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 thought it was a real mistake to ship off such a good character as Nell and wonder if EDB initially meant to include St Mildred's more but didnt.

You'll have to read one of the previous threads mopsy. It's called 'Calling all Chaletians to celebrate Madame's Birthday' and is atually showing at the moment when you google Mumsnet AIBU.

I do occasionally wonder, quite seriously, if Nell was written out due to her inability to stop being a gay. After all the skipping around hand-in-hand and contriving to spend the night together, Con is hastily married off (and just seems to abandon a group of girls she is supervising packing, never to return - is this EBD's failed ideas of romance again?). But instead of learning her lesson, she starts making wanton declarations of love, going loudly to bed with Hilda (I recall this line v clearly too Cheddar but I can't think which book it is) and just generally being inappropriately queer.

Of course it's possible that her exit is nothing to do with gin and inappropriate relations with her colleagues, and everything to do with the chance of promotion, a yen for snowy mountains, an author who couldn't work out how to balance two very strong characters in the same job title...

Absolutely Nell Bill looses all her bloody family in one year but it's bloody Joey who is choosen to tell Jacynth that Auntie has died. She also interferes in the Jane drama after the car crash, again why? As if Hilda can't cope without her advice. Gggggr.

Yes to Madge's explanation being lovely.

I always want to kick The Robin to be fair with that bloody Red Sarafan.

I wonder if maybe Oberland wasn't very well received? I really like it, but then I inevitably would - it's her swansong. Or maybe EBD just couldn't think of any other stories involving the older girls. Or was just out of her depth - by all accounts, it's a rather odd kind of finishing school.
I'm biased, but I think sidelining Nell is one of the worst errors EBD made in the later books - it's even less explicable than doing the same to Madge, because Madge's character had started to go a bit long before. Nell, otoh, seems to be cut down in her prime.

I can't understand why Joey ended up 'mothering' Jacynth. Her aunt had actually asked Madge to look after her, and Madge was twelve when her parents died so would have been far better equipped to look after a grieving young girl.

Yes, not sure why Nell was sidelined. I wonder did EBD's publishers feel that having two 'Heads' was just too confusing and request that she be written out?

I v much thought "shut up with your Red Sarafan" as a child but now I have come to find it quite sweet. And I see the funny side when it actually works.

The Joey interference in the later books is counter-productive, both in terms of how it makes Joey seem irritating by shoving her to the centre yet again when she is obviously not the right person for the job, and how it undermines Hilda's character so completely. I mean I know Hilda's insight is usually something amazing like "you must have a headache, I expect you'd like to go to bed" when a girl has finished sobbing her eyes out, but we are repeatedly told she understands girls, and - just like the anguish she apparently causes wayward pupils in her office which we never actually get to see - I'm happy to believe it. Until I see her consulting Joey or even Jack about the most basic of problem new girls.

I wonder did EBD's publishers feel that having two 'Heads' was just too confusing and request that she be written out? - I think this is entirely possible but it would still be ridiculous; as far as confusing, inaccurate, funny-peculiar and unconvincing go, this is not in the top 20 Chalet 'problems' I would focus on!

Yes Con's fiancée basically turns up to take her to Singapore and marry her. Well ok off then. You think He would have written first.

You'd think Hilda (or Rosalie?) would at the very least tell him he has to wait until she's finished work for the day. Although she is by this point just marching around in a permanent strop.

Surely Singapore in the early 1940s was not the safest of places. Do we ever hear about Con Stewart again? Did she perhaps end up in a Japanese prison camp improvising amateur dramatics for her fellow inmates?

I think you are right that she was out of her depth with the older girls, it got a bit racy with Elma Conroy, thank goodness Peggy was around to help. after all it's not like Stuart Raynor was a San doctor that would have been fine.

Oh Irene my lamb she ended up in Australia.

In peace comes to the chalet school by Catherine Bruce there's a whole chapter on how Con and her children escape from the Japanese by boat.

Remember though that a man has turned up at the door so the womem have to yield to his wishes. It's a wonder he's not asked to Help the women with either buying property or business matters.

Firstly no kicking me. It's not allowed. I will have you all on heads reports.

Secondly EBD does hint that it isn't all smooth sailing in the Bettany household. I can't remember which book it is but Bride steps in to sort out Maeve rather than Peggy cos Maeve isn't handling having a bossy older sister too well. As for them not wanting to leave...I bet Bride and Peggy were living out of their suitcases in anticipation of getting away from Sybil although I guess Sybil has pretty much reformed by then (getting my timings confused).

