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.

Yes, I think that Malory Towers scene where Darrell and co make the silly, boastful new girl Maureen draw costume and set designs, and act and sing in front of the whole form, purely so that they can laugh her to scorn and 'take her down a peg or two' is one of the nastiest school story scenes ever.

Whereas if you were one of the 'in-gang', like Irene and Belinda, you could get away with being permanently AWOL composing, as though you were JS Bach, or using your talent for drawing to bully unpopular girls by drawing cruel caricatures and pinning them on the walls.

To whoever asked whether the CS books written after 1960 are any good, the plain answer is they're not, but what they are is kind of compulsively mad, with mad plots (kidnappings, long lost relatives, natural disasters, a gang member pulling a gun on Hilda, Cecil being snatched by a 'madwoman'), a series of nice but in memorable new girls we never really hear about again after one book, and everyone else behaving like caricatures of themselves. I wouldn't spend serious money on them, though.

I wonder if EDB saw with terror the approach of the 60s, the huge changes to women's status and roles in society and was clearly desperately trying to recreate the CS of old but increasing running out if ideas.

Yes. Claudine's stealing was treated as a lovable quirky fault whereas Maureen's comparatively minor boasting was depicted as heinous.

God yes forgot about Claudine's stealing. Still being French she had no sense of honour did she!

God, the racism. Blyton clearly was ignorant of how the French revere fraternite!

Thanks, I have ordered Shirley at Charterton.
That's my weekend sorted.

You are so in for a treat- lucky you reading it for the first time! I wrote your name incorrectly earlier I think Darmok - apologies.

That's okay Mignonette, I'm grateful for the tip

Am I the only one who still likes Nancy Breary?

Thebody what is particularly nasty about Joey telling Simone that is that they were supposedly close friends-not that I've ever known close friends call their baby after each other unless the other one had died.

However all and sundry name Joey-people that hardly knew her (Jo Scott); family lots of times (Peggy/Josette/ Felicity Josephine) and probably (in EBD's mind) loads of people we don't hear about too. As well as naming her unoffical godmother (really ) and guardian despite not having heard from ar about her for years...

But it was a very Simone thing to do, I think she would have seen it as nice. It's not clear if Joey goes to Simone and says it out of the blue, which is terribly big headed to think she would, or Simone says she wants to and Joey says no, which is nasty considering the number of people who have with no objection.

And considering the number of children named after Joey, you'd think she would name some of her brood after her close friends.
We have (remembering may be wrong) Len (after Miss Wilson-really? They weren't really close), Con after Con Stewart wasn't it? (another teacher whom we little more about until she wrote from Australia about Emerence) and Margo after Daisy's mum (and presumably after Madge too) Felicity has Josephine stuck on the end of hers, and Cecil, if you read the book it ony seems to occur to them afterwards that having chosen it because they like it then "oh we can say it's after the Robin".
All the others (I think) are just because they like them, not after anyone.

Although I think the nastiest scene with Simone, and the one that really betrays Joey for how she really feels is when she's head girl and the Robin is ill. The book is based around what a wonderful friendship she has with the four of them (Marie, Frieda and Simone). So why when they ask Joey who she wants with her to comfort her, she asks for Marie and Frieda (on the pretence that they're closer to the Robin, I think) and then as they go, tells them not to tell Simone because "we don't want any scenes".
Actually I think Simone would be perfectly fair enough to make a scene. She's one of a bunch of 4 prefects that are close, and she has been left alone by deliberate exclusion by the one she considers to be her greatest friend. And I think she would be both calming and good at dealing with sorrow.

Re. the smoking - isn't there something in one of the later books, with Len telling her friend that she and her triplet sisters have promised not to start smoking until they leave school? And I know it is fiction too, but in one of Dorothy L Sayers books, 'Murder Must Advertise' she mentions advertising campaigns lauding cigarettes as promoting pulmonary health, and I think that was a real belief (and such campaigns may actually have happened).

There were such campaigns, wasn't one brand sold as the one your Doctor would recommend? But they were also called coffin nails.
I also wondered if one of the reasons everyone smoked so massively in world war II was as an appetite suppressant.
I did find the way Joey treated Simone was in general not very nice. There was a bit of lack of basic human psychology.

Blyton's girls were horrible bullies... shut UP Gwendolen, Gwendolen SHUT UP, as a policy every time the girl spoke springs to mind!

Whereas the wonderful Antonia Forest explores it with much more nuance, of course - as when Third Remove are told off for bullying Pomona, but don't see that what they've done by ostracising her and calling her names is bullying, because 'bullying's roasting people, and twisting their arms, isn't it?'.

Yes, and the way Marie Dobson is sidelined by everyone - and that acutely uncomfortably scene where her death is announced to her old form, long after they've forgotten about her - is a brilliantly uncomfortable depiction of exclusion and how someone comes to be universally considered a 'grubby wet drip', especially as she's not a likeable character.

And the more so as Pomona - originally Marie's new bestest friend, who is the subject of bullying in the first book, at the behest of the remarkably unpleasant Tim Keith - seems to move into being generally accepted.

Whereas Simone, from being a highly-strung child with a massive crush on Joey, gets a character arc that supposedly sees her 'mature' into a self-controlled adult, but really it's more that she stops annoying Joey with her attentions, so that's got to be good, doesn't it? Because everyone is supposed to adore Joey - isn't it Frau Pfeiffen who cries with delight when Joey comes back to the Tiernsee? - but not to the extent of requiring anything from her.

