different series.

I loved the Dimsie books!

Think she ended up growing hash plants as a herbalist in Scotland.

Is it Malory Towers that has the cool swimming pool based on the one at Dancing Ledge?

I wouldn't mind that, or else there's one in an Angela Brazil book where the school is an old manor house - think it's called The Manor House School or some such.

Please, not the Chalet School.

Is it Dimsie books where they're always having crushes on older girls who look like Mary Queen Of Scots? I could never get my head round that.

Thanks Daisy, must reread them.

Yes the Dimsies were by Dorita Fairlie Bruce, and the prefects were expected to 'mother' the juniors by telling them bedtime stories and taking them out. Dimsie was a bit like Mary-Lou of the CS, come to think of it. Constantly butting in and able to get away with outrageous cheek because She Was Dimsie.

Dimsie was called Dimsie as her full name, Daphne Isabel Maitland, spelt out DIM. Honestly, the rubbish I remember!

Oooh Martorana Miss Pym Disposes - yes, love it! Must find it and re read, I'd forgotten.

And yes, in the term at the Chalet School where they do the ghastly fair and I'll be forced to make dolls house furniture for hours night after night, I want a transfer to Stalky and Co and hirple about on the beach naked and fantasise about the headmaster. Chiron. Sigh. With a sense of humour. HE could beat Jack Maynard into a cocked hat.

And even the nastiest of girls would suddenly fall under her spell.

I remember buying my first two Dimsies, Dimsie Among the Prefects and Dimsie, Head Girl, at some sort of Brownie event where I also stroked a python.

Actually I read a couple of Dorita Fairlie Bruce books when I was a child and the name Dimsie sounds familiar. I wonder what happened to them. They would have been quite old copies so I hope they weren't given away. Must have a look in my mother's attic.

I think the Dimsie books were written in the 1920's, she had a feisty best pal called Erica who probably went on to become Maggie Thatcher.

Sadly not - I think Erica ended up being a secretary to an MP, then married Jean's brother. Which Dimsie approved of since she thought bossy female MPs were "unsuitable".

My daughter (who is now the third generation to read them) loves Malory Towers and, as I was at her age, was crushed to discover it wasn't real.

Didn't ever read Chalet school but now I'm off to find them for my daughter.

Agree about Alicia in MT and that pool sounds bloody freezing.

Oh Empress I don't remember Dimsie being such an arse! I feel sad for Erica now.

All these comments have made me realise that maybe I'm best leaving CS alone. All I'm going to see now is that the San is a refuge for peadophile doctors who have far too much freedom to slip sleeping doses into the hot milk dished out to the girls. The teenage robin sent to bed at 6pm after hot milk by dr jem? Not innocent to my adult mind. Joey the perpetual schoolgirl? She probably dresses up in the bedroom for her DH in a school uniform.

I'm not sure what book it was in - maybe Dimsie Goes Back - but I'm pretty sure that was her response to hearing about Erica's engagement. "I'm so glad! I was afraid you'd end up being one of those ghastly female MPs!"
And I THINK Erica's response was that she still might be to which Dimsie observed that it wouldn't be "very suitable".

Just like Daisy in the CS though - wins medals for being such a good doctor then gives it up on marriage and everyone takes it for granted because that's what you do.

I read the Chalet Girls Grow Up as well and it is a bit depressing. I'm still fond of the originals, daft though they now seem, partly because of the authentic touches in the early ones (the same reason I like the atrociously-written Miss Silver novels; I get fascinated by the clothes and the meals and the geography...)

Tunip - that was at Springdale. Another Dorita Fairlie Bruce series. It was odd, I agree. I think it was DFB's essential scottishness asserting itself.

Dear Wilson

Please drink up your hot milk. I
Missed mine last night, Jack have it to me as usual,but it got knocked over by Bruno and I had a terrible nightmare.

I dreamed that I only had 2 children. Singletons how wierd! That I was a successful author earning more than my dear Jack and I did something called a book tour by myself with no Jack and no children.

I was also not pregnant, lactating of gagging to have quads!

I also had on makeup, my plaits weren't wreathed around my head but cut short and back combed into a beehive,whatever that is,and I had a mini skirt on. I also took a pill every day to stop me getting pregnant!

My only contact with my children's school was via a report and a yearly parents evening. I mean why???

Anna was actually stroppy and demanded days off and holiday pay and Rosli told me her contracted hours were with me and she wasn't happy helping out with Biddys and Hilary's bloody brats

Oh had my milk...

Just seem a terrible train crash and an orphaned baby lying on the floor. Must adopt it immediately as it's got black curls and will he a nice contrast to my own second twins.

Much love Joey.

I love the Nancy books by DFB....

Oh hell,now I'm going to have to have a big re-read of all my old school stories. And I don't even think I've got all of them - particularly the Kingscote ones which I think I just used to get from the library so Amazon/ebay could be about to do rather well out of me. You're all evil for corrupting - and will be sent to Miss Annersley's office for punishment - although she'll probably just get Joey to have a chat with you all which will see you reformed for life.

Malory Towers always liked the idea of a natural tidal swimming pool, then a few years ago we discovered the pool which Enid Blyton based it on. It's near Swanage at a place called Dancing Ledge apparently it had been created by a school who used dynamite to blast through the rock during the war. Dcs and I decided it was like swimming in a giant rock pool
tidal pool at Dancing Ledge

thebodydoestricks

Antonia Forest is very, very good - currently rereading Peter's Room.

But true, dyed-in-the-wool Chalet fans never really like them, as they are shocked that pious nice-girl Ann Marlow (who would be universally popular and beloved at the CS) is regarded as a do-gooder nuisance by her sisters and as tiresomely helpful by most of the Kingscote staff.

And that, when a disliked girl becomes ill and eventually dies, the former classmates who go around acting all shocked and as if they were her best friends, are regarded by the central characters as hypocrites, a judgement that the novelist doesn't entirely dislodge.

At the CS Marie Dobson would have been fervently prayed for by the entire school, then Joey would have come and broken it to her form in her golden voice that she had 'gone to sleep to wake with God', and everyone would have been sent to bed with hot milk and a dose, and been subdued for weeks. Then again, she would either have been reformed to make her likeable, or expelled as one of the tragic few the CS couldn't help, like Thekla von Stift.

But Antonia Forest fans like the grey areas of group and sibling psychology.

Though I do imagine it must have been a bit insufferable being a shy mediocrity who was in the same form as Nick, Tim and Miranda...

Hm yes...

AF's characters are all so 3D. You know you're expected to like Joey, or Darrell, or Dimsie but the Marlows aren't nearly so clear cut and they're much better for it.

I read Mallory Towers and St Claire's but even as a child I thought the girls were fairly horrible spiteful bitches and bullies.

The chalet school is hilarious of course but the characters are supposed to be actually nice.

What I love about EBD is her total lack of understanding of either child birth and illness both of which she loves to write about.

The triplets seemingly slept through as soon as born because she disciplined them too, (we wish) and her explanations of post op double shock are so funny. Obviously she heard of post op shock and thought it meant a shocking experience not medical shock.

Joey is a pain in the arse but I still love the books.

My dsis did her MA thesis on girls lit of the 1930s so got to read all of the school stories of that era for work.. Jammy cow.