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 in her thirties, I think, when she converted, so the CS series was well under way with Joey C of E-but-broadminded by then. I think she might well have made Joey a cradle Catholic had she herself converted earlier, but she's 'normalising' Catholicism as not 'weird-and-forrin' from very early on in the series, with non-Catholics attending mass without bursting into flames and Eustacia being seen as narrow-minded for being shocked, Madge reading legends of the saints on Sundays, Joey being bridesmaid at a Catholic wedding, Frieda having a likeable bishop uncle who opens a Sale etc etc.

(We're never actually told Joey converts, it's true, but I imagine EBD intended us to assume that she had, especially with how central religion is to the way she and Jack bring up their children. I also think that's why we don't get to see Jack and Joey's wedding, which happens in the gap between the escape from Austria and the school reopening in Guernsey - Joey wouldn't have had time to take instruction between the engagement and the wedding, what with running away from the Nazis etc, and a Catholic marrying a non-Catholic then would have had to be a quiet affair without a nuptial mass and in a side-chapel.)

They're on a small island called St Briavel's off the coast of Wales in Bride Leads, Summer!

Well in my secondary school (nothing like the Chalet school) in the 70s/early 80s our teachers didn't know/deliberately ignored a lot of things that would cause modern teachers to fail Ofsted/be sued for. Actually the way some people were treated (and it ignored) they are lucky not to be sued for. It was a very different world from "Every Child Matters".

There were quite a lot of English Catholics, often supported by sympathetic local Lords. There was also quite a big conversion at the end of the 1900s and beginning of this century, it wasn't far from being High Church to becoming Catholic.

Isn't it still the case that the PM can't be Catholic?

On another note, why was Thekla eventually expelled?

Interesting question! I know the monarch can't be Catholic. I have just learned from the internet that in theory there is nothing to stop the UK having a Catholic PM but we've never had one.

The books set in Wales were my favourite.

The Queen or King can't be catholic hester and if someone in line to the throne marries a Catholic they have to give up their place in the succession (presumably because then there's the risk a Catholic might end up next in line). However this is changing soon (or may already have done). It's because the King or Queen is head of the church in England, which of course is the Church of England. But common sense and multicultural times are finally prevailing...

Thelka was expelled because she was really mean to Joyce Linton and also was the ringleader in disrupting Miss Nalder's extra French lessons and - crucially - never said sorry for it. She was the only girl we ever failed with (until Betty Wynne Davis?)

Tony Blair would have converted much earlier if he'd believed the British public would have voted for a Catholic, but I have no idea why the wouldn't iyswim.

Thanks Burren. Just as well my RL school stayed in the one location or I'd been an uneducated savage.

I think Tony Blair was very forcefully told not to say anything about religion - and converting whilst Prime Minister would have caused some questions.

It's funny isn't it, people were okay with a Jewish PM in the 19th century. Well, I'm sure lots of people weren't okay, but he got there anyway!

Oh was he? I didn't know that.

Whereas in America to stand any chance of being elected you have to appear to be devout even if you really aren't.

I'd forgotten about Thekla. I never really thought she was bad enough to be expelled, but I guess EBD needed to get an expulsion in at some point!

Am I the only person who thinks Joey essentially bullied Simone? All the condescending pep talks in the early books, leaving her out of things, always being slightly dismissive?

Absolutely, CorusKate, any evidence of any but the most tokenistic 'weddings and funerals' Christianity in public life is generally seen as strange, though I do think there's still a slight 'othering' of Catholics, a hangover of the 'Oh, they're all controlled by the Pope/worship saints/tell their priests everything/are superstitious, contraception-rejecting types' mentality.

Whereas one of the oddities of the CS was that EBD would have us believe that the vast, vast majority of the girls were extremely devout at all periods in the school's history. Mary-Lou, a mature late teenager, is absolutely gobsmacked that a new girl has no particular religious affiliation or interest (though she has in fact attended some form of religious service every Sunday her whole life - so it's not as if M-L is meeting her first atheist).

Len nags Ruey Richardson, on her first night staying with the Maynards, into kneeling at her bedside to say her prayers. And in whichever late book it is where the Swiss school builds its own private chapels, the entire body of pupils is apparently so moved by the service of dedication that they are quiet and subdued with piety for a week!

Was Thekla the one who caused consternation (and those with delicate constitutions to start vomiting copiously the next morning) at a midnight feast by bringing and eating raw (smoked) bacon?

That's her.

Yes Flugella she did really. Could you imagine the AIBU:

"I have this friend that I've known since boarding school. She was always more popular and daring than me and I kind of hero worshipped her a bit I suppose. She used to occasionally exclude me from group stuff or talk down to me, but I didn't want to lose her friendship so let it go.
Later on as adults myself and DH inheirited an old chateau. My friend was quite dismissive of it, criticising it for being shabby, dirty, a 'white elephant' etc. which I found a bit hurtful. But again, I let it go. Then we had our first baby and I decided to call her after my friend but she objected, saying she was fed up of people calling their dcs after her. Anyhow, I have been unable to have any more children and my friend, who has 8 dcs passed a comment recently about me not having a 'real' family like her's.
AIBU to think she is a total cow and to lose the bitch out of my life "

Summerbreezing that is spot on. Can't imagine Simone ever letting go of Joey though, which is sad. Mind you, even if she did, I doubt Joey would be shocked or upset by it and would probably console herself by writing an educational book while having more babies.

I'm sure the book says that Thekla wrote a letter to Miss A years later thanking her for for expelling her as it was the impetus she needed to turn her life around.

Puh-lease.

I like to think of Thekla (Von Stift?) stomping around Germany hissing trash-talk about the CS for the rest of her days. Her eyes narrowing as she takes a drag on her cigarette holder and a dark anti CS cloud darkening her features.

squoosh She'd have been leading the Nazi raids to destroy the school, surely?