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

Gosh chaps you are busy beavering away on here

I don't know how you find time in between the hearty mountain walks, helpings of Kaffee und Kunchen and compulsory tea with Joey. Still stuggling with my French and German but am going to buckle down and give it a go.

Talking of the fete, surely Tom Gay is the obvious candidate for a lesbian relationship MissA (or can I call you Nell?)

Was anyone tempted by Chalet school names for their DDs? Am thinking Blossom would have been good, and loved Sybil but Dh didn't realise that naming children after members of the Bettany/Maynard clan was the done thing.

Glad I am not the only FOCS member on here. I was wondering whether to send something in to the FOCS mag recommending people had a look at these threads, but fear (well, I know) quite a lot of our ideas would be a bit on the racy side. IMHO FOCS takes itself just a wee bit too seriously, this is FUN!
I am the proud mamma of two sons and always want to faint when I read the bit where Joey says Jack has insisted their boys "wait on her" as soon as they are old enough.
Likewise, all the "brats" being schooled in complete unquestioning obedience from day 1.
As per a previous post, when my boys were little I used to dream of someone slipping a little something into my milk so I could get a few hours undisturbed sleep.
I have a complete CS collection in paperback and some of the FOCS/GGB unabridged editions.
My favourite books include Problem (being a working class lass myself, I always sympathised with Rosamund, although with age, I have come to like naughty Joan much more), Carola and the wartime Armishire books.
I have to confess, Peggy was one of the first books I ever owned and it wasn't until I was about 16 that I "got" the Lady Acetylene Lampe joke.

I have two very interesting books on my shelves - gaily jacketed, just like Jo's - both by Rosemary Auchmuty - called "A World of Girls" and "A World of Women - about girls' school stories - haven't got them immediately to hand but know the author goes into the question of lesbian relationships with particular reference to "Willy" and "Ferry".

Lazurda - I ran straight to the Library pree to see if any of Rosemary Auchmuty's books were available. Apparently they're on the "forbidden" list . So I've ordered "A World of Women" on Amazon (I'm so suggestible).

I'll have to keep it at the back of my locker, lest it be discovered. I will read it after lights-out with a torch, and will be heavy-eyed and listless in the morning. Eventually Matey will dose me with castor-oil, and I'll learn my lesson.

lazurda yes, the Auchmuty books are very good. She explains how the "winds of change" which swept through education in the decades after the war, also swept away much of what was good -- such as single-sex girls' schools and strong, (platonic, well, maybe) female friendships. This site has some good reprinted stuff ggbp.co.uk/

You be careful fairnotfair shoving things to the back of your locker - didn't Barbara Chester get into bother over a library book in a locker - was it Mary Woodley trying to get her into trouble?

And you'll need to be up early, my child, ready to "show a leg" and get into your cold bath.

Mind you, I used to feel the same sometimes about the IMO too-good-to-be true Chester/Ozanne/Lucy clans with their constant simpering to "Auntie Jo"...

They are both good books, by the way!

lazurda yes, Barbara Chester got into trouble as she blushed when accused of the deed. Because she blushed when she denied it and The Gang weren't there to knock it on the head. And she was after all, only a mere babe-in-arms at the age of 14 and had always been a delicate little flower. Hence going to school so very later than her sister.

I would be in permanent bother for a) having warm/hot baths daily and b)taking lots more time than 5 minutes that's if I hadn't been collared by Matron for reading before 7am lying down.

Going to look out for Rosemary Auchmuty's books.

the author goes into the question of lesbian relationships with particular reference to "Willy" and "Ferry"

There is a whole subset of stories in the Sally Denny Library which focus on Nancy Wilmot and Kathy Ferrars in a lesbian relationship.

I've read so many of the stories on there now, I struggle to remember what is canon and what is fanfic.

Apparantly FOCS has a library where you can borrow the reprinted GGB books if you are a member so I may see about borrowing the ones that have massive cuts in them when it comes to the time to read them to my dd. I can't find Problem cheaper than 30 and I don't think I can justify that cost.

You're right FOCS is very serious and I'm not sure that they would approve of this thread. But I think both has their place.

