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! :-(

I love the cover of Mary Lou on that l

Stupid phone. I love the cover of Mary Lou on that link. They've gone for the devil madness! But made Jack in a beard look far more realistic than he could possibly have done.

Ah Nell I'm disappointed. Reading this thread I had become convinced that you were writing a dissertation on precisely this subject! Fascinating articulation of issues.

I've just finished re-reading Future CS Girl. Had it not been on my phone I would have thrown it down at the point where poor Julie Lucy's career at the Bar is nixed "because she'll be too busy as the wife of a housemaster..." I know this bothered me when I was young - but I'm not sure I can read past it now... (I imagine you've covered this in earlier threads anyway.)

I've run out of CS books to read :( Finished Prefects last week.

Oddly enough, house is looking tidier. Anna must have been around. There's definitely lettuces in the fridge, so that would be it!

On a different note, I'm trying to track down a book I read when I was younger which was written in 1920/1930 ish - no idea of the name/author etc but was a boarding school book which dealt with bullying and ended in the bully going mad and trying to force another girl to climb out of a high window by attacking her and threatening her with a red hot poker.

EBD and Blyton it definitely wasn't. I just want to reread it to see if it was as scary as when I first read it. :) (that's all I remember of the book!)

LOL I think I just found it!!

The Hoax of a Lifetime by J. Radford-Evans . I've just ordered it from Amazon. This'll be interesting as the synopsis doesn't sound awfully like I remember apart from the poker scene. Maybe I'm misremembering!

Anyone remember a discussion about who Maria Marani married? Well, in CS Wins The Trick, Solange meets Maria in Montreux and calls her Mme Maclaren. Just who Mr Maclaren is I don't know!

Joey, how sad to have finished every book! Your other school story sounds like a complete yell, my poppet. Do you think it's the type that EBD makes fun of in Jo Of, when Gisela has a book where they give the Head a golden pendant studded with diamonds for her birthday present?

TooImmature - My brain's yelling something about Mr (Walter?) McLaren being an administrator type person at the Swiss San - but it may just be making it up...

Malcolm?

Joey that bully sounds like she needs a Jo Maynard figure to throw some feathers around a garden and help her see the errors of her ways. Or possibly some variant involving red hot pokers, I don't have the empathy or inventiveness of Joey-spirit-of-the-Chalet-School to devise something properly appropriate.

Zero I hate that, too, especially the airy announcement of it (by Joey). For a while I couldn't work out what a 'housemaster' was, that it was a job so demanding it required a full-time wifely support - not that any job would really warrant it, but I'm sure there might be some stronger candidates for such a sacrifice!

I am so envious of thebody's sister's dissertation. Mine really cannot be even slightly linked - I have tried hard to imagine even the slightest overlap as a way of becoming more interested in the stupid dissertation but there really is nothing at all.

I bloody love the bizarre St Nicholas thing. I especially love Mary-Lou getting in trouble afterwards... When I looked at the cover I had forgotten that Jack was St N and thought it was supposed to be Miss Annersley.

I always loved ML getting into trouble but then I am evil.

Maria Marani married Walter Maclaren, the Embury's tutor who then becomes the Administrator at the San. Toniwol you were spot on.
Why didn't Maria marry a doctor?

Tooimmature diamond studded golden pendant for Madame! We must start saving up for next year's festivities.

Nell hope that book arrives soon, I have such vivid recollection of reading it, that I will be bitterly disappointed if it isn't how I remember.
had visions of pushing someone at my school through a 4th floor window

thebody what a GREAT reason to go to uni! I'm tempted to sign up for that. No time, but the motivation is strong!

ML getting in trouble just makes it even more trippy. If I were to write something along the lines of CGGU, that's exactly the sort of thing I'd want to include - implausible, gently teasing at the usual unbreakable EBD rules, but really quite benign. Mary-Lou getting in trouble I don't care that she's too grown up to be told off my her old teachers, Miss Annersley buying some new glasses and being perfectly delighted with them, Joey dealing with a really quite minor disaster very calmly and not requiring sedation by her husband, Len telling her sisters to piss off and sort it out themselves for once...

Oh, plus the third rendition of St Nicholas. Even if it wasn't set at Christmas.

Grr. Win Everett has just gone missing (for the second time in one book) and Dr Jack says he hopes Audrey realises it's all her fault for starting a vendetta against the School and being a bad influence on her little sister. Bastard.

This is closely followed by Mary-Lou suddenly piping up that Win must have fallen into a pit, like Joey at the Baumersee, because it's the only possible explanation of her disappearance. Win could easily be asleep under a bush somewhere, but no. Of course, we the reader know that Win did fall into a pit, but why should OOAO jump to that conclusion?

Tbf to OOAO, the Chalet girls have unusually good form for falling into pits, no? Not only Jo at Baumersee but also Corney in some random mountain (rescued by beardy local and has to thank him with a kiss), someone (maybe Peggy Burnett?) falls into a hole in the garden in Armishire... I'm definitely forgetting others...

That 'fault' thing is so problematic, every time.

