To wonder why MNHQ still haven't given us our Chalet School topic?

[TheObligatoryNotQuiteSoNewGirl]

Because we probably shouldn't still be hanging out in AIBU, four (or is it five?) threads later.

I've been reading all the lovely transcripts, and although I started Prefects yesterday, I don't want to finish it, because it's the last one! :-(

Michael, he was the bad'un.

Robin, I am so glad you are allowed to Mumsnet from the convent. Didn't you hate being made such a baby of when you were nine and ten and eleven? You were wistful quite often I remember, and you 'frowed mucky water out of the window once and hit a serf, but that was all.

I should like to ask all you old inmates why you never told Joey what her earphones looked like.

And did Madge charge for all the extra kids she took in from the much too fertile Dick-and-Molly?

Molly's Irish charm? Was it really? So charming?

Wasn't it Michael who managed to escape the clutches of his mother and Anna on the boat to Canada and find his way all the way up to the bridge before he was caught! Aged about four or fiveish? . I mean, did nobody stop him? No-one? Not a passing officer or fellow passenger or anyone?

That bit is written of in a letter so jokingly but can you imagine if that happened in real life? It sends shudders through me.

I've just finished reading Problem, which I haven't had a copy of since mine fell apart when I was about fourteen. Joan really was cheap wasn't she?

But without Joan we'd have no shop bought cake Juniper. And who would teach us how to look cheaply pretty?
I'm asking Mamma for a perm this hols.

It's not fair because true Chalet girls adore shop bought cake and eat it with featherbeds of cream on their hot choc. After the customary near death experience it is the highlight of almost every expedition. Also, no one ever mentions that Joan's father, after his windfall, did not squander his cash on booze, cruises and shop bought cake, he invested in the education of the next generation. Surely laudable?

(Mrs Baker)

I am confused now. I love shop bought cake (any cake actually) and hate cream, featherbed, blankets, whipped or otherwise . Am i not a real Chalet Girl?

just started Oberland now.

hagarthorne my lamb there are different types of shop-bought cake: featherbeds of whipped cream from a charming coffee shop in Innsbruck after a near-death experience (very good, very Chaletian), and cheaply sweet Swiss fingers from Greggs after a bag of chips with Vic Coles (very bad, indicative of bad breeding).

AIBU to be sulking cos that "journalist" Joan Baker from the daily fail who stalks this forum for ideas to "write" about has never mentioned us even after 5 threads?

Robin she has too much respect for the Chalet School and the lovely Russells and Maynards to intrude on our privacy like that. Although I bet Sybil and Margot would have sold -their stories in a flash--.

And there is an enormous difference between cakes baked on the premises and served by rosy cheeked local madchen in gingham aprons; and cakes delivered to the shop by a van and grumpily sold across the counter by a girl who'd much rather be working as a secretary but didn't have the right accent.

If she wrote up even the briefest highlights of Madame's birthday, it would still make her best "article" ever.

I'd love to read an undercover expose of the Chalet School, written by one of the Femail stalwarts:

Febrile atmosphere of religious fervour... featherbeds of whipped cream... featherbeds of feathers... I am constantly being admired by passing doctors... but am slightly puzzled that my beauty is occasionally overshadowed by armies of girls with pansy eyes/bronzy curls/creamy complexions/fairytale looks...

Dog of the week in our local vets window is the greyhound " Tom Gay" , owner is a chaletian I presume....

Trying to work out which character I would name my putative pet after now.

at the exposé, fair.

Okay I've been reading to trying to indoctrinate my youngest, and just read "The School at the Chalet". As I was reading it, I was overcome by the need to know just how fast Joey travels? Does she have a hidden super power?
Grizel gets up very early, takes the apples etc, heads across the lake, and starts the climb. Yes she stops for some milk from the herder, but surely that is 1/2 hour tops? Then she heads onto the tricky bit, the fog comes down, then lifts, she finds she is on the narrow ledge and loses her nerve, then she prays for help. Now I know it might feel like hours to her, but surely it was 1/2 hour maybe a bit more at a max, before Joey turns up.
How did she do it? Joey got up late, had a lazy morning, then finally they notice Grizel is missing, they look for her around the Chalet. Madge goes off and then Joey realises where Grizel has gone, and goes to follow her.

How does she get there so fast? (and why didn't the impossibility strike me when I was younger?)

I'm reading Exile and absolutely loving it. I really think the best Chalet Books are the ones that don't concentrate solely on the school itself but also on the outside lives of the staff and pupils and the political and social factors of the time.

