To ask all Chaletians to get ready for Madame's birthday?

[LonnyVonnyWilsonFrickett]

Pop to the splasheries my lambs and after you've brushed your hair till it shines we'll have a quick practice of 'I sing of Margaret so fair'.

Once we've finished casting the movie, that is....

Apparently quite a few of the Christmas plays are based on ones she did at her school or elsewhere. Pity because nowadays she could make a reasonable extra income selling them to schools.

It's very boring though, the way the end of so many books are taken up with long descriptions of themed sales and plays written by Joey or Madge. They go on for pages.

Yes reading them aloud to dd I realise how much I usually skim read - all the sports and plays although I don't mind some of the sales. I feel I need to read them to dd though otherwise I'm cutting them and then I'll be as bad as Armarda.

I'm reading Jo Returns at the moment. I think as an adult reader I started to get annoyed with Jo over the last few books of her as a school girl, I don't see her as one of the best head girls they ever had, but more as a sulky school girl, ever in her last term she gets shirty with Anne because Anne dared to tell her to shut up (OK, not polite but not really grounds for Jo ignoring her for days - until obviously she had to rescue her from certain death).

I always preferred EBD's sports days to the ones in Malory Towers which were inevitably about hockey and you knew from the beginning that Our Heroine was going to score the winning goal just as the whistle blew. By contrast I rather enjoyed EBD's regattas and boat races which at least had decent scenery. Could have done without the exhibition tennis matches though.

Am I alone in enjoying the Christmas plays? I never skipped a single line, including the lyrics of carols in languages I didn't understand.

I've just remembered something else. I think one of the reasons I never skipped a word of the plays was that, as Vintagejazz said, they come at the end of the books. I hated the moment of finishing one of the books as a kid, never knowing when I'd be able to get my paws on another (I grew up during the era of random and sporadic Armada reprints). So I would never have wanted to finish any of the books before I really, really had to.

Cannot bear the Christmas plays. Total waste of the last chapter. Rarely keen on the sales but do at least usually read them. I do like the regattas though. And I bloody love the mad staff stuff like St Nicholas and Mrs Jarley.

Kester Bellend all the way! At least he wouldn't keep drugging one sooooo

The regattas are good because you get a sense of the place and the end of term/beginning of Summer holidays feel.

MsCerito Yes, I remember that feeling of not wanting to finish the book and as a child I probably read every word of those last chapters just to remain in the Chalet School world for a bit longer.

I find it strange when Madge sends the letter about Kevin and Kester's names and she writes something along the lines of "by the way, Kester is an old version of Christopher, so don't use that..."

Well they didn't seem to have any problems with using Josephine and Margaret mulitple times, and Kester and Christopher are totally different.
I had twin dolls I called Christopher and Kester after that book.

The description of the plays/pantos aren't too bad. It's the long descriptions of "hilariously funny" scenes where either something had gone wrong or are meant to be funny, and you slightly feel "well I think you had to be there". Or the "how religious" the Christmas play made A. N. Random school girl feel descriptions. Compare that to Antonia Forest's Christmas play in the Minster how the children felt doing it. I suspect the latter (barring the casting peculiarities) is more realistic.

I'm always amazed at the things that made the staff 'howl with laughter'. Some minor bit of cheek on the part of one of the kids, or some fairly innocuous escapade that would only raise a slight smile in RL. Maybe they needed to get out a bit more.

They are on the verge of a breakdown. Too many avalanches/falls off cliffs/kidnappings/glasses of drugged milk.

Yes, it was probably hysterical laughter really, followed by a large gulp of drugged milk to calm themselves down.
And I think Joey was permanently as high as a kite.

Vintage, regarding the cookery, I get the impression that most of them wouldn't have been allowed near the kitchen and their mothers don't seem to cook either, so cooking at school would have been a very new experience.

Having said that, I remember watching C4's 'That'll Teach 'Em' where they put some grade C kids into a 1960s comp scenario for several weeks and one girl made a cake without adding the flour! I use the word 'cake' quite loosely! And a friend was telling me about her DD making a cake with some friends who had never made a cake before. So I suspect a lot of girls would be similarly useless now.

I love the descriptions of the sales - my favourite has to be the Sale of Learning. Why can't people do stuff like that now? I want a plant stall set out like a map of the world!!

I've just read a brilliant story on the Sally Denny Library website called The Non Eventful Term at the Chalet School. Absolutely nothing dramatic happens - no accidents, no troubled new girls, no multiple births and no one quite knows how to take all of this.

By the same author, 'You Will Marry Your Doctor' is my favourite CS fic ever ever ever. There are bits which (imo) fall completely flat, but the moments of brilliance totally outweigh these, and then some.

I love reading about the Sales and the Plays! Not religious myself but can see the simple beauty of them. I think the cookery mishaps were the most as you could see it coming a mile off and it wasn't generally that funny or believable!

Joan Baker is about to descend on the CS... shock!

I once read a great fanfic story narrated by Miss Slater, where she explained that the reason the Staff laugh so much and fall off their chairs all the time is because they had been getting quietly pissed beforehand so as to be able to sit through yet another round of paper games/tableaux etc.

Link to the Sally Denny stories mentioned? Please? I find the website v hard to navigate.

[www.sallydennylibrary.co.uk/viewstory.php?sid=299

Sorry Cheddar I don't think that link is working. Try this one and the story I mentioned is about half way down page 5. You just click on the title of the story and it will bring you straight in.

www.sallydennylibrary.co.uk/browse.php?type=categories&catid=2&offset=100

This is the one I liked: www.sallydennylibrary.co.uk/viewstory.php?sid=290

www.sallydennylibrary.co.uk/viewstory.php?sid=299

Got it working now. This is the one where Nothing Happens!

They blatantly are permanently pissed, btw - not only to get through paper games but also to get through Evvy blowing up the lab/ the inevitable personal injuries sustained during half-term non-holidays/ Mary Lou quoting the bible every time she sees a mountain/ the sheer grind of a working week which seems to be 14 hours a day, six or seven days a week, with frequent overnights thrown in too. I could go on... Plus Bill always has 'medicinal'brandy to hand, if Matey's not nearby with her milk (Camp, and the one where Joey faints because Alixe is sleep-walking). I must read this fic, I heartily approve of the basic premise.

Well its becoming blatantly obvious that Joey is an addict as the books go on (she could have done with reading The Feminine Mystic and having her conciousness raised in the 60s). There is an interesting story in the Sally Denny based on the idea that Joey has amnesia and thinks she's 19, and is horrified by how she's treated her children.

PMSL at the You Will Marry Your Doctor story.