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.

[AllMimsyWereTheBorogroves]

Surely Miss Annersley and Miss Wilson? Or are you suggesting that 11 children notwithstanding Joey batted for St Scholastika's?

[LRDtheFeministDragon]

mimsy that is a genius euphemism. I must use it forthwith (thereby marking myself out as a total weirdo to everyone not on this thread, but ...).

[leeloo1]

thanks.

V kind of you. Think I must have read too many of these books to have come up with all that.

Sadly to write an in-fill book people seem to spend years researching cs books to work out where there are 'missing' terms/who'd be at the school/how old everyone'd be & my 'twins' would have to leave again sharpish as you can't introduce characters who then never reappear in later books.

shame as I love reading the new cs books people are writing. Maybe one day when I have more time. :)

[Martorana]

No, not Joey Maynard- Jack's sister- Molly Maynard. Or maybe I do mean Miss Wilson?

[curiousuze]

In my imagination Robin ends up like Bette Davis in Whatever Happened to Baby Jane

[Martorana]

Robin ends up as a nun. After trying social work, but being too delicate for too much contact with the lower orders.

[DaisyMasie]

Wow that Chalet School was a den of vice, iniquity and unnatural practices. And there was I thinking it was all Kaffee und Kuchen, hunky doctors, and skiing.

leeloo, we wouldn't mind about all that detail. It's a great story.

[EmpressOfJurisfiction]

Speaking of new cs material - loads of it at the Sally Denny Library. I recommend works by Finn and Beecharmer.

[LRDtheFeministDragon]

She's a very romanticized nun, isn't she, IIRC? You imagine she spends her time wafting around on a cloud while the other nuns are bitching in the choir stalls.

[Burren]

I imagine Hilda felt towards adult Joey the one would feel towards a terribly cheery and irrepressible crazed stalker. The woman just keeps following the school around Europe like a mad sniffer dog! Even when the school unexpectedly has a drains problem and suddenly has to move to an isolated island off the Welsh coast, it's pure coincidence that Joey's house develops mysterious subsidence issues (or Joey attacks the foundations with a crowbar), so, gosh darn it, the only house in the whole world that will do her to move to is on the mainland bang opposite the school! (Despite the fact that her husband works down the road from the old school building, so presumably has a commute of several hours from their new house...?)

And in Switzerland, she actually has a special gate cut in the hedge between her house and the school, so she can keep bobbing up in Hilda's office during worktime.

[Toospotty]

Burren, you need to read The Chalet School Grows Up, aka the Chalet School Apocrypha. As do many other posters on this thread.

[AllMimsyWereTheBorogroves]

I'd forgotten about Miss Maynard! She taught Maths. Was she particularly close to Miss Annersley? I have dozens of Chalet School books upstairs - 20 years ago you could get them in paperback quite easily, although they may be the abridged versions. I feel a re-read coming on...

You'll all like this thread: www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/a1626409-The-chalet-school-and-ofsted

[DaisyMasie]

But Joey is the spirit of the Chalet School Burren ie needs to grow up and fuck off .

[curiousuze]

How she could be fuckered moving house every 2 years is beyond me - she has ELEVEN CHILDREN. And a massive dog. Plus that Jack Maynard was just a bossy pain in the arse. Forever saying 'now look here you silly girl.' Bet he was a spoonyfucker.

[AllMimsyWereTheBorogroves]

She had staff, though. Anna was one, I seem to recall. Smiled a lot. Probably her hot milk was also drugged.

[curiousuze]

Aww I feel bad being mean about the books really. They were the light of my life growing up. Didn't help that I went to the equivalent of Grange Hill but shitter. I'm just bitter

[joanofarchitrave]

I think Jack Maynard probably got her onto prototype Librium as soon as the triplets were born tbh. She must be whacked out on benzos from then on.

LRD, didn't you get the impression in Gaudy Night that when they were discussing 'sterilisation of the unfit' they were probably approving of it? My family at that time were useless leeches academic types and published numerous volumes on social Darwinism and making educated women breed more. Wouldn't have taken much for them to approve of the Hitler version tbh.

[DaisyMasie]

I loved them too curious. I'm laughing with them, not at them ( I think }

[thebodydoestricks]

Ah my lambs,

Just heard the chatter on here although I don't like the thought of all you womem chattering without a man to help.

My parenting strategy is never too young to start discipline and make it ingrained into a child's character

Off now to pop out those quads!

Oh that was easy.. Now having real English tea with Matey and Bill. Our littie female brains are bursting with a feminine idea for the sale. I am singing of course and it's to a jolly tune by nina Rutherford music by jacinthe Hardy.

Have to hurry now as when Jack is back I have to have sex holding my rosary beads.

Bye bye chikkies.

[Vinagejazz]

Interesting how this thread has become all about the Chalet School. Says it all really. EBD wins!

[petrova]

leeloo - love your version of my time at the Chalet School with my twin - think that is exactly how it would have been written!
Alas, I too think that we would only appear in one book, then would never be heard of again - unless it was in an aside mentioning how we had both become doctors but given up the minute we married our Doctors/surgeons . Maybe we could each give birth to twins ourselves! Or am I taking it too far now. Not sure how the school would fare in the pastoral care side these days, especially re:giving of sedatives and activities which seem to have had no risk assessements done prior to the trip.

[ScarlettDarling]

Malory towers definitely...didn't they have to have cold baths in the chalet school? Brrrr!

[TooExtraImmatureCheddar]

at having sex holding rosary beads!

CS for me too. The sheer unbeatable melodrama of it. I used to go to sleep fantasizing about being Joey in Rivals nearly drowning in the lake while saving Maureen's life.

I also had a total homoerotic crush on Miss Annersley, and sometimes Bill as well, especially in Eustacia when she breaks her foot on the mountain and is in such exquisite agony

[sunnybobs]

Chalet School of course! All those lovely stylish dorms, beautiful food, mountain air, multicultural approaches with awareness that the Empire is the best and gorgeous Drs to fall in love with. And they're always out on adventures climbing mountains or skiing for their health. MT much harsher world!

[Darmok]

@ thebodydoestricks

I can tell how you've been spending your time, my lamb.