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.

Oh there should always be an end to fun, too much fun is bad for one's moral development. Prayers and a sensible bedtime work to counteract the jolly japes.

And books/famous disasters. Usually ending in the stage collapsing and/or a fire/power cut.

Burren I sense you are Elma Coroy like meeting boys for meals and dances when you should have been in bed enjoying virginal sleep.

I remember Peggy being shocked.

I quite liked Diana Skelton myself. I would have trashed Brides study too if I had been made to work in a bloody sale of work every year knitting dolls hats or making scrap books.

There were a couple of quite fun games... I liked the one where each girl put on a hood with holes for eyes and they had to guess who was who.

Agree though that it would have been hard to get excited about the Sale.

Mmm yes but the spanking of the girls by teachers dressed as Demons was fairly disturbing

How did I forget that???

Was that where Mary Lou jumped up on a wardrobe and did herself an injury.

Oh Diana Skelton. Didn't she have a rather common accent despite her stunning prettiness?

Never read chalet school. So mt for definite. Have just downloaded to kindle for a re read.

Just been reading Bride leads the Chalet School Her ambition it to go to Oxford and study languages so that...... she can come back to the Chalet School and teach languages. Don't know whether to despair of these girls or envy them their narrow, cossetted and safe view of the world!

Thanks to empress for sending the transcripts, does anyone know if the rest of them are available as a transcript (very cheeky request but preferably without having to pay for them...) I have loads of reading material and not a lot of time so going to take me a while to read this lot but would love to re-read all of them one day!

Another request for electronic copies here please!

PM me your email address, Flugella, and I'll send them over.

summer yes it was and yes Diana was from working class stock hence her behaviour.

All of the old girls wanted to come back to teach or work as secretaries at the school. Unless of course they attracted a doctor enough to drug/marry them and them the said doctor always got offered a job at the San so Joey could have all her friends around her.

I think we may be being slightly harsh on EBD on this one. My mother left school in the 1940s and said that the only things her (middle class - she went to a girls' high school) family thought she would do were teacher, secretary or nurse. Obviously this is one of the many areas where the books date badly, but actually the Chalet girls are definitely of their class and era in the earlier books, so reflect the rather limited options for women at the time, while stretching them out to doctor, gardener, archeologist etc. Some of that is a result of the fact that they were of higher class than many of their readers will have been, but partly I think EBD was fairly creative with careers.

Even by the 1950s, she's looking out of touch on this of course (although Ros Lilley does at one point want to be an air hostess, before she puts her hair up). But my mother, who ended up with an interesting job she enjoyed in the late 1960s, started her working life as a reluctant teacher.

Imagine the recruitment process at the San in the 50s and 60s. It must have helped a lot to keep shortlists to a manageable size.

Medical degree? Y/N

Specialist training in infectious diseases/respiratory problems? Y/N

Happy to ignore all current evidence about efficacy of antibiotics and continue with the TB treatments current in the 30s? Y/N

Married to Chalet School Old Girl? Y/N

Willing to provide obstetric care to other Old Girls in spite of having no specialist training in obstetrics? Y/N

Any qualms about sedating schoolgirls without their consent? Y/N

Oh yes agree TooSpotty most of us here taking the piss are dyed in the wool EBD fans for sure.

Personally I love the books, always have.

I always wonder if Joey the author and mother of many was who EDB would have really wanted to be.

AllMimsy very funny.

I always found the San doctors providing obstetric care to each other's wives disturbing too.

I went to a very academic girls' school in the 70s. My school magazine had adverts from all the major clearing banks urging us to consider working for them when we left. I don't think I'm imagining that in the very early 70s the benefits summarised included a gratuity payable on marriage - clear assumption being that their 'girls' who got married would probably leave to keep house. Having said that, 90% of my year group went to university and I think about 10 of those went to medical school. There were 15-20 more who went on to do Maths, Physics, Chemistry, Biochemistry, Biology or Engineering. A much, much smaller number went to secretarial college, teacher training college or to train in nursing/physiotherapy/occupational therapy.

In the early 50s my mother-in-law had to leave her Civil Service job when she got married. Those were the rules at the time. In the early 60s my mum gave up her teaching job when she had me. I'm not sure whether she had to do that as a condition of her employment or whether it was just not the done thing to work when you had a young baby. She wouldn't have had any maternity leave entitlement or maternity pay, that's for sure.

So, yes, in this one respect EBD is not as out of the step with the times as she is in some others.

The last thing the San would have wanted to do was cure patients quickly and easily and (worse still) eradicate TB. Where would their income be then?

Pretty please with absolute featherbeds of whipped cream on top could I have the transcripts too?

plaiting hair into earphones while having an odd recollection of Joey as head girl putting snails on someones bedroom window as a joke - did I dream that or is that actually in a book? Just after all her friends were betrothed at the age of 6 to barons called Von und Zu something?

I think they did that in Princess as part of the campaign against Matron Webb. Jo wouldn't have been Head Girl then, though.

It was the SSM ( society for suppression of matron)

It was revived when Jo was head girl by I think Cornelia and Margia to revenge the new matron Besley who was nasty to Jo.

Jo plaiting her hair into earphones though by the 50s would have been a tad eccentric. Mind you so was having 11 kids.

Ah yes, SSM! Remember it!

I tried snails on the windows. Very disappointing.

It was Elisavita who did it, although it was Joey's idea after it had happened (by accident) to her and the Robin once.