To think we are all ready to remove to Inter V at the Chalet School.

[SDTGisAnEvilWolefGenius]

New thread for all the Chalet School fans!

Yes, my dd loves the term splasheries, we no longer have any thing as mundane as a bathroom in our house, we have a Splashery.

I gasp audibly very often, but then I am easily shocked and people come and tell me things just for the fun of seeing my jaw drop and hearing my audible gasp.

I remember vividly reading The Wrong Chalet School for the first time. I was aghast in a very pleasurable way at the idea of being sent so casually to the wrong boarding school and nobody knowing or very much caring for weeks and weeks. All so very different from my humdrum life living at home with my parents and brother in a vile new town and attending a day school I could see from our house.

This is the best thread ever. Fact.

It's a honey!

Ducking girls' heads in the toilet

Do you want them to end up in the san with pneumonia, drinking drugged milk and having to be brought out of their comas by Robin singing Climb Every Mountain (whaaat? She's a nun)

Thank you Cheddar

Most of the "Chalet School Howlers" aren't actually that funny when repeated. Probably pretty hard to think of a Howler that hasn't been in several school books already that is genuinely funny.
The "wonderfully funny Howler" of Con's that is referred to many times I was really diasppointed when I eventually found out what it was. It wasn't even a particularly realistic mistake either. Sort of thing that might have got the people there the first time chuckling slightly, but not worth of repeating even once.

And why oh why did every person appointed head girl have to utter cries of disbelief and horror? Some, like Peggy, it might have been a bit of a surprise as she hadn't realised the job was up for grabs by people who hadn't been prefects last year. But the big drama of "I'm not up to it" gets more and more OTT each time you hear it.
And if Mary Lou hadn't realised that she was inevidably going to get it, then it doesn't say much for her famous insight does it? What it does do is make her look totally false modesty.

EBD did say in Rivals that "the doings of the [KKK] shocked them all." Margia specifically mentions beatings and coffins.

That's another thing I never understood. A school so strict about slang, yet they referred to the Splasheries all the time. Joey even tells Eustacia "That's not slang."
Well, why not?!!

Were the toilets in the splasheries or separate? And the upstairs ones- didn't they have 5 minutes for cold baths in the mornings, did that include wees too?!

Wees, SelfRighteous? Surely you don't think a true Chalet School girl has any need to urinate? And please don't even hint at any baser excretory functions.

There is castor oil from time to time. Surely kids reading CS in the 30s would have known that the stuff makes you capable of shitting through the eye of a needle even if it's never explicitly stated.

In Coming of Age one of the naughtier girls is messing around in prep and falls backwards onto her arse. She shouts out (as I recall) 'Oh - my seat!' which is seen as terribly shocking.

Thank you for the books, NewYear - I am engrossed!

Does anyone know - does Leila Elstob ever die or is she destined to remain a pale and wan invalid in the san for ever?

I think she stops being mentioned, can't remember her getting better/dying at any rate!

I think she sort of recovers. She has an operation in Chalet Girl from Kenya, which (unusually) Con helps her recovery. I think it is said along the lines of she is likely to recover. And then not sure if she appears again.

My Granny used to tell that at her school they used to call the "Londonderry Air" "London backside" which they thought was terribly daring.

I gasped this morning when I read what Jo said in response to Dr Jem's question ^"How do you know you're not sickening for something awful?"

"Like - like thrush?" said Jo unexpectedly.^

Being of a delicate constitution I had to go and lie down and await my warm milk. I'm glad that the San is about to be built as I fear that I may be needing it soon!

Revenge- i remember asking my mum what thrush was after Jo mentioned it. I was about 8 and my mum was pretty surprised

Amystiara oh what did your mum say?

(and did you ask at the top of your voice in the Sainsbury's queue like my DD when she thought of something that would make me blush?)

Haha no i was good Revenge, i was at home. I cant remember exactly what my mum said but she asked where id heard about thrush and when i innocently told her she stumbled over her words and made show her the page

Brilliant! :)

I wonder if EBD knew what thrush was?

Possibly she thought of it as an oral thing? Rather than its other manifestation?

Oh yes, I remember that! What on earth was EBD thinking? She can't possibly have known what it really is. CS girls do not make any reference to Those Areas, much less suffer from infections of the same.

Doesn't Prudence say 'my tail'? And then she has to sit on an inflatable ring in San for ages? I've got a pr

Oops. I've got a print- out of Coming of Age somewhere - probably in the garage in a box. I got it at uni before I really knew about saving documents, so I don't have it electronically, annoyingly. Will try to find it and check the wording.

Ah yes Cheddar - that is the anecdote I was groping for earlier, while getting all the details wrong. I think it is the only reference to the bottom region in the entire series.