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.

DD is living the dream for one term only at Chateau de Sauveterre, a mixture of Malory Towers, Chalet School and Ribblestrop...

Spottybra laughing at Joey dressing as a school girl. Mind you she did have long plaits for bed. Eeek.

St. Claire's.

Linbury Court could definitely be fun though...

If I was at Stalky's school I'd be Beetle.

I always fancied stalky empress. I take my kids to the beach they swam on almost every week :) the pebble ridge suffered in the storms tho.

Hi Petrova, definitely I think at least one of you could manage to produce twins (with your dishy doctor - just think how lovely and fertile you'd have been at barely 17! ).

oooh, actually, yes you could both have twins and then I think the other twin may have had something tragic happen (sorry!), so you'd have had to end up bringing up both sets of twins - EBD would probably have done a little extra linked book covering the side-story for you there (a la 'Stepsisters for Lorna) about how the girls learn to cope with living with each other -- initially your girls would be a bit miffed at having to share a room so the other twins could have a room too, but after 1 of your twins falls down a ravine and is rescued by 1 of the other twins (who happened to be riding her horse past at the time) then they all learn to love each other as real 'cousin-sisters-by... errr death'! and then...

Well, sadly your dishy dr dies tragically (sorry, again!), but not to worry, after a chance meeting with Joey when you're having a rest cure at Penny Rest (wasn't that the name?) to recoup your strength after all that tragedy (don't worry your stalwart housekeeper will look after the 4 girls - and they're all great at housekeeping so no worries about that side of things they'll be making all the beds and sweeping hearths whilst your gone!) and sponsored places will be found for all the girls - 1 can be a musical genius and get the Jacynth Hardy schol, 1 can have the Josephine Bettany one and the other 2'll have to split the Margot Venables one between them.

How's that for a follow up story? Suitably dramatic and EBD-like? :)

When I was 20 something I went on holiday to Venice by myself, first solo holiday and first time on a plane, stayed in a friendly guesthouse above an English bookshop. I picked up a copy of Stalky there and read it in the evenings, sitting by Grand Canal with a cappuccino or a gelato.

Best holiday ever and Stalky still brings back the memories.

'Gone to sleep to wake with God'. That's actually nice.

I can see Susan at School by Jane Shaw staring at me from the bookcase and am tempted to bring it to bed with me.

Oh I love 'Susan at School'. It's really funny and a complete send up of traditional school stories - but in an affectionate rather than sneery way. I still have my childhood copy and read it when I'm feeling a bit down and in need of cheering up. 'Susan at School' and a mug of drinking chocolate, or glass of wine the best comfort combination ever

Now I just have to check the cupboard to see if there's any drinking chocolate. If so I am off to bed to read about St Ronan's.

leeloo spitting my wine out at your latest.

I have decided tomorrow life is making me into a sweet woman like Doris Trewlaney ( I conveniently die so MaryLou can dig up bones) so I am going to be brisk crisp and snappy like Madge.

Also will have prem twins and they will be fine just like Sybil was in 1936!!! Love EBD...

Bloody hell, that tidal swimming pool looks like mass hypothermia waiting to happen!

Actually, going back to the Chalet School and EBD's, erm, limited understanding of biology and medicine, a mate of mine wrote one of the fill-in books and had a little note at the front about how she knew some of the medical treatments given were inadvisable nowadays...

The Chalet School definitely. Not jolly hockey sticks enough for MT.

It would have been a bit grim to be Pomona......

Sorry to make you waste your wine thebody. :(

leeloo you are a bona fide genius :D

it must have been nice to live in EBDs head though. Such a simple life.

SGB which fill in can you say?

And singing cured pleuro pneumonia in Joey and prevented a complete nervous breakdown for Maria Marani.

Sucks to you antibiotics and councelling!

I never read the chalet school books and know I really regret it!

I did however have a load of 1930s school stories that had come from my grandmother's house. Particular faves were Monica turns up trumps and queen Caroline.

Mallory towers and st cleared both grill but would have been mercilessly bullied at both.

CorusKate - there are several actual schools that could have been Eustaces. One I know the head used to take his staff on a summer day trip to the beach, he would just hand the school keys to the prefects and leave them in charge.

In the Chalet school it is quite interesting that even at the end the Sanatorium kept running even though it must have been the last place in Europe not to use anti-biotics for TB.
I wanted to go though. My DC have just got me to promise if the Hogwarts letter arrives I will let them go.

I have just been in the loft (I don't do ladders -eeek) and retrieved a Chalet School book from my box of stuff that came from my parents 25 years ago. I hadn't been in that box, well for 25 years.

I have given myself the morning off and am about to re-read The Chalet School in Exile.

It's all MN fault!

Wasn't just Maria Marani that Joey saved by singing was it? That was after they'd found her father had been killed by the Nazis. There was also Maria from the Mystic M, the one of the Balbini twins, I'm sure there were others too.