Nell I found Goes To It in my mum's attic a couple of months ago so read it immediately and absolutely loved it. It and Exile are my favourite of the ones I've re-read as an adult. Lavender Laughs was a bit disappointing but I'm hoping the other WWll ones will come up trumps. As an adult I prefer the books that don't concentrate totally on the pupils and their various hi jinks, but also show the preoccupations of the adults involved with the school and how they are affected by the politics of the time.

Oooh, my order of A World of Girls has been dispatched!

Vintage, try Gay From China for a bit of adult chat - not only do we have the story of Carty's disabled child, lots of angst about Miss Annersley being 'hit on the head' (which totally confused me as a child because lots of people get hit on the head, all the time, but don't lie at death's door as a result), but also that beautiful scene where Miss Wilson explains what Hilda means to her. Oh, and Miss Durrant/Mrs Redmond's story, which is absolutely heartbreaking.

Gay from China is brilliant, esp for the preoccupations of the adults (that reads really badly, but I originally wrote 'adult preoccupations' which sounds suggestive of something rather different). It does have quite high levels of selfishness from the ever-wonderful butting-in Jo. ('We must fix this! You fix this, you go and work - oh wait, you're pregnant. Tell her to go and work - oh wait, your children need you even more than mine need me. Bill, I don't care that you're still recovering, or how bloody traumatic that crash must have been, you must come back immediately and fix this' - and all the while, she's actually further antagonising relations with Miss Bubb, rather than trying to make it as workable as possible for the long-term good of the school. I get that Miss Bubb is the worst party in this, but Jo is decidedly unhelpful - reminiscent of her role in Eustacia, in some ways.)
I like how Miss Wilson follows up that very lovely passage by anxiously asking Matey not to repeat it to anyone else!

Oh dear. I've just ordered a hardback copy of Gay which I don't need and can ill afford. It's an investment, right?

A hardback?

Where will you live now?

As CS hardbacks go, it wasn't hugely expensive so I think I'll have a roof over my head yet. Spectacularly stupid waste of money anyway, though. I'm sure I will come to regret it.

Just read Joey and Patricia. It has a v gratifying bit where Patricia the newly qualified doctor reflects that she does not love her suitor, or at least doesn't love him enough to jack in her career for him, and isn't it unfair that nobody would expect him to do so for her? Also, lots of homeopathy.

I tried to reread Challenge but got too annoyed by the bit at the beginning when Miss Annersley is discussing suitable candidates to be seconded to headmistress - with the triplets, if you please. Consummate professionalism.

Gay from China is next on my list - the transcript as I can't afford a HB copy. Lucky you Nell! Enjoy it and stop feeling bad about the cost.

I'm surprised in Highland Twins at what a lax mother Madge is to Sybil. She doesn't seem particularly worried or concerned when Jo quite frankly tells her that Sybil is becoming unbearable and she's not bringing the twins to visit anymore until she learns some manners.

Is this book the direct follow on from Goes To It? A lot seems to have happened off stage. Frieda now has an 18 month old son, Simone has a 7 month old daughter and Margot has nearly died of bronchitis.

Also, when did the Russells become responsible for Biddy? I thought she was Bill's responsibility.

By the way, Joey announced in this book that she wants to be a 'chum' to the triplets and not someone who's always telling them what to do. Oh dear

Are most people here members of Friends of the Chalet School (and did you know you can read all the hardbacks one after the other...bliss)? Also, regarding fan clubs, can anyone tell me why there is a New Chalet School Club? And why would anyone join it when their library is stocked with Armada copies?

Sorry to interrupt...

Fan club wars?

Really?

I find the parenting stuff really interesting (now, I mean - it didn't even register when I was a child). I have my own particular blind spot wrt Madge and Sybil, but I get that the general point being made is that Madge (and Jem, to a greater or lesser extent) have spoiled Sybil through poor parenting. Then of course there is Margot Maynard - which is the book where Jo says something like "we tried to give her the best training, but she just wasn't able to respond"? - I never get a clear sense of whether EBD thinks Margot is also poorly brought up - presumably not, which is why she invents this 'devil' thing to explain away the contradictions.
Also the constant references to children being "trained to obedience" by families, and being trained not to be jellyfish by the school - but in fact almost all of the children at least go through the requisite Middle phase of being disobedient, and often displays of 'not being a jellyfish' are a far cry from obedience - thinking of moments from OOAOML and Tom, and of course Joey herself, and Robin... Which sort of fits in with Joey's "I want to be my children's friend", doesn't it? EBD pays a lot of lip service to the virtue of obedience, but really is much more about courage and developing good judgment and responding out of compassion. (That sounds like I'm promoting the "be your child's friend" stance - I'm not, but it sounds like an improvement on some of the more Victorian views.)

Vintage this page suggests that quite a lot of time is indeed missed out between Goes To It and Highland Twins. That seems to be quite characteristic of the early war books I think? Joey seems to go from unmarried to giving birth in a couple of pages within Exile.

Lols at the fan club wars! I am not a member of anything, btw. I suck at joining in.

Thanks Nell. That was interesting.