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! :-(

That's interesting, Emily. My mother was sent to a (rubbish) girls' private school in the 1950s, which certainly agrees with your experience.

But wasn't EBD's school was very small and not very socially exclusive - so lower middle class rather than (like the CS) upper middle class, and therefore much more vulnerable to competition from the new free local secondary schools. And of course if she was a weak headmistress (as detailed above) that would have a massive impact too.

Would be interested to learn more.

Would her school also have been affected by the (perceived or otherwise) relative safety of its Herefordshire location, during the war? Would families have returned to cities afterwards?

That's what I was thinking Nell. The influx of refugees enabled her to continue longer than she could have without the war. Once they had left, she couldn't manage to keep the school going.

Ah it's a bit sad that her school failed. She needed Joey next door to advise her on girls.

nell yes the poor staff. the highlight of the week English tea with Joey and discussing the sale. Enough to drive you to drink indeed.

I am reading Rebel at the moment and really like Joyce Linton.

Yes poor Hilda and Nell should really have escaped to the local for a couple of G&Ts. Admiring Joey's rather dull triplets and eating Anna's veal with glasses of clear Welsh water is not really the same.

Joyce Linton makes me come over all irritable eldest sister. She's so self-absorbed and immature and arggghhh. But I do feel sorry for her nearly being killed by a midnight feast.

Do you know what, I wonder if she might have been more a Joey than anything else, as a headmistress. All easily-distracted enthusiasm and not so much of the quiet and unwavering commitment...

In Bride Leads it becomes apparent that Hilda is now only going to the staff room in the evening if she's specially invited. I get why she is doing this professionally, and it seems v considerate of her, but wouldn't she get lonely? :(

I don't think Emmy put her blazer down the drains in shocks. I think she shoved a scarecrow down, but used her (named) girdle from the gym slip to manouver it, and left it tangled up in it.

Not having Madge for Reunion is ridiculous. You can see that she would move anything to be there. I bet Joey told her the wrong week and then just said "you know me, I'm lovingly disorganised"...

I do think the lack of recreation for teachers is slightly odd. Maybe it was more usual in those days? Being stuck there all term with the odd half day off seems a bit much.

BTW what's OOAO and OOAOML?

Our One And Only or Our One And Only Mary Lou.

OOAO = our one and only
OOAOML = our one and only Mary-Lou

I was very amused by a bit in one of the early books (see, I only read it last week and I've already forgotten which one) where Madge comes down from the Sonnalpe and is persuaded by the girls to resume her wonderfuller-than-wonderful English literature lessons - so whichever mistress thus freed from durance vile gets to look after baby David. I wonder how they felt about that? Paid to teach adolescent girls and instead left to babysit a toddler.

I would have ended the series after Challenge which I do rather like, although it means taking in a few of the more dire ones along the way.

There were probably lots of reasons the Margaret Roper School failed. I do think there was a professionalising of teaching and schools after WW2 which made it harder for small amateur ventures to survive, even though some of them managed to hang on until the 80s. Probably it was the changing nature of schools, together with EBD being much more interested in her fictional characters than the real ones, and probably lack of a governance structure as well, which put paid to it.

I kind of think that Hilda and Nell were having a great time in the annexe on their own (may be mixing up various buildings/timeframes here!) drinking gin clear Welsh water and having rampant lesbian sex, possibly involving Rosalie Dene, until it all goes tits-up and Nell is hastily shipped off to St Mildred's to leave the field clear for Rosalie.

Is it in Bride that someone (Hilary Burn? Biddy O'Ryan?) goes to ask Miss Annersley if she'll come down to the staff room for coffee, and she says 'oh my dear, when you only want a gossip someone generally comes down after dinner with an invitation...' and whoever it is says 'Heavens! I had no idea you kept tabs on us like that!' Miss Annersley offers to call staff meeting instead, but it's declined as too formal. She says she'll come with pleasure and she'll bring her latest Canadian goodies from Jo. Is that Bride? Is that the book featuring the immortal scene where Nell and Hilda go off to bed together?

Thanks!

Ha lesbian context never occurred to me!