I always imagined I would have a daughter to share the books with - although I have heard of plenty of people whose daughters won't entertain them.
My two sons both groan and pretend to be sick when I tell them that if either had been a girl I would have called them "Rosamund". Seriously! I love the name, it would have gone well with my surname and my DH didn't object either as his late mother was Rose.
Yes, Why I have mixed feelings about FOCS. On the one hand, as they say - it's great to belong - having spent years and years thinking I was the only person in the world who read the books; on the other it is all so earnest and serious and there is only so much I can take of hearing about people's trips to Pertisau and what kind of liberty bodices and school hats they wore in the 1940s....
Threads like these are a very healthy antidote, don't you think?
Agree, your average FOCS member might not quite see the funny side.

sneaks off furtively to have a look at Sally Denny Library

On a slightly serious note, how deep did they have the water in their baths? If they only had 5 minutes which included getting dry, the bath must have been practically empty (which makes sense that they could leave the taps running for the next person - there wouldn't be much water to drain away in the first place)

The choice of Eleanor for my daughter's name is not entirely unlinked to EBD.....(Don't tell DH...)
I don't think that all FOCS people would approve of this thread! But there is certainly a place for both. And actually, although we are having some fun we generally actually still enjoy the books I believe;...and would not produce something as dreadful as that CS grows up book...

I agree hels. No one on these threads is sneering at the CS books, it's more a sort of affectionate thing. Like the difference between a couple of nasty bullies belittling a schoolgirl, and her older siblings teasing her in an affectionate, good humoured way.

I love the books! It's just an open-eyed critical love, rather than blind rose-tinted devotion.

Well exactly, I luffs the books, I really do, but I'm not a geek. More an aficionado

Chill off or cold btw?

Ooh aficionado sounds so much more becoming and ladylike than geek Wilson

Chill off if by chill off I can get away with boiling myself like a lobster every time.

I love them too, but I especially love taking the piss and reading other people's piss-takes.

Can't have been deep baths - in one of the world wars there used to be lines painted around the baths as a national water saving initiative, about 2 inches deep. Any more than that and you were being unpatriotic. I always imagined CS baths were about that sort of depth.

Lavender Leigh gets to have hot baths at one point and floods a bathroom. It might be after the being-buried-in-a-snowdrift incident. I have a suspicion, based on vague memories of Granny's unabridged original Chambers edition of Lavender Laughs , that the Lavender Laughs series written by Lavender's dotty aunt were probably horribly racist, but I can't remember enough about them now to be sure.

There's a paragraph in one of the books when Hilda and Nell go off to bed together, too, Vintage. I think Hilda gets up and says, "I'm off to bed. Coming, Nell?", and Miss Wilson jumps up and they head off together. That always makes me giggle, but I can't think which book it is now. It must be pre-St Mildred's, though, because after that they don't live in the same building. Then Miss Annersley and Rosalie Dene seem to develop a much deeper relationship, has anyone else noticed?

I read a fanfic thing where Miss Wilson and Miss Stewart were an item until Miss Stewart cruelly threw Bill over to hide her sexuality and married instead. Then Bill takes up with Miss Annersley. A lot of it is derived from the bit in Gay From China where Bill tells Jo exactly what Hilda means to her. I love that passage!

The Nell Wilson/Hilda Annersley stuff delights me. I am forever vague as to what is fanfic and what is canon but I refuse to let this bother me.

And this thread delights me too, my lambs.

DD is called after a CS character! DH didn't know but does now. I'm trying to get a HB copy of the book for her but they are very expensive! I'm also aware that it's uncut and one of the later ones.

I also love the name Rosamund, Lazurda but DH didn't like that one at all.

Regarding the baths, it's only morning baths that are cold/chill-off. They also have hot baths in the evenings (twice a week, I believe).

Both my boys have CS names - very minor characters - not chosen for that reason - it just so happens that way. We have recently been visited by a stray cat in our garden whom I take to be female. When I suggested to DH we gave her a name, he rolled his eyes heavenward and said wearily, "I suppose it'll have to be something out of the Chalet School then?" I had Daisy or Betsy in mind - not sure if the cat's face is "puckish" enough for the latter though.

Oooh, Tinuviel, is it a character that has a whole book named after her? Althea, Ruhannah (honestly, wtf?), Richenda, Jane...tries to think of other lateish b

Oops! Books.