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

[SDTGisAnEvilWolefGenius]

New thread for all the Chalet School fans!

That was it, Baby Voodoo! I always enjoyed the bits where they had to own up to their crimes. Leaving Baby Voodoo behind by accident was a bit of a cock up on their part.

This thread really brings back the memories. I was just thinking about how Joey and her friends become head girl and prefects and they get their own rooms in the new building and all the pretty descriptions (flowers and wall colours and so on). I was very envious reading about that.

Empedocles was a monkey owned by cherry Christie ( another picture child with violet eyes who was in a very strange relationship with the local naturalist Kester Bellever, she used to stop at his island cottage. He was clearly 30+ whole she was 10!!

Anyway this monkey was given to bride as a prize by her step father commander Christie as a jolly jape.

Can't imagine they would get nits though as only washing their hair weekly it would too greasy for nits to get a toe hold!!

The chalet girls go to the brook centre?

I found my edition of Pixie O'Shaughnessy today - Fruit mentioned that the wearing kenwigses came from it, remember?

I didn't spot the kenwigses (probably because I kept being interrupted by 2 imps of middles who wouldn't settle to their prep) but it was worse. There was a chapter about a sheets and pillow case party complete with costume descriptions - including a norman peasant girl and a ghost who used sticks to give height and wings. And a description of the heroine doing a circuit of a room without setting foot on the floor.

I am not angry but I am sad and disappointed. EBD has stolen my trust.

No, Empedocles was a form mascot - can't remember which form/book and I can't remember what the monkey was called either - was it Jacko?

I think it was Jo who left Baby Voodoo on the piano by mistake (when she caught the little dears).

I'd forgotten about Baby Voodoo, I remember getting slightly freaked out by it when I first read the book and saw the picture on the cover at about 8 or 9. Must re-read it (New House, isn't it?).

Was Empedocles' first name Peter?

When I read the books as a child I pronounced it Empy-Dockles in my head.

Omg yes empidockles was that the funny way Emmerence pronounced a Roman emperor. Was it?

I fail the cornerstone test.

Nitey nite my lambs.

Bloody hell not cornerstone but foundation stone!!!

I am a blatherskite!!!

Kenwigs mentioned in More about Pixie.

the long plaits of hair which trailed over the pillow—her “Kenwigs” as she had dubbed them, after Charles Dickens's immortal “Miss Kenwigses,” who are pictorially represented in short frocks, pantaloons, and tight plaits of hair, secured at the ends by bows of ribbon

So MaryLou had plaits. She also had a step sister but being MaryLou had to call her by another name.

Love the books though and would have loved to have known EDB.

Wonder what she would have made of mumsnet?

So MaryLou had plaits. She also had a step sister but being MaryLou had to call her by another name.

Love the books though and would have loved to have known EDB.

Wonder what she would have made of mumsnet?

I can imagine EBD using some of the AIBU about families to create another new girl with problems.

Joey wouldhaunt the education threads: (One answer "why don't you send them to the Chalet School? We don't have bullying/exam stress/syllabuses... there")
And isn't there a topic for larger families..? She'd want to check that from time to time to make sure she had the biggest.

I'm sure we can imagine some AIBUs she'd put.

AIBU to be hurt that a new girl arrived at my sister's school and they actually wrote to the headmistress to tell them about her background rather than me? It really is much better to give me the hanes because I understand girls like no one else does. The headmistress hasn't told me about it either, she just said it was confidential. Shall I tell my sister to instruct her to hand the note over? (Or shall I go to PennyRest, where I'll be able to overhear what's happening anyway?)

AIBU to be furious that my 17 year old dd is refusing to marry a very nice doctor that we have known since he was a teenager. She simply says that he's years older than her, he gives her the creeps and that she's still in school and doesn't want to get married for at least ten years. What kind of stupid reasons are those?

YANBU, Summer. Send her over to Freudesheim for a chat with Mrs Maynard. She's the soul of the school, you know.