Also, random annoyance every time I read a chalet school book... EBD always describes the girls with curly hair giving their mop a very thorough brushing. Now I have curly hair ... rule number 1 is you NEVER let a brush or comb anywhere NEAR you hair when it is dry and ONLY a comb when wet. Otherwise you don't have curls, you have massive awful huge frizz. Drives me mad! I know I should have better things to be annoyed about but still

I'm currently reading Tom Tackles the Chalet School and Bride and Peggy are very excited because their parents are coming home from India and bringing the twins; and have said that Maeve will be attending the Chalet School.

But in Three Go.... which is set several years later, Peggy and Bride are still living with Madge and there is no sign of Maeve at the Chalet School.

Also, given that Bride and Peggy had been reared by Madge from babyhood and barely knew their parents, surely they would have been horrified to hear they were going to be taken away from her and brought to Devon to live with two parents they couldn't remember and siblings they'd never met?
And surely it would have been very painful for Madge to relinquish guardianship of children she must have come to regard as almost her own? I would have been heartbroken.

Cheddar that was exactly the exchange I was reading in Bride (incidentally, it's Pam Slater who invites her - you know, Pam Slater who later 'never really fitted in') that made me feel sorry for her - never knowing if someone would come and invite her after dinner for gossip. :( Alas, by this point Nell has been shipped off to St Mildred's in disgrace, though you're right, there is always Rosalie. I think her evening preferences must go: 1- drunken sex and hilarity with Nell, 2- staffroom, 3- drunken sex and hilarity with Rosalie, 4- evening alone in own room, 5- bloody Joey again.
That's actually a really annoying evening from my perspective because before they have any chance to talk about whatever it is they wanted her for (Diana Skelton, maybe? As you can see I only remember the irrelevant details) they have to admire a million photos of Maynard children. Joey isn't absent enough, even halfway round the world.

mopsytop but they only wash their hair once a month, or something. I sympathise completely cos I have a curly son, but I think they're in an impossible place and really, really, why is there so much curly hair in the school?

Cerita but Challenge has that awful beginning bit where Hilda invites the triplets to offer their thoughts on who should stand in for her. Ick ick ick. This is why your headmistress shouldn't be your brevet aunt.

Is there a reason given in Reunion for Madge's absence? I can't remember. I am also, far less reasonably, annoyed that Con Stewart isn't invited. Much woe for the banished lesbians.

Ha ha Nell I have an older sister who was a goody goody at school.

You to Madge's delightful lectures on English literature and dumping baby David Onto the staff. Isn't Steve shoved onto Nell also when she's just recovering from a serious accident.

Loving the Hilda and Nell relationship. I honestly think EDB describes the female relationships far better than the husband/wife/child dynamics but I guess that's easy to understand.

My random annoyance apart from the de doctoring of Daisy is joeys god given ability to deal with bereavement? She has never experienced it herself has she? Her parents died when she was born so why/how is she such a bloody expert.

I love those possibilities with the Bettanys, Vintage, though I do also see why EBD couldn't ever point to them - not least as theirs would have been fairly common experiences(?). I also wonder whether/how Peggy and Bride might resent Maeve and Maurice for not being 'sent away' from their parents, but that seems not to happen, unsurprisingly.

Don't think there is a reason given for not inviting madge, she's not up the duff. It's a really silly omission I think as of course she would hBe been there.

vintage yes and how jealous would Bride and Peggy be that they were shipped off at babyhood where second twins stayed in India? Why was that then.

Was Nell really sent to St Mildred's in disgrace? What had she done?

I know in our Madame's birthday scenario, she was caught in the bushes with Con Stewart, but did something happen in the books to explain her banishment?

Nell huge x post. It always bugs me about the twins.

Thebody YY and when she thinks Jack's died she's a complete wreck! Understandably so, but it makes a total mockery of her calm bereavement advice before and after. But Joey just understands people, don't you know. There are also other sensible candidates for discussing death - obv Madge does really nicely with that "falling asleep and waking up with god" line (I'm v much agnostic but still like that explanation), Hilda has lost her mother in her own adolescence, Nell has lost both parents as a young woman etc, but no, let's wheel out marvellous understanding Joey again.

I'm sure I read a short fic somewhere where Nell is left holding Madge's baby and promptly loses it.

And I was absolutely the older sister goody-goody at school. I had a lot of sympathy for Gillian. Plus dont forget Joyce doesn't kiss the Robin goodnight.

Hang on, what's this about Nell Wilson and Con Stewart in the bushes???