Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To wonder which fictional boarding school you'd like to have attended?

406 replies

Clothrabbit · 16/11/2018 14:51

For me, Malory Towers. I still love those books and always enjoy reading about the outdoor pool, Gwendoline's misdemeanours, and Mamzelle's eccentricities.

OP posts:
Neenook · 16/11/2018 23:34

Malory Towers - not based on Lulworth as previously suggested but Benenden.

bridgetreilly · 17/11/2018 00:02

Who would win in a face-off between Miss Cromwell, Miss Wilson and Professor MacGonagall? Assuming magic wasn't allowed?

Crommie by a country mile. Even if magic was allowed.

TarquinGyrfalcon · 17/11/2018 00:11

Miss Cromwell - blood for breakfast

Borris · 17/11/2018 00:14

I too was obsessed with the chalet school. But have also been reminded of Jennings on this thread - I used to cry with laughter at those books

IrenetheQuaint · 17/11/2018 00:15

Chalet School - Kingscote would have been a bit stressful, socially speaking.

The Abbey girls never do ANY schoolwork, ever. None of them go to university either. They just dance and then marry rich men.

ScreamingValenta · 17/11/2018 00:16

Who would win in a face-off between Miss Cromwell, Miss Wilson and Professor MacGonagall? Assuming magic wasn't allowed?

Ironsides every time!

Marcipex · 17/11/2018 00:18

I said Chalet school, but if you're allowing Starfleet Academy then I'll go there.

Kingscote is the best written but I'm not good at cricket. Or acting. Or hockey or singing.

Vampiratequeen · 17/11/2018 00:20

St Trinians.

readsalotgirl63 · 17/11/2018 00:26

Has to be the Chalet School - thankfully dh is a Greyfriars boy so is supportive of my collecting and even buys the odd hardback as a pressie for me !

TooExtraImmatureCheddar · 17/11/2018 00:43

Much as I adore Bill, my money would be on McGonagall in a fight.

adoggymama · 17/11/2018 00:54

Deffo Malory towers for me too!

MrsMoastyToasty · 17/11/2018 01:02

Not boarding schools but I would also go to Grange Hill (Tucker Jenkins era) or Rydell High (where I would be a Pink Lady)

MarieVanGoethem · 17/11/2018 03:21

In Infant School I would have been set on Cackle’s Academy. Then I’d have had a phase of thinking St Clare’s as I started Junior School. But then a family holiday to York & one of the 99p editions of the first two Chalet School books as one & I was hooked...

I was really excited about the secondary school I went to because we all had to study French & German to GCSE (I did them both to A-Level) & to me - doing secondary transfer while massively traumatised, the idea of it being even a wee bit like the books I was burying myself in over & over was amazing.

After my second year at Uni I did my Queen’s Guide Award Exploration around Austrian Chalet School site’s. Staying in a Chalet in Pertisau am Achensee/Briesau am Tiernsee (depending on whether you’re real or fictional...) & travelling by “steamer” & mountain train most days (because it worked out as the cheapest way to get around, even with the bus drivers refusing to believe some of the group were adults, that was a fun footnote to put in the accounts). That summer I went on a choir tour to Switzerland & while my only real free time went on visiting the Guide World Centre at Adelboden, as we were based in Bern I did get to see the bears & the clock & a few places that get mentioned in the books. Oooh & when I was 16 I got to visit Chalet School places in Armiford/Hereford (my 18-year-old friend - who later came to Austria with me - had to be my Responsible Adult for the weekend); & a couple of years after uni two of the OTHER people who came to Austria & I went to Guernsey. Just St Briavel’s left for me Wink

Slight issue with the Chalet School for me though is that I’m not just vegan-for-ethical-reasons, I have an anaphylactic allergy to all dairy products. I react to super-tiny amounts. Not the best fit with the milky coffee & cake at every turn, let alone people casually milking goats when they fancy a drink. I’m exactly the Bed With Hot Milk & a sedative demographic, too; & “The Red Sarafan” isn’t going to cut it against The Feeling Of Impending Doom &c.

Was once told by a respiratory consultant that it was a pity the NHS couldn’t fund my going to live “in the mountains, somewhere like Austria or Switzerland” because he felt it would be so beneficial to my health. Am still impressed I managed to stifle my laughter. He didn’t seem like a closet CS-fan, but one should never assume... They did seem to do a good line in Miracle Cures, so shipping up there would have to be worth a try - though being there without modern medications would be...

Given said health situation, Hogwarts seems like a better option in some ways. That & number of times people have pointed out how like Hermione Granger I am. Magic would be so useful. The idea of there being So. Much. To. Learn. does make me feel slightly giddy - & then a bit sad, with the bit where I am not in fact going to get to trot off there off the back of this thread/for any other reason, but I got a bit caught up in both the moment & my rather-higher-than-it-should-be temperature. I’m not hallucinating so I’m grand. Yes. See now if I were at Hogwarts I could just eat some [death-free, clearly] chocolate & I would be Just Fine. None of this

To wonder which fictional boarding school you'd like to have attended?
MarieVanGoethem · 17/11/2018 03:26

That was going to say:

“None of this messing about with paracetamol & icepacks”

But one of my cats decided that I should not be on my phone at this hour & when he headbutted it, I dropped it, hitting post as I did so.

LiquoricePickle · 17/11/2018 04:05

Malory towers or Hogwarts.

To whoever said they'd go to Hogwarts for the treacle tart.... Have you considered a trip to Reach?

LiquoricePickle · 17/11/2018 04:06

Tesco, I mean

LaBelleSausage · 17/11/2018 04:28

Ok, not a boarding school but definitely Phillip Pullman's Jordan College.
Daemons, skulls, academics, oh my!

toffee1000 · 17/11/2018 04:36

Hogwarts.
I fancied Malory Towers as a kid, but upon rereading them they sound rather snobby and not very tolerant of people who aren’t like them/aren’t into sports. I wouldn’t have fit in.

Never read Chalet School.

Muggins123 · 17/11/2018 05:16

Mallory Towers

KingscoteStaff · 17/11/2018 06:36

Kingscote, natch. Proper learning.

Or Linbury Court.

Or the Angela Thirkell school from Summer Half - I want to be in the Mixed Fifth and be taught how to fill in a tax form and address a DBE.

Claricestarling1 · 17/11/2018 06:41

Beauxbatons for the uniforms alone!! 😍

MaryShelley1818 · 17/11/2018 06:50

Hogwarts!

KingscoteStaff · 17/11/2018 07:07

Southbridge is the Angela Thirkell school. I want to be Swann and Moreland silently reenacting Dornford Yates on the staircase.

MissSusanScreams · 17/11/2018 07:13

Hailsham

(I jest)

MsTSwift · 17/11/2018 07:37

Why oh why can the chalet school books not be reissued? Surely a new generation need to be exposed ?