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'd hate to know Joey IRL - too self centred and always right. Staff-wise, I always liked Con Stewart but, of the girls, it's Polly Herriot that I always wanted to meet. I am just that person that wants to get it right and doesn't

Imagine the AIBU if your child was in the same form as Margot Maynard and her devil! Niece of the proprietor, mother has undue influence in the school, any other child would have been expelled etc etc.

God yes, I'd sooner be in a form with Mary-Lou any day!

Joey could pick up languages just by being nearby... except for Welsh-she hadn't picked up enough Welsh to thank some children who picked up herdropped shopping and had to give them her sweet ration. Can't remember which book, but it wasn't just after she arrived.

I'd have liked to be friends with Frieda of the early books. Would probably have liked to be friends with Vi Lucy-although I wouldn't have been popular enough to be in the gang. Rosamund reminds me quite a bit of my best friend at secondary, so i would probably enjoyed being friends with her too.

Adult Joey comes across as the sort of person you bump into in a shop and make hurried excuses why you can't come round and admire her newly knitted lime green twin set if you're an adult. If you're one of the children the sort of person that makes your insides curl with embarrassment. Double that embarrassment for her children-rather than proclaiming that "mamma is a pet" they'd be cringing and begging her not to come round to school again.

I particularly cringe at the point when she stalks follows the school to the island and Joey proclaims her girls (the triplets) are too young to go away to school-when they're older than other girls they're willing to take the fees from-and I think the older boys are away at school.

She picked up words though DeWee, asking girls at school for long after they'd left Wales for all the hanes/news.

I'd forgotten Vi Lucy, how remiss of me! She was a great character, and I agree that Frieda is by far the best of the Quartette.

There's an interesting little side comment in Exploits Of The Chalet Girls which even remained in the Armada abridged version yes I am just as ludicrously obsessed as the rest of you when Evil Thekla is first introduced. It's mentioned that she has an older stepbrother who has 'embraced the spirit of Young Germany' and that's one of the reasons why her mum has packed her off to the Chalet School - to keep her away from Nazi influences...

Wasn't Joey quite mean to Grizel at one point too? (Despite saving her life on the mountain.)

I always felt sorry for Grizel - shit home life, patronised by Joey who's younger than her, wants to be a PE mistress but is compelled to do music by her father and ends up being an unpopular music teacher back at the Chalet School, no doubt resenting every child she teaches.

I'd like to have been friends with Grizel. I cherish a secret fantasy tht with my help she would have persuaded her father to let her study PE and would have gone on to have a happy life. Imagine a music teacher who doesn't like music - no wonder the girls were scared of her .

I would never get tired of slapping Mary Lou though...

sockqueen I only thought there was about 40 something, can't believe all this time there's been episodes missing from my chalet school knowledge do you have the list on a computer that you could send it to me if I pm you my email address?!

I'd also be tempted to slip something into Jack Maynard's milk to stop him procreating. Joey's smug quotient increases with every child, doesn't it?

BirdBrain the full list is here.

Only the word "hanes", as far as I remember, and I was never sure if that was a Welsh word or local slang. Certainly the way she tended to use it was more local slang.

But with her thirst for learning new languages, you'd have thought she would have embraced another one. She mentions one time about going to India and how lost she felt when she first arrived when everyone was speaking a different language, but she goes on to say "of course I soon picked it up..." And she was there considerably less time than she spent in Wales, and knew she was there on a visit, whereas as far as they were concerned initially they were in Wales to stay.

Don't worry, I'm not a Joey apologist DeWee . Really like the way EBD wrote about her as a girl and young woman, but she did get awfully smug in later books.

The one character I always thought was underdeveloped was Madge actually. She only really makes an impression in the first few books and then takes a distinct back seat in later books, and it's hard to see why girls she'd never been in contact with during the Welsh years and in Switzerland would hero-worship her so much.

Made became a bit of a ghostly saintly figure later on didn't she? The mythical Madame who was adores by everyone without realising why. I'd love to see what she really thought of Joey's descent into smugness and other goings on.

Slightly off topic but does anyone know whether the Antonia Forests have been reprinted or are available in ebook (or transcript) form? I remember Autumn Term but none of the others (because I was too CS obsessed!).

Schlafen I've just bought Autumn Term on the basis of this thread, there's a 90s reprint of which new copies are still available on Amazon, so you should be okay.

None in kindle format though.

For once, [Bride], the plainest of the three Bettany girls, looked supremely pretty, as Lady Russell told her brother and sister-in-law later, and prophesied that in a year’s time they would have three pretty daughters of which to boast instead of only two.

I just read that bit last night to DD! It was to give to Marmee as she goes to Washington to where Father is in hospital - and they don't know how badly injured.

This is the same DD that I was thinking next I'll have to dig out my Chalet school books (I knew I needed more than one DD, the first wasn't interested).

woo I will do nothing today - Amazon have just delivered three go to the chalet school

DP says "you can read it and then sell it on ebay"

Er - No. This is my new collection. Am going charity shop rummaging later to see if any are lurking there too.

Reading New House now. When EBD wrote Jo as shrinking from pain and with no interest in having a husband or babies, I wonder if she'd already decided to give her 11 children?

lessons thanks

re: Joey 'refusing' to have any more babies named after her....if mumsnet had only been around then:

"AIBU? I have an old friend from school that I'm still in contact with- we're not close anymore. Anyhow, I was telling her that I was pregnant and out of the blue, she announces that she "refuses to have anymore babies named after her!". The cheek of assuming I'd name my baby after someone who regularly left me out of things and was a bit of a bitch to me aside, it turns out she thinks that every baby that's been named Josephine in the last decade in our social circle has been named specifically after her! AIBU to tell her that people have been actually naming their babies after their other relatives/friends called Josephine, and burst her bubble?"