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To start a new term at the Chalet School?

1000 replies

Vintagejazz · 06/06/2014 14:23

Happy for this to be moved to Chat if posters agree but thought I'd start it here as this is where we've all been loitering without permission when we should be doing our housework homework.

So welcome to a new term everyone. Cases upstairs to the dormitories, form lists on the notice board. And you'll all be pleased to hear that even though we've moved to a different location, Joey has tracked us - -down moved in next door, so we'll still be seeing too much-- plenty of her Smile

OP posts:
LonnyVonnyWilsonFrickett · 12/06/2014 14:10

YES! The same first name thing has actually bugged me since I read it the first time round! And I went on to marry a man who has the same first name as his dad and granddad, and therefore is called by his middle name! Why do people do this? It's madness!!

DeWee · 12/06/2014 14:15

All Joey's girls except Felicity have Mary as a first name.

I could sort of understand it if she was Mary Josephine, and they said it was a family tradition, but really don't get why she did it that way round "just because".
Also I wonder if Felicity ever felt an oddment because of that. I'm wondering because a friend had dc1 by a different dad and took his surname, than dc2-5. Wehn dc5 was due she was talking names with her dc, and dc1 said she didn't mind what first name they had, but she really wanted them to have the same surname as her, as she felt the odd one out. Sad

TooSpotty · 12/06/2014 14:23

I thought it was a Catholic thing (very pre-Vatican II). Poor old Felicity if that's the case - doomed.

TooExtraImmatureCheddar · 12/06/2014 14:29

Oh okay, so it is possible! I stand corrected.

The same first name - how mean! Triplets have enough comparisons to put up with without all being called Mary, ffs. Also, the bit where Joey says that she wanted to call one Clare but she couldn't think of another decent name starting with C...um, like Constance, for example? Or Cecil?

I have just read the beginning of Goes To It. They get chased by a submarine and not one but two bombers. They aren't hit and it doesn't seem to take that long. However, Jo instantly runs a fever, becomes delirious and winds up 'in a stupor' for 2 days and nights. However, she will be fine if only she casts her babies forthwith. Hmm Oh, and no one takes her to hospital in all that time. Who looked after her from an, ahem, continence point of view? Frieda and Bill? Grin

Oh, and she's still carrying 6 month old triplets in a basket. My arms would have fallen off carrying one 6 mo in a basket for more than approximately 4 steps, much less three of them! Also, it must be a simply enormous basket, and all the babies must lie still and not suddenly sit up and try to hurl themselves over the edge, which DD would definitely have done.

And (third inconsistency in about 4 pages), Madge is getting Plas Gwyn ready for Jo. The Round House is described as being only a few doors away. Yet in Highland Twins Daisy has to travel a few miles in the snow to get to Madge to tell her that Jack has been drowned.

I may be nitpicking, but I still love all things EBD. Reading them all in a go like this makes more of these things stand out, but I am nitpicking affectionately!

jomaynard · 12/06/2014 14:31

My DS was born with red curly hair, its now brown. DDs were born with dark straight hair, in both cases became blonde and curly, then as they have grown up its become dark (one curly, one not).

There used to be a boys public school thing where at school they were called by their middle name, even if at home they were called by their first name (according to a boy from Eton I chatted to on a train once).

RobinHumphries · 12/06/2014 14:40

Too you have to remember that they aren't talking about a housing estates when they say a few doors, think more along the lines of a National Trust property, so huge garden and/ or parkland. (There were a lot more big houses back in those days)

RobinHumphries · 12/06/2014 15:05

Also think about the distance from Freudesheim to the school and that was described as being next door!

Stokey · 12/06/2014 15:06

I wonder if he was pulling your leg Jomaynard?

I know several old Etonians and have never heard of this. I think it is a bit of a posh thing, giving your child a family first name and calling them by your preferred middle name. But calling all your daughters (save poor unloved Felicity) Mary - just weird.

TooSpotty · 12/06/2014 15:20

My old Etonian friend (get me) has a middle name that he hates and would definitely have mentioned having to be known as it all through school. It was surnames for them all the way, like in most (all?) boys' public schools.

SockQueen · 12/06/2014 15:24

I thought at Eton they used surnames, with "major" and "minor" added if there was more than one brother at the school?

