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

[SDTGisAnEvilWolefGenius]

New thread for all the Chalet School fans!

Joey couldn't sew. Wasn't mending a sad muddle to her? Or was that Little Women's Jo?

Both Jo's couldn't mend

But Joey Chalet learned, obviously, because everyone in the Chalet school learns and no-one has issues with any kind of motor skill there...

In later life she still sighs over it and faithful Anna does most of it. She does darn the odd sock while sighing over Jack's heels. Maybe if he wasn't such a solid lump he wouldn't be so hard on his socks...

Well I wanted to win the charming twin set in lime green Joey knitted for the sale.

Oh and her monster jigsaws she cuts herself and one of her books too so there!

I have two darning mushrooms, inherited from each of my grandmothers. but a tennis ball works just as well

I can darn too! NB This does not mean I actually darn - life is too short and socks are too cheap!!

Socks in our house never last long enough to darn - the sock monster gets them somehow.

I can't darn but I used to knit socks. Unfortunately I tended to get bored before I finished a pair. I once gave my brother one sock for his birthday and promised him the other later...never did do it!

Thanks for explaining the sides to middle thing, I've always wondered what it meant!

My husband is also a solid lump of comfort and goes through socks like nobody's business. But fortunately for me, there is Marks and Spencer's or I would spend a lot more time sighing over darning. Moreover I have no Faithful Anna, or even a Marie :(

I believe in job creation. If I darned, I wouldn't buy as many socks and I believe that sock manufacturers need to be able to stay in business.

I do ponder, with Jo's writing, singing, darning, jigsaw creation, knitting vivid jumpers that would make you pass on buying a raffle ticket at the Sale, increasing her huge family, constantly appearing at the school for no reason then being a Voice of Reason to new girls who haven't learned The Chalet School Way, English Teas and umpteen other things that I can't remember... in between drinking doctored milk for reasons unknown...

did she never feel the need to say fuck it I've had enough and bugger off with a couple of good friends for a dam good bitchy gossip and too much booze?

But she didn't have any of those kind of friends Revenge - just nice former Chalet girls who had been married since they were 17 and wouldn't dream of 'bitching' (horrid slang word) or drinking alcohol. They would much rather reminisce about their schooldays over coffee and delicious pastries (baked by the saintly Anna).

Joey was the gossipy type. She did it loads, but all round school.

Not sure how she'd react to someone else having the hanes first if it involved a new girl though. She liked to be the one who had everyone on the edge of the seats waiting for the juicy tipbit that wasn't really her information to be imparting to those who had no right to know...

I darn tights mostly. Which is very useful when your younger daughter goes through her ballet tights (at 8 a pair ) on the first ballet show with two more to go. Fist sized hole it was. I wasn't exactly a happy darner that night.

Joey basically barges into the Staff room every time she wants a gossip! I'm sure they were all drinking nectar coffee with a good shot of whisky! Or mit Rhum...

I figured Robin couldn't bathe herself because you needed to be strong enough to carry cans of water from the bathroom to the dormitory to fill a tin bath and get boiling water from downstairs - remember when she wanted to empty the basin and chucked the contents out the window and hit Eigen, as it was 'too far' to the bathroom?

Any idea when toothpaste took off? In Tyrol tooth powder is used by some of the Seniors, and in Switzerland at least two people tread on a toothpaste tube, but no idea when people switched.

I forgot.

This is The Chalet School. I probably need to go and see Matron for a draught of something or report myself to the prefects for using slang. :(

[impressed at darning ballet tights]

Darning ballet tights was a needs must, not a pleasure.

I have "Two Chalet Girls in India" on my Kindle (ok, it's not by EBD, but the lady who wrote it knows more about India than she ever did :) )
Also have The School by the River, which is one of my "comfort" reads.

Maybe those cigarettes they were always smoking were, y'know, funny cigarettes...

right-i am only just embarking on my chalet school education. i have read the first one and am just finishing off the second one.
last night i had a true 'wtaf?' moment when reading jo at the chalet school.

jo has been confined to bed yet again for getting wet/standing in a draught for 3 minutes etc
however she has got out of bed before dr jem russell has said it's ok. he exclaims 'you might have had something wrong with you '[or something like that] and she replies " what? like thrush?!

WTAF??????????????
i roared laughing!!!!!

tanith my lamb notes passing notes that's as bad as stealing as you are stealing the prefects confidence. Totally shocked.

I have reported us both as I have the English school girl code of being decent and honest.

have you come from a school that doesn't teach that like a council one? Or are you a Prussian.

I told Joey and she fainted.

Surely she gasped first and then fainted.

"Like THRUSH???"

I can't remember that! Did someone puerile at the publisher's alter it for a laugh? Do you think she meant actual fanjo thrush? What did was Dr Jem's reaction?

oh-and brain fever anyone? joey gets cold and then is unconcious for days with suspected brain fever?

Meningitis? Blimey, she was unlucky wasn't she? Which book was the brain fever?

I want to read them all now! But I can't do Kindles and stuff.

I've recently reread 'Jo of' and although I'm reading the unabridged transcript this time round, I did vaguely remember the 'thrush' comment from my Armada paperback, so I think it survived the cut. Don't quote me on it though.

I think Jem just tells her not to be so silly or not to have such madcap ideas or something. I always assumed she meant oral thrush - surely EBD would never hint at anything 'downstairs'...?!

This looks very useful.

I might get it, simply for the purposes of joining in with this thread more meaningfully. Some of your are making my minutiae seem lamentable.