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.

[MrsShortFuseTheSecond]

I loved those Naughtiest Girl books CorusKate. There was that poignant tale of Joan whose parents neglected her and Elizabeth sent her birthday presents and cake pretending they were from her family and she was thrilled...but found out in the end.

And haughty little Arabella. And Harry who played the piano like a bunch of bananas. Oh I must find them.

[DorisAllTheDay]

Not sure about being a teacher at the CS. I don't think my French and German would be equal to the task, and I think I'd get a bit fed up with having to work and socialise with the same people all day every day, apart from the occasional Big Excursion to Joey's house next door.

I'm now onto wondering where the children on the bus got their Chalet School books from.

[ILoveCwtches]

I think the Chalet School. I barely remember the plots of any of the Boarding School books, but I think they were my favourites. I am basing this on the fact that I have about 10 of them on my bookcase!

I loved imagining I was at the Chalet School, Mallory Towers, St Clare's and was stunned when I watched a documentary on Benenden in the 90s and they had rooms not dorms. I didn't actually believe it for a good while.

leeloo1, I was gripped by that plot. It's fantastic!

[curiousuze]

Although Matey from the Chalet School might be arrested these days for drugging everyone's hot milk.

[LRDtheFeministDragon]

See, I want to say Chalet school cos I could quite fancy becoming fluent in three languages without apparent effort, and eating whatever you fancy, and making incomprehensible snarky remarks about Catholics.

But I suspect in reality I would have struggled as you were meant to be terribly musical and/or good at acting, weren't you? And you'd have to avoid killing the Robin.

If I had to go anywhere I think I agree with AllMimsey I'd go with the Fossil girls. I would love to spend all day doing 1-1 English Lit lessons with the lesbian doctors and having snack breaks (though I am quite concerned, now, with the unforeseen implications of 'beavertime'), and then earning my living from age 12. Plus, the clothes are much, much better.

[beccajoh]

I have never heard of Chalet school! How is that possible when I've read every other series mentioned on this thread? What was the school where that girl played tennis? And there was a boys' school nearby?

[curiousuze]

Oh my LORD becca, riches await you!

The tennis one was Trebizon. There were boys in it. cat's bum face

[rumbleinthrjungle]

The Mallory Towers crew would ditch me in about five minutes for wanting to read instead of do sports and not finding it funny being shoved in a freezing cold swimming pool for laughs. So it would have to be the Chalet School, if I managed not to get expelled for duffing up Verity Lambert for excessive fuckwittery.

Matey and hot milk always links to me to Agatha Christie and Miss Marple, it seems to have been common knowledge in the 50s that accepting milky drinks from middle aged women was dodgy on the grounds they were probably spiked.

[MollyBdenum]

Linbury Court would be best. I bet they take girls nowadays.

The Chalet School would definitely be better than Mallory Towers. MT was full of hearty bullies and the Chalet School did generally seem accepting of a wider variety of personality. For every Joey and Mary Lou there was a nice quiet Frieda or Simone, and there were lesbian teachers there too and the food was good and walking was an acceptable sport, and one of the girls became a barrister at a time when that was very unusual, which is quite impressive.

[WilsonFrickett]

leeloo - just brilliant!

[MollyBdenum]

Would it be unreasonable of me to rename afternoon snack time as beaver time? I really want to, now.

[Toospotty]

birdbrain, we've been on several holidays to the lake where the Tyrol books were set. It is blissful - you really should go!

Chalet School for me. Blyton's schools were too cruel. And Kingscote is too well written to feel desirable as a school, apart from being taught by Miss Cromwell maybe.

[curiousuze]

God yes rumble I am completely wet and forever fainting - Mallory Towers would have killed me. I'd have been in bliss at the Annexe, helping Stacy edit the school newspaper. although i would probably have shagged a shepherd or something, I was a horny little bugger

[DaisyMasie]

Lesbian teachers at the Chalet School . Nooooo! Who?????


I imagine the girls on the bus were reading their mums' old copies. They're not available in shops or libraries anymore and second hand copies cost a fortune.

[Clawdy]

Has to be the Chalet School. Darrell and co. would find me common and scorn my every utterance.. Kaffee und Kuchen would be nicer...

[curiousuze]

They were all horrible to poor 'common' Joan Baker though

[pandarific]

Another one for St Claires! Ah, mamzelle - she was brilliant. :)

[DaisyMasie]

Yes but it wasn't Joan Baker's commonness that upset them, it was her lipstickness and her hairpermness and her general tartiness unladylike behaviour.

[TitchyCooPark]

I loved Mallory Towers and St Clares, but then when I was about 11 I discovered the Trebizon books. Anyone remember those?

TCP x

[AllMimsyWereTheBorogroves]

Rather a dangerous place at one point, but I also liked the sound of the girls' boarding school in Cat Among The Pigeons by Agatha Christie.

Best of all would be to attend Kiplington High School for Girls in the South Riding, and be taught by the divine Sarah Burton. Possibly my desert island book.

[curiousuze]

That's true, she cheapened herself with powder Daisy. I forgot about her perm! pearlclutches

[LittleBairn]

Malory towers even thought I would be the bookish clutzy one that no one wants on their team during games.

[Burren]

Let's see. Compulsory sportiness and being walked all over/potentially drowned by violent alpha schoolgirls like Darrell Rivers, at the mercy of sixth-formers who walk around with punishment books doling out lines to be learned off, with the odd midnight feast and craggy Cornish natural swimming pool to leaven the deal. A desire for fame of any kind involves you in a horrible accident, escaping death by inches and permanently damaged (Mavis and Amanda). I suppose at least the staff more or less left them alone out of hours, and I always liked the idea of the sunken garden in the centre of the school building.

Versus compulsory milk, daintiness and piety, a matron with such a weird tidiness compulsion that she even drags girls out of lessons to rearrange their cubicles, the bumptious do-gooder Mary-Lou and the insufferably dutiful Len, not to mention her Eternal Schoolgirl Next Door mother. On the positive side, trilingualism and cake.

Shoot me, I wouldn't last an hour in either. I'd be having a fag out the back with Joan Baker, both wearing eyeliner and swearing.

(Have the Chalet fans forgotten the horribly saccharine religion, especially those nativity plays where the heartfelt piety of all the girls meant there wasn't a dry eye in the room? And the way a bunch of tough Middles who get lost in the woods spontaneously fall down on their knees and say the Our Father? And sickly sweet 'the' Robin?)

[kaffkooks]

Curiousuze, glad you brought up Trebizon. That's where I wanted to go. It seemed like the girls there had a bit more autonomy and they boys reduced the cliquey, bitchiness created by too many girls!