I also was quite gingery when I was born and am now brunette. I don't have eyes like pansies though, so no hope for me of snaring a nice doctor ten years too old for me.

jomaynard · 12/06/2014 15:29

On a student room chat - they say its common at Eton and Fettes! And " Of the thirteen post-war PMs, five use their middle-name as their "main" name (Gordon Brown, James Callaghan, Harold Wilson, Harold Macmillan, Anthony Eden)."
But calling all your kids Mary except one is a bit odd, but I do know "common" families where everyone has the same middle name.

DeWee · 12/06/2014 15:29

As far as I know boys were called by their surname or a nickname at public school.

I think brothers tended to end up as Maynard Primus, Maynard Secondus and Maynard tersiary, or something like that. Not sure what happened if there were more than 3. If only two brothers Major and Minor was also used.

The boys at my school tended to be called by the surnames. But certain surnames always had the same nicknames (eg. Millers were always Windy)
Think of Jennings type schools.

I find it irritating that Joey with two teenagers and triplets just collapses and leaves them to get on, when she hears the news. The fact that Daisy (how old-12yo?) has to run through the fog and snow to fetch Madge seems really totally unfair.

And then later, I think in Highland Twins, she's saying how she knew she couldn't just sit and mourn, and had to be strong etc. to someone who has been given the definite news. She spent the entire time in her bed beening looked after from the point of getting the news until she gets the second sight message that he's okay.

TheObligatoryNewGirl · 12/06/2014 15:37

Wanders in looking lost and hoping for a sheepdog

Please may somebody point me in the direction of the transcripts? And is it true that we have to speak French and German here? Why didn't they tell us in the prospectus? I think I may need some of Matey's special milk to help me cope with this ordeal...

Whyamihere · 12/06/2014 15:49

NewGirl, don't worry you'll have plenty of time to get used to the place, because although you're a senior now, next term you'll become a junior and actually end up spending 20 years at the school

RobinHumphries · 12/06/2014 16:05

Unless you are Joey herself and then you get to spend all of eternity haunting the place

JoeyMaynardsghost · 12/06/2014 16:08

I'm reading Bride leads the CS and secretly was impressed by Diana Skelton's vandalism of the Head Girl's study. A girl with a bit of fight in her? Best make sure she has plenty of Matron's milk!

Who do I always seem to like the troublesome people the most? I liked Eustacia until she became "nice"

Not that I condone vandalism at all, but I think that Bride was overly rude to Diana and I possibly would have been tempted to do the same. I have bounced a laptop off my ex's head before now, his, of course

thebodylovesspring · 12/06/2014 16:21

Didn't know Cecil had Mary as a first name. She's Cecilia marya after you know who.

Diana had a commen accent and a silly mother though so she had to be a bad egg. Like Joan baker.

Class lambs class not money!! Grin

Despite Joey telling Rosamund it was fine by her if she was friends with the triplets. lol xxx

thebodylovesspring · 12/06/2014 16:22

Sorry for the lol. That was commen.

Stokey · 12/06/2014 16:32

Girls with fight always get crushed , very disappointing.

Too much cheek, not playing the game don't you know?

Slightly off-topic, but I always had a lot of sympathy for Don't-care Bobby in St Clare's but her spirit was soon broken. It's all about conformity.

thebodylovesspring · 12/06/2014 16:39

Ffs what's with the kisses. Sorry must be turning into emotional Simone.

TooExtraImmatureCheddar · 12/06/2014 16:41

Unless they're Jack Lambert, in which case they stay cheeky and bully other girls senseless until said girl rescues them from a pine tree (I think). And then you kiss them when you hear their mother has been in a car crash. Jack is not at all confused about her sexuality, is she?

LonnyVonnyWilsonFrickett · 12/06/2014 16:52

thebody - kisses? Are you keen on someone? Because we don't have any of that nonsense here you know...

RobinHumphries · 12/06/2014 16:55

Yes we don't like too much sentimentality here.

TooExtraImmatureCheddar · 12/06/2014 17:01

We'll set Tom Gay on you - she'll soon sort you out!

thebodylovesspring · 12/06/2014 17:08

Oooh sorry yes glad to see joeys books don't have any sort of that nonsense in them.

I need a cold bath and English tea with Mrs Maynard. She will set me jolly straight.

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