Isn't it Peggy and Rix (perhaps mainly Rix) throwing their weight around that sets off Sybil's "you're only cousins" rant in the first place? I know that's a v simplified version and I know also that Peggy is the silvery perfect girl and Sybil is the villain so it can't really be correct, but at the same time I'm sure it's what the books say.

Con Stewart writes - to Joey, of course, who else? - to warn them that Emerence is a devil-child. She has a daughter Janetta (why does she not get sent to the Chalet school?) and twin boys. POW am-dram would have been a much better story and I hope GGBP will commission it as a fill-in.
It is a real shame they don't seek Jock's advice on property purchase, yes. Is he even a doctor, though, or just a man? I know Madge takes advice from any random man in the beginning but I think by this point in the series only doctors need listening to. At the beginning of Exile Jem says the school has to move up next to the San so the doctors can look after them - seems a bit lax that as soon as they draw breath in Guernsey he's letting this community of women live alone and unguarded again.

Isn't Con Stewart the reason they get Emerence? I did always think it odd they didn't mention the danger to those like her who'd gone to the Far East or Australia during WWII. Or how the Bettany parents get back from India in the middle of the war with no problems.

I think Joey's collapse over Jack, whereas totally understandable, becomes a real irritation later when she lectures others (OOAO's mum?) on not giving way and being strong for the children. As far as I remember she promptly goes into another room leaving Robin and Daisy, who will also be mourning and are no more than teens-isn't Daisy about 12? to deal with the triplets and fetch Madge to look after Joey.

And the pupil always being amazed that Mrs A knew she would have a headache after crying was, shall we say, overdone.

Robin sorry my lamb but you are a tad painful.

Another gripe. Why would Carol Johnstones cousin not write to her parents saying she wanted/needed boarding school? Why wouldn't carola do that too.

It would have saved a lot of trouble really.

Is Penny Rest basically a mental institution as Joey always goes there after teething issues checks in and sleeps for 3 days. Who looks after the kids? Can't be Anna as she stays to tend to Jack.

What a very good hotel. Wish I had found one like that when my kids were young.

Have you ever heard of a concert tour that lasts years and years with no chance to visit home. Why the fuck doesn't Melanie Lucas or her parents get on a sodding plane and visit

O yes and talking of Melanie in the beginning her guardians stop a night joeys and they start asking about is the car safe blah blah.

Bear in mind this couple are obviously not able to have children of their own and Joey laughs i sleep with one ear open as you have to with a bunch of babies around tactful Joey good one. On a par with steaming ahead with real families brilliant and this is the woman so sensitive to loss and bereavement.

I may need to stop overthinking

I have a teething baby. I really, really want a stay at Penny Rest, mental institution or not.

Ha ha and an Anna and. Rosli would be nice too.

I hope baby hasn't cut each tooth with bronchitis like Margot.

It's all the comments about Joey mothering anyone (except Verity Anne who she refused to. Why? I would have thought Verity, not having known her mum and being relatively young, would have responded to mothing better than most.) are a little silly when you consider that she isn't really any good at mothering anyone, including her own children.

Yes why the antipathy to verity?

After Doris dies Joey writes to the triplets that verity is tearful but there's too much to do etc, no sympathy and she lost a father she knew and then her step mother who she regarded as her own mother.

Very harsh.

Those odd slip-ups in Joey's supposed 'maternal' nature feel to me much more authentically Joey than any of the authorial protestations that she would mother the whole world if she could. It's exactly how she is as a child and young woman - sulking because Joyce won't immediately adore Robin, telling Eustacia it would have been her fault if Robin was seriously ill after Fulpmes etc. She strikes me as someone who could possibly have been a kind and wonderful mother to her own children (though I don't think she really is) and is clearly devoted to Robin in a v maternal fashion, but the open-hearted 'mother to anyone' label is so misplaced - she's never really capable of unconditionally loving the people who most need it (and least 'deserve' it). That's Madge's remit. Jo can't feel maternal towards Verity (fear of rejection/underwhelming response?), or Sybil.

It seems to me v consistent with her frequent thoughtless comments, like those about 'real families', or forgetting her Daisy was a paediatrician, and also with the times where she abandons the care of her own babies onto others because she is so absorbed in her own feelings - the bit where Jack is missing, and also during/after the boat from Guernsey. Maybe this is the EBD wish fulfilment - to be able to be so thoroughly absorbed in her own feelings, that she doesn't have to cope with her practical or emotional responsibilities to others? Jo mothers as much as is gratifying for her, and says exactly what she thinks without anyone having to be concerned for how it makes other people feel. Understandable characteristics at twelve, far less charming at twenty-odd, deeply irritating in the central character who must not be criticised!