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.

I remember those sandwiches. They sounded so exotic to a child used to easy singles and jars of 'Sandwich Spread' which, it the wonderful words of Alice Thomas Ellis 'looks as if someone had already eaten it'.

I used to think 'potted meat' sounded so exotic in the midnight feasts!

Summer, I think it's also that there's a very highly-developed adult 'fan culture' around the Chalet books - there used to be (maybe still is?) a fan site called the Chalet Bulletin Board for discussions and fanfic, which had a huge membership, and meet-ups and bookswaps, and there is/was a Chalet fan magazine. If you like discussions and aren't already on there, Google the CBB, if it still exists.

The 'invisible' pregnancies - despite the intense interest in which old girl can have more babies, and the bizarre 'larger family' rivalry - used to crack me up, too. Joey spends a weekend with Madge not long before she gives birth to her first child, and apparently Madge tries to hint to her, but Joey is oblivious, and when Madge has a bad time during the birth and Joey is called up to see her, apparently the whole thing comes as a total surprise.

And Joey herself has two teenage CS girls living with her throughout her pregnancy with the triplets, and neither of them appear to notice a thing, when there must have been indiscreet triple-foetus bulges going on all over.

In the franker, later books, you do get references to Joey not being able to take on something because she's going to be 'busy', nod, wink etc. And occasionally there is much Significant Knitting of Tiny Matinee Jackets.

I read Malory Towers and St Claire's to my dd last year and now we're reading the Chalet School series (on Rivals at the moment). For me it would be CS, I have loved this series all my life and I have been replacing my abridged versions with the Girls Gone By unabridged versions and revelling in the chapters that I haven't previously been able to read - at last I know who Stuffer and Marie are.
Dd is loving the series and is now seriously addicted to them (she's 9), so maybe there is another generation growing up reading their parents copies.

I remember the 'busy' metaphor Burren. It's amazing we didn't all grow up with rather weird ideas about how babies arrived after growing up reading the CS.
I would have thought someone expecting triplets would have been spending a lot of time in bed, be heavily monitored and be absolutely HUGE. How on earth could anyone, no matter how innocent, not notice something? Bizaare. Must remember it's not real

Even Joey didn't manage to beat one of the Abbey old girls when it came to multiple births - was it Rosamund? Rosa-something, anyway; the one who became a Countess - who had two sets of twins in under a year.

I think I need to lie down

With your legs crossed, Summerbreezing?

you used to be able to get chalet school books cheap on ebay. They were a staple of christmas stockings when DD was growing up.

Mallory towers was full of the kind of girl that thumped me at my comprehensive for being a swot: I would have been in clover at CS and I used to fantasise about being allowed to speak lots of languages. But the Robin was just creepy.

Tjhose who remember Miss Pym Disposes, have you read the Gladys Mitchell books based in a PE College? Laurels are poison is the easiest to get hold of. GM write around 60 crime stories but only about 2 are set in the college.

for those curious about Laurels are poison, its the only school servies I know that involves dead rats and rhubarb in the same episode.

What I really wanted twas St Trinians, of course. Or even beter, St Custards where I would have been the scourge of the skool except for being female chiz chiz. All the gurls in Molesworth are carikachured as being dutiful little swots so I wud not hav been aksepted.

Rosamund yes. She was having her babies in a hurry because her husband didn't have long to live.

Loving this thread.

Joey did have huge shawls though but agree her triplet bulge would have been massive and neither Daisy or Robin seem to notice!

Also the periods, pardon me but a cold splash in the bath every morning would have been insufficient to deal with cleanliness at this time. Surely also some of those teens wouldn't want to be ramping up the cricket pitch all of the time. Who dealt out the sanipro and where was it disposed?

Probably overthinking this now

if in were to start reading the chalet school books{purely in the interests of research you understand] where would i start?

And what about the hair! Didn't Joey's Princess Leia style hair buns allegedly contribute to her air of permanent girlishness? And why did she make girls with perfectly nice names agree to being called Bill or Roger as soon as they'd set foot over the CS threshold? She wasn't even a staff member she was just a Chalet School stalker!

thebody perhaps that's why ppl needed pockets in their knickers- for the sanpro? It was always said to be "for a hanky" but I could never understand why it would be OK to whip your skirt up to reach your knickers for a sneeze. But if it wsa a euphemism for sanpro, all is clear.

Everything would have whiffed. My mum says that people really honked in the 1950s and thats why everyone smoked....

I'm sure when the CS girls reached an age for Womanly Occurences Which Must Not Be Mentioned they were sent to Jack Maynard for a consultation.

gymboy

The School at the Chalet is the first one. It's set back in the 1920s when Jo was a twelve year old schoolgirl and her sister Madge decided to open a school in the Tyrol with about 5 pupils.

Don't be silly, CS girls didn't have periods or sex despite the numerous pregnancies

Oh squoosh [green]

Why the hell did I just type "green" in square brackets? I meant

Not sure about me, but had dd (a) been a boy and (b) been in the market for boarding school, Linbury Court would have been perfect for primary - spending her spare time constructing a 'hut' in the mud and filling it with random wildlife would have suited her beautifully.

I longed to go to the Chalet School as a child. It seemed wonderful, walking, languages, freedom. I remember reading the one where Joey surprises everyone by falling into the arms of Jack Maynard and they declare their love. Oh how romantic I thought it! I am slowly gathering the books one by one (have no idea where my old childhood ones are as my mum got ruthless with chucking out books a while ago) and rereading them. I felt slightly ill reading The Chalet Girls in Camp when Maynard arrives towards the end and Joey is talking to him and he is watching her "with an odd/a queer expression on his face" and EBD is clearly beginning to set the scene for the future. Urgh, it just feels all slimy a grown man salivating over a pubescent school girl.

Sadly my slow growing collection is just the cheap paperbacks when I can get them for a couple of £ from Amazon Market Place. Hopefully when dd is older she will like them and then I can get the Girls Gone By ones.

Most of mine are the old Armada abridged versions. Did they tend to be much shorter than the originals, or just have paras here and there removed?
Why did they abridge them anyway?

I'm thinking of sneaking a trip to the Tirole into our Summer holiday - no one will have a clue why I want to go to certain places.

Empress have PM'd you

Whilst on the subject, I saw Antonia Forest transcripts mentioned on the old Chalet school thread... would anyone have those to share? Will happily make a crocheted thing of choice (I mostly do amigurumi) for anyone who does (and for Empress)!

I thought the odd expression on his face was because he thought his sister (Miss Maynard) would have written to tell the school that she was leaving asap, and he was surprised to have to break the news. (haven't got book to hand)