Joey is very likeable in this book and the Robin definitely comes into her own as well. I was a bit at the big deal made about Janie Lucy not being as beautiful as her sisters. EBD really was obsessed with looks.

I did feel sorry for them, going to so much trouble to set up a new school in Guernsey unaware that they'd have to pack up and move again within months.

Oh, and I agree Nell Madame's birthday would make a very funny article

I love Exile. I can't decide between that and Gay from China as my absolute favourite. I even find Jem quite agreeable in Exile!

The looks obsession is odd in how contradictory it is - it is clearly a big deal to EBD, yet she emphatically applauds not caring about looks, and her beloved Jo is never pretty.

mummytime, Jo is wholesale of course. Doesn't this resolve any and all issues?

Just started reading Exile to dd but she's gone away to camp until Friday so I'll have to wait to finish it until she gets back - unless I sneak a few chapters forward and re-read when she's back. I'm in a run of favourite books now - Exile, at War and Gay, I'm so excited to be sharing them with dd, although how I'm going to hold off the tears through some of these I don't know.

Exile is one of my favourites.

One or two bits of the escape always make me a bit . Robin (aged 14yo) being carried a lot of the way. Joey is a liability at times with her drama queen tendencies.

But generally very good writing. Particularly brave, in my mind, of EBD of having the children told that the priest and the Jewish couple they saved were subsequently killed. Really haunting writing, and realsitic, but in a child's book at that time, I suspect she may have had to argue in leaving that in, as it would have been easier to either not mention them, or have them escape too.
If you compare it to When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit. for example, which is excellent writing, but on here I've heard people say is not suitable for "younger" or "sensitive" readers, the only deaths I can think of that are mentioned are the grandmother's dog (protrayed as a particularly horrible animal) and the "uncle" chap, who commits suicide-however I don't think it's explicitly said, certainly as a child I got the impression he died gently in his sleep. Most of it is written in a "great adventure we're all having" way.
To me Exile is much darker reading.

She's gone to Camp??! I hope you warned her about hornets and suspected dead bodies in lakes and creepy locals sneaking up to listen to the singing

Not just Robin being carried, but Miss Wilson too. Gottfried and Jack must spend all their downtime pumping iron to be able to carry a full-grown woman for days on end while simultaneously dashing across borders, into ditches etc. Either that or doctors really are super-heroes in disguise.

Mummytime, someone on an earlier thread linked to a diagram of the relative journeys of Grizel and Joey and the rescue party going up the Tiernjoch. It was v funny.

I think Exile is the one that most shows Jo's potential manic depressive side. Her hysterics and odd mania.

I do have a soft spot for the "solid lump of comfort" though, and he like Jem is more appealing than in later books.

I'm as light as a feather I'll have you know Cheddar not a tub of lard like Joey.

I knew I'd seen a diagram of someone working out the logistics of the Tiernjoch rescue but couldn't remember where I'd seen it... I'd nominate you for an award but can't think of one except the Margot Venables and that always goes to the LibraryPree

Yes, we read camp recently so she's fully aware of everything that can happen (and will probably be disappointed when they don't)

I know what her favourite part of Exile will be - the triplets being born. She has a thing about babies so will love it.

I haven't told her about Joey's long family or anything else that happens as I want her to read it fresh without fore knowledge. However I think she may be channeling the spirit of Joey as last weekend she was telling me about her daydream of having 10 children!!!!! Including - 1 set of quads, triplets, twins and a singleton. I just told her it sounds expensive and I hope she didn't expect any babysitting.

Whyamihere you must repent and start channelling the spirit of Madge immediately. She would happily take in ten grandchildren for years at a time without complaining!

I find Jack entirely tolerable in Exile too (I do, on the whole, find him more tolerable than Jem, but his penchant for dosing his wife still bothers me.) I really actually like Gottfried. Does Gottfried ever dose Gisela? I bet he doesn't.
I am always struck by how very desperate that journey must be for all of them - and knowing, all the time, that it is far preferable to the alternative possibilities). Agree it was brave of EBD to let the Goldmanns and Vater Johann die.

Jo's birth scene makes me smile, the way she just goes happily to sleep afterwards. (I actually couldn't sleep at all after, but I still find it v plausible and nice.) I think this is the last time anything related to Jo makes me smile...

Camp was my first book. I was always secretly disappointed that we didn't have Chalet adventures on my camps (although I do think ridge tents are much easier than domes...). Suspect I'll have enough of an adventure on camp next week though given that I'm 6 months! busy