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.

The Chalet School, definitely. I'm another one who daydreamed about being sent there. Malory Towers encouraged the girls to engage in vicious bullying campaigns against anybody who wasn't an instant conformist. I'd have ended up with pebbles in my shoes or being beaten to death with a hockey stick in the swimming pool or something.

Anybody else read the Dimsie series by Dorita Fairlie Bruce? Similar era to the Chalet School. I think I would still rather go to the Chalet School than the Jane Willard Foundation though.

Oh, and there were lesbian teachers in all of them. Miss Peters in Malory Towers (she was the manly one who loved riding), and I'm sure that in the Chalet School Miss Wilson's hair turns white when she thinks her "dearest friend" Miss Annersley has been taken by the Nazis and has a semi-breakdown when they realise how much they meant to each other.

I've got a couple of Dimsie books. They are rather odd, even for their era, though I can't really explain what it is.

Confession!!

I am reading Barbara goes to Cs right right now.

I luffs it.

burren your post made me spit my wine.

Do not read the chalet girls grow up.

Traumatised still.

MaryLou a slag? Reg a rapist and Joey a bad mother!

Fucking traumatised.

darmok I know you rubber necker you.

Omg it's Tuesday!!! We should all be talking French!

Fines all round girls.

I'd go for Malory towers I think. I always liked the sound of that swimming pool of theirs, and being at school by the sea would be fun. -And they could even keep horses there. And As you say, such a fuss about slang etc at the Chalet School.

Quelle horreur! Cest Mardi! En Francais mes amies!

I can't imagine how much would be raised in fines if the CS took over MN. I think they'd be able to bankroll the NHS.

ooh fucket. Nous somme dans le shit.

Lol louise the chalet school is by the sea in the island ones. You have to remember the regatta!! All that school girl healthy rowing with the doctors looking on ready to give them a dose

you rumbustious crocodile as Joey called professor Fry.

A dose meaning sleeping draft!! Mind doesn't really sound better.

By the way who the fuck ever had triplets, twins twice and 4 singletons without pissing at every step for the rest if your life? I

I have 4 and trampolining and sneezing have to be planned ahead.

Dimsy is totally twee. Don't they steal a car in one to get back a painting that has been stolen. Anti-soppiest society, known as ASS, wasn't it

I think I'd go to the Chalet school, and in the holidays fall through a wardrobe and spend a few years there, then have a couple of weeks with the Lone Piners (another re-published by GGBP) and finish the holiday with Tamzin and Rissa in Wrestling... wouldn't mind spending time visiting the Stormy Petral and Anastasia too.

Yes I do read too much children's fiction.

Actually I'd love to see Darrell try her luck in the CS. Jo would be having her over for tea and a chat in no time. and then Darrell would bash her with her hockey stick.

Yep DeWee but not as twee as Angela Brazil. (I collect old children's books.)

The one at the bottom of the list has to be Greyfriars though. Bullying, insufficient food and terrible racism. Ofsted would put them in special measures.

Taisez-vous mes enfants! C'est le heure de prayers. Les Catholics sur le droit and les Prostetants sur le gauche, s'il vous plait!

Or Elsie Oxenham (or whatever she's called). I read one, which was all about how they reform a rebellious 16yo and her staid big sister by teaching them country dancing. Very funny!

Have you read any of the Bessie Bunter ones? The one I've got is much better than Billy, she's definitely one of the crowd rather than laughed at.

I like best the heads at the schools in the Bannermere series. Old Kingston is great once they know him, and Miss Florey is a dream of a head for a girls' school.

I collect old children's books too.

I wouldn't say no to a stint at the Swiss finishing school that Ella was sent to in the Sadler's Wells books.

Ideally, I'd want to be Nancy Blackett from Swallows & Amazons although am probably more like Peggy.
If that isn't possible, then going to the CS & being a friend of Bride Bettany & co when the school was in Wales or, later on, Len Maynard & co. I think Cornelia & Evadne would have been fun to hang around with but the Robin was on the scene then and Joey would have annoyed me; being on the Channel Islands would have been a bit stressful as it was during the war but I think the period after that would have been good. Mary-Lou would have been there but would just be an "irrepressible middle" who I would have been able to repress. As a junior, I probably would have looked up to her though so being a contemporary of the triplets would have suited me. Being friends with Len would also mean that I got to hear her rang about her parents & various other relatives.

Chalet School for me, definitely! Though I'd have to be a cissy and have a lukewarm bath in the morning.

I'd probably want to go either right at the start in the Tirol, when there's only a handful of them and they're all off having adventures up mountains at the slightest excuse, or later in Switzerland, with the triplets. Not Mary-Lou, I'd want to kill her.

Never read chalet school but I think I would be hard pressed between Mallory towers and st Clare's I liked the pool from sea water at Mallory towers and Patricia and isobel at st Clare's was bill with the horses at Mallory towers or st Clare's ? She had a rather racy relationship with the sports mistress ! Always wanted a midnight feast!!

Also quite wanted to be one of the four Marys in bunty!!

Neither. St Clare's, closely followed by Whyteleafe (The Naughtiest Girl series).

This thread has made me want to re-read them! Fab .

Hi lambkins,

Joey hear,

Can't answer now as pushing out sextuplets.

Chat tomorrow,

Up the chalet school!

wilson stop showing off!!! Are you actually Eustacia Benson?

Confession: I've read almost every series mentioned so far. Chalet School, Trebizon, Malcolm Savile's Lone Piners. I even tried Angela Brazil books when I was 17 when I was bored.

Malory Towers: although I actually think Darrell was in the right to hit Gwen (Gwen held another girl down in the water as a "joke", didn't she?), I would never want to go there!

It should not have been left to Darrell to discipline Gwen. A teacher should have been supervising the swimming, and Gwen should have been in a shitload of trouble immediately. Additional problems with Malory Towers in one word. Alicia!

Trebizon looked fun. It would be fine that I wasn't sporty, and I could compete with Rebecca for being queen of weird trivia.

But, I was always intrigued by the idea of multiple languages at the Chalet School, so... But everyone had to be Protestant or Catholic. There was never an option for neither.

joan - I didn't think they were approving!

The main person who likes the idea of eugenics is represented as unambiguously vacuous and unpleasant (Miss Schuster-Slatt). And when they refer to sterilisation as what 'they're trying in Germany' it is represented as being closely related to 'the relegation of woman to her place in the home' - which is what the whole novel argues against. And it's also noted that the Germans are killing people.