If that doesn't work, pop something in a cup of warm milk and roll her in a blanket.

Ooh thanks Fair. I've heard she really understands girls and was sensible enough herself to get married straight from school to a much older doctor she'd never even been on a date with but who had been letching pining after her since she was in a gymslip. Why can't dd be more like that?

I am a doctor at a big Sanatorium in Switzerland. I am married with a large family of 11 DCs. My DW is a successful writer of godawful formulaic novels. I am proud of her success, but I'm starting to feel resentful. When she's not writing, she spends most of her time lurking around her old school which just happens to be next door or hosting random girls and mistresses to English Tea, so I never really see her.

We do have some live-in help, but I'm starting to feel that we are taking advantage of her. She has to get up very early to pull lettuces and make delectable little cakes, and I think DW is taking her for granted.

I have a large supply of sedatives available - AIBU to slip her one in her milky Kaffee at Fruhstuck every morning to calm her down?

Jack isn't all that old for Joey. In Head Girl it says Mollie Maynard is 22 or 23 when Joey is 15, so Jack must be about 7 years older. There's a formula that says a man can get away with dating a woman half his age plus 7 years, so a 20 year old Jo marrying a 27 year old Jack isn't so creepy.

Still makes Len at least 4 years too young for Reg the Letch.

Are Mollie and Jack meant to be twins? For some reason I though he was her big brother.

An AIBU from a local:
AIMB to want to miss the local school's summer fair? I know they're doing it for a good cause, but the only thing I've ever won from them is a lime green twin set, which I didn't even want to bother unravelling the wool so I could reuse it. (I did in the end, and that writer lady who's connected to the school bought it off me in the end. Goodness knows what she wants it for!)
There's always a theme, which I'm sure means something to them, but actually no one else realises what it is; they expect us to buy lots of homemade crafts made by the children, which is all very well, but if I want child made crafts I'll get my own children to make them.
Added to that the writer lady usually makes an embarrassing exhibition of herself-often she's the lady opener too. And the performances always go wrong in some way, often due to writer lady's big untrained dog.
However it's considered social suicide not to go, they have too much influence here...

Yes, definitely twins - Mollie mentions it in Reunion, and I'm sure it's mentioned elsewhere.

Haven't got reunion

Actually given EBD's liking for twins (usually one male/one female too) it's not really surprising is it? Just be thankful she didn't make Joey identical twins

Different religions too. Jack's RC and Mollie's CofE.

Other writers liked to make a big thing of identical twins but EBD never did. Did EBD ever label any of her pairs as identical? Prudence and Priscilla Dawbarn were, although it's never stated directly but implied when Matey double checks which one she's talking too. I can't think of any others.

fairnotfair absolutely fantastic!

Haha, loving the AIBUs. I think Reunion is the worst book in the series - it's deadly dull, and the more bonkers of the plot lines aren't even endearingly bonkers, they're just tediously bonkers. The scene where someone (can't remember who) is careless at the breakfast table and creates utter mayhem with spoiled clothes and tablecloths all round makes me cringe. It's a while since I read it, but I seem to remember that Anna is roundly scolded for making a fuss and calmly told that one of the exploited underlings domestic staff from the School will call round to help with the mountain of extra washing while the guests, having wreaked havoc, go off to enjoy themselves.

On the other hand I love the Baby Vodoo scene. I think Joey's head girl at the time, and she discovers the middles playing with BV on the roof at midnight. Having caught them red-handed and told them off, she forgets that BV has been left unattended in the music room. I love her owning up when (is it Mademoiselle? Miss Annersley?) asks who knows about it. You can almost see the gleam in her eyes as she gets to her feet to 'confess' her part in events. It's everything I love about Joey-as-HG.

The very last book that EBD was working on, but died before she completed it is " The Chalet School Tells Jo to Fuck Off to the Far Side of Fuck, and Fuck Off a Little Bit More."