I'm always delighted Simone and her husband inherit a chateau and the family jewels, but I wish Joey wouldn't continue treating her as the poor relation of the Quartette. In a lot of ways, she's the most interesting of the four - from a poor background, goes to a top university from the CS back in the days when hardly any other CS girls did anything other than 'help out at home', needs to support not only herself but her family etc etc. Marie and Frieda are pleasant, but not particularly characterful.

Antonia Forest actually presents it well. Yes, Pomona (and Marie) are irritating, but yes she presents the rest of the class as coming out badly as bullies.
Would be interesting to see Marie's stint as Form Captain (as apparently she was the term before the twins start). Was she voted, or was this another of the "pick the least suited child and fling them in".
One of my dsis' friends had a school that did that and it worked dreadfully as those appointed then used their position to bully others, and the "good" children felt terribly unrewarded, so stopped bothering.

Whereas both EB and EBD tend to present it as the victim's fault. Gwendoline is horrible in the first book-deliberately and spitefully so, but never really gets a chance after that. She's only got to arrive and they're all on her back. And Jane is blamed for Jack Lambert bullying her. and it certainly isn;t acknowledged in either case as bullying.

Bullying in MT is ignored as a concept-good to knock those corners off, seems to be the attitude.

Bullying is mentioned at CS, Usually along the lines of a form sending someone to coventry, and after it has gone on quite a long time, the leaders of the form think "gosh, the prees might notice, we better stop or we'll be called bullies".

And come to that, I never got EBD's concept that the prefects catching you should obviously be worse than the staff. And then you have times that some wrongdo-er has been caught and in trouble by the staff, and then the prefects also call them to a prefects' meeting to tell them off. Joey's group were particularly bad for that. To me that's the prefects interfering when they had no business, to EBD it was obviously a good thing.

Burren totally agree and remember when Simone inherits the chateau and business and asks for joeys help?

The cow says it could be a white elephant that the drapes are dripping in dirt and shudders at the coldness of the place.

No comparing it to the bloody wonderful Freudeshim, no 'oh so happy for you. Etc. all put down.

On the names thing it's quite ridiculous. Why would jo Scott's mother call get after Joey? She didn't even go to the school!

Also agree leaving Simone out, that was nasty.

I feel I may be taking this too seriously!

Is there such thing as taking CS too seriously?

Have spent all morning reading this. I'm with the person who gained their CS collection through charity shops and jumble sales and was therefore hopelessly confused about chronology, characters and geography.

HOWEVER I think I'm right in saying that Joey and Jack weren't Catholics on account of not being Foreign? She was definitely brought up Protestant, but because "Madge Russell was thoroughly broad minded on the subject" has no problem attending Mass and so on. After all, it's just one of the roads to God, Eustacia I wonder if she'd say the same to a Jewish or Muslim gel.

I think she and Jack just ignored the existence of contraception. Over population and knackered pelvic floors weren't on their radar.

Hang on, did they convert?

Well that's me shocked! Surely you don't get English Catholics!

God, I'd totally forgotten Joey was so vile to Simone.

"And come to that, I never got EBD's concept that the prefects catching you should obviously be worse than the staff."

I think this goes back to the earlier days of boarding schools when staff were very hands-off and let prefects do most of the heavy lifting re disciplining the younger pupils. Up to the 1970s (?) boys' public schools had fagging, remember.

Actually I have a vague recollection of there being fagging in one of the very early non-Chalet School books - A Head Girl's Difficulties, perhaps? Which also includes the heroine getting a prize for writing the best essay about the benefits of the British Empire... and a diphtheria outbreak in which several children die. Both I imagine quite realistic for 1923.

Joey is C of E, but converts at some point after her marriage to Jack.

(Although Jack Maynard's twin sister is originally depicted as being C of E when she is teaching at the CS, so it seems as if EBD changed her mind later on - she was a convert to Catholicism herself, and clearly wanted to have Joey be Catholic too.)

By the time the triplets are born, Joey is saying that she can't have Madge as a godmother because the girls will be brought up Catholic. It's not clear whether Joey has converted by this point, but she's certainly attending mass every Sunday by the time they are toddlers.

Hester - Jack is Catholic (though his sister isn't - probably just a narrative inconsistency) so Joey agrees to bring the children up Catholic even though she was brought up Protestant herself. (Catholic Church v. strict on this then and indeed even now.)

I think EBD wanted to demonstrate equal treatment of Catholics and Protestants, at a time when there was still some lingering prejudice against Catholics in the UK.

I always read them anyway I could get my hands on them and would sometimes realise, half way through a book, 'oh, they're in England, not Switzerland' or whatever. And I jumped quite happily between Joey the schoolgirl, Joey the mother of 500, Joey the Prefect and so on.
No wonder my memories of who's who are a bit befuddled.

X-post, I hadn't realised EBD converted to Catholicism!

Ah. Thanks for the clarification. Clearly I need to read the lot, particularly the ones after the Tirol.

I was sad when they left Briesau :(

I was reading Bride leads the Chalet School last night and they mentioned at the start something about getting a boat or ferry or something so I though 'aaaagh, they're in Guernsey'. Then some pupil had to be rushed to hospital and her mother was flying over from...... Guernsey. But they're definitely on an Island because the Dr had to use a boat to get to the school to tend to the sick child so now I don't know where the fuck they are