To start a new term at the Chalet School?

[Vintagejazz]

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

She was Miss Leonard, anyway. Yy to sniffling when she dies! It's not the letter so much as Jacynth realising what's coming before Joey says it.

I'm a novel character as I don't get on with Mary-Lou, in fact I think we are described as enemies (yay go me!) but emigrate to America so never get to reform and be considered "a true Chalet girl" - did this one get answered? It's Yseult, right?

I got outbid on a hardback copy of Gay this evening - was it one of you people?

Oh my goodness that onedrive is the business! I have just read Goes To It, I love the Home Front setting. I am moving on to Exile next, I need to find out why the Gestapo are after Jo, the Robin and Bill!

My theory is that 'Doctor' Jem is actually a spy; how else would he get advance warning of the Anschluss, and why would there be such interest in a school? To the extent that a Luftwaffe pilot can locate it just after it moves premises and drop a message with pin point accuracy six feet away from the Head during a bombing raid.

It also explains why Captain Humphries spent so much time in Russia - wasn't he supposedly a secretary? I suspect he turned, hence that convenient 'climbing accident' resulting in his death...

Can I join the one drive crowd too please?

Who am I?

I was one of the school's first pupils.

I have an older sister.

I stayed at school until I was at least 20.

I was an aspiring poetess.

Amy Stevens!

And you DIDN'T get invited to the reunion!

Did I not? I've only read 5 of the Swiss books (just finished Triplets today, which is a very weird read - bookend braining, suspected shoplifting, Jack and co. getting lost in the woods, Len being very future head-girlish, Cecil's kidnap, oh, and the blizzard - all in one book!) and Reunion is not one of them...

On a related note, I ordered Rosalie and Barbara last week - Rosalie came on Monday and I read it on Monday. "Barbara" came yesterday... except that although I checked and I'd definitely ordered Barbara (and the piece of paper in the envelope that came from Amazon said it was Barbara, it was actually "Triplets"! But since Triplets would've cost me 3x as much I'm not going to tell anyone... I'd still like Barbara though...

Hmm. This may just be coincidence and I've read the only two such instances of this back-to-back, but is it really necessary for the sainted Mary-Lou to near enough dislocate people's shoulders whenever she saves their life? (Kathy Ferrars in New Mistress, Verity in Trials.) I'm sure when other people do the sudden life-saving thing they don't cause an injury of their own. Bloody Mary-Lou and her bell-like tones.

Who am I?

I am a creepy bird-expert with a cosy cottage on an island
I have questionable friendships with pre-teen girls
That's it, really.

Guten Abend meine Freundinnen (is it German day - hope so!)

Been off the thread for 24 hours and look how much I've missed!

The transcripts - I would love them too, as I only have paperback copies! I will PM as suggested above.

I think Jacynth's Aunt was Mary Leonard - think there was a letter from her in "Gay" somewhere?

I think the general consensus is that the Swiss books get rather worse as they go along? My own particular gripe is with - is it Summer Term? - where Joey is ambling along Oxford Street to be accosted out of the blue by Erica-Jane, yet another tenuously connected "brevet" niece, who's lost her mother but who has been assured that Auntie Jo will henceforth take care of her. Ludicrous or what? And that's before the train crash and the adopted baby!

My PIL call themselves by their middle names, apparently it was common when they were kids. Not that any of my family did it! I always thought the Mary thing was down to Catholicism.

Summer Term is a bit bonkers but what about the kidnapping of Corney by a madman in a salt mine, or the wicked Count whatisname running off with Elisaveta?

Fair- Kester Bellever.

newgirl and cheddar you are right. I am mis remembering.

I must not play noughts and crosses during prep next time!

fair Kester Bellever and Cherry Christie is the child he was grooming.

Yes auntie was ffs 36 according up Eleanor as jacinth was put into her '22 year old arms* she fell off her bike so that did it for her of course!!

Don't forget that the madman kidnaps the Robin too and takes her off to be Queen of Fairyland.

More weirdness with ages: Gillian Linton has arrived at school as a 22yo Kindergarten mistress (in Goes To It). In Lintons, she is 15 and Joyce is 14. Cornelia is older than Joyce but not as old as Gillian. By Goes To It, Joyce has left school and is engaged to be married. Cornelia, on the other hand, is still Head Girl. Doesn't that make Corney at least 21?

Lazurda, who was Erica's mother? Sadly Summer Term is one of the few books that isn't on the transcripts page and I don't already have. I can't remember much about it at all.

I am very fat,

I was nearly a chalet school girl

I have loads of boys and later a girl.

I had appendicitis!

Erica's mother was called Dacia Parsons and Jo knew her from a visit she (Jo) and Robin made to India to stay with Dick and Mollie Bettany. There's said to be a missing book written by EBD about this trip. You can buy a book called "Two Chalet Girls In India" if you google it or look on ebay - it's by Priyadarshini Narendra.

I think Ericas mother is someone Joey meets in India while she is visiting Dick and Mollie.

Read the book ages ago but my dsis ( who has the whole set) has it under lock and key as I tend to nick them.

That makes the second train crash Joey's been in. Also a shipwreck, a flood, at least 2 fires (one featured a fireball of lightning), a few bombing raids (although that applies to everyone so doesn't count), a frozen lake, 2 daring escapes from Nazis, 2 rescuings from madmen (one royal, one not), a mountain precipice rescue...

Blimey does my dsis have the missing book? I
Have read it!!

Winnie Embury!

I have read Two Chalet Girls in India but had totally forgotten who Dacia Parsons was! Thanks!

A perennial discussion topic within Friends of the Chalet School (of which I am an ornament) and one which has no definitive answer is

Vic Coles - boy or girl? (Joan Baker's "friend" in Problem - they eat fish and chips and get up to "larks" of an evening)

For me absolutely no question - male. And as the book was written in the mid-50s, I picture him as a teddy boy.

We call our son by his middle name. The only reason for this was we thought it sounded better that way round. The name we use was always going to be our boy name, but the other (middle) name sounded better first.

That said, it is a nightmare remembering to book flights with his "other" name. We didn't make the same stupid mistake when naming our girls (who don't have a Mary between them)