Not to have realised until now that Joey Maynard’s ‘displaced organ’ was a prolapse?

[QuaterMiss]

I know there is or was an enormous Chalet School thread but I can’t spend six weeks trawling through that.

Fascinated to note (because I’ve been reading the complete synopses how all the CS women taken seriously ill either went straight to the San or journeyed - over days - for a consultation with Sir James Talbot. It was he who diagnosed said ‘displaced organ’. At which point Joey had iirc nine children. May be wrong, lost count.

(I read and reread the entire series over my first three decades.)

While we’re waiting for Nellwilsonswhitehair to hopefully sort it, there have been a few chalet school threads posted on mumsnet over the years if you do a search, which might keep you entertained.

I am rather enjoying this one, OneDrive notwithstanding ... Now, if I could only engineer a full Archers / Chalet School thread-merge I would be in actual heaven.

Thanks to all who suggested bookshops to me.

DH and I are now back in Argyll (and Bute) so bookshops are three hours away in Glasgow.

I think he is relieved, TBH.

So.………..we got back, to be greeted by two stony-faced cats.

There were also several boxes of flowers, sent by relatives for my birthday.

I had to unpack the suitcase, grovel to the cats, try to find enough vases for the flowers and deal with my 88 year old neighbour with her endless Poor Me stories and village gossip for the four days we's been gone.

And all the while I knew that my CS book had been delivered and needed my attention

Aaargh.

How I got through those first few hours, knowing that the book was there and that I could read it when everything else had been done, I do not know.

Valium would have been useful.

Cooked dinner. DH attended to the garden and myriad other tasks. Could not be arsed to fry onions to go with the steak. Over-cooked the steak. Under-cooked the chips.

Altogether a horrid dinner.

DH washed up. We both grovelled to the cats again.

Finally

Opened the book. Oh, ladies...…….it was like having over and over again.

I was so happy.

Chalet Girls Grow Up was not as cheery as the original Chalet School books, but for the most part I thought the way the characters were developed was a believable follow on from the way EBD had written them.

I did find Jack’s sudden suicide unconvincing though. I’d have found it a lot more believable if he’d found another job elsewhere and left Jo alone in Switzerland to get on with her obsession with being an eternal Chalet School Girl.

@AngelaScandal

Yes, that was Scottish Gaelic.

We had to speak it every third day at my school. We spoke Serbo-Croat the other day, with English permitted on the other third day.

No pathetic French/German policies at Jemima's school.

We also had to have earphone hairdos and climbed mountains frequently.

Our Matron had to deal with frequent fainting attacks, both in the mistresses and the pupils

We were constantly on our knees praying and Lord Peter Wimsey used to come and give us lectures about his collection of incunabula.

Miss Jane Marple took us for flower-arranging and Mr. Mervyn Bunter gave us valuable information on how to pack ladies underwear in suitcases.

I have written a series of books about my school if any of you are interested.

www.jemimaisanawfulliar.co.uk

@NewSchoolNewName

Jack's suicide?

I cannot believe it of him. I am shocked.

It must have been because he couldn't get an erection any longer.

Poor Jack.

Mary Lou’s story is my favourite. I like her so much more.

Mr. Mervyn Bunter gave us valuable information on how to pack ladies underwear in suitcases.

Argh- how could you remind me? Pass the literary mind bleach.

So much wrong with that book - I agree with Ruth Rendell, who said that the bedroom scenes were the most embarrassing in the whole of English literature . OTOH DS is perceptive about the misogyny & ageism of male characters towards Miss Twitterton.

I would have liked Mary Lou to be given a small electric shock every time she said 'I will lift mine eyes up to the hills'. I always imagine her saying it in a slightly sickly Special Voice.

Another madly EBD scene that's just come back to me since reading this thread was when Theodora shows up at the CS with an attitude problem, a record of expulsions and Thick, Untidy Hair, and within about an hour Joey has renamed her Ted without so much as a by your leave and Hilda Annersley has reinvented her hairstyle with a red ribbon and a thorough brushing (though I never quite see why this is the miracle is it presented as, as surely brushing shoulder-length hair off your face and keeping it there with some kind of hairband is the one of the most obvious things to do if it's not plaited etc?)

That's also the one where Margot throws a tantrum about something, goes into the Freudesheim garden and lies under a bush to wrestle with her Devil, overhears Joey blithely gossiping about Theodora's dysfunctional background to the school secretary, and then uses it as blackmail, isn't it?

I am not sure it’s appropriate that I’m now simultaneously eating lunch and recalling Bunter giving Peter a thorough scrub down before he is delivered to his conjugal fate ...

I would have liked Mary Lou to be given a small electric shock every time she said 'I will lift mine eyes up to the hills'. I always imagine her saying it in a slightly sickly Special Voice.

Please do read Chalet Girls Grow Up. It will heal you.

@XXcstatic, does Ruth Rendell say that about Busman's Honeymoon? She's quite right! It's the oddest novel, the way it seems to bob about between Harriet and Peter investigating the murder, with Bunter bustling about lighting fires, and them driving about cheerfully finding the sold-off Tallboys chimneypots etc and then the weirdly emotionally overwrought bedroom scenes with all that coded writing about Harriet's sexual responsiveness, and then Peter breaking down at the end.

@Cutpurse 😅 I had forgotten that phrase...I used to love Mary Lou. I had that book about Theodora. I suppose Frizz Ease wasn't an option...

I did read it, @Doubleraspberry, though years and years ago. Whose husband does she run off with again, remind me?

I suppose Frizz Ease wasn't an option..

Or Matey suggesting she got a keratin blowdry?

I am not sure it’s appropriate that I’m now simultaneously eating lunch and recalling Bunter giving Peter a thorough scrub down before he is delivered to his conjugal fate ...

Yes, and that's exactly the weirdly jolly terms it's conveyed in, isn't it?

I assume the internet is positively crawling with Bunter/Peter slash...

Poor Theodora. I identified with her from a hair point of view. She was thoroughly 'taken in hand'. There was a ruthlessness about Joey Maynard. I would have been petrified of her as a child.

Poor Theodora - being non-consensually defrizzed like Mr Messy

I don’t remember that episode being ‘jolly’ Cutpurse. To my mind it was all rather weightily solemn - some sort of (pseudo) sacred rite.

But then, I don’t agree with Ruth Rendell at all. While I would not, personally, choose to take a butler on honeymoon, and would feel murderous towards anyone who touched my luggage (and I’ve had it happen occasionally) I actually find it a completely perfect novel.

Maybe it’s the shift in power once they’re married. Maybe it’s the fact that my idea of romance probably does involve both a gold wedding gown and a Donne manuscript. Maybe it’s Harriet’s palpable relief and relaxation that resonates with me. Dunno. All I know is that it makes me happy!

Ah, I so much prefer Have His Carcass & Gaudy Night, with Harriet out of prison (hurrah!), wealthy thanks to all the prurient interest in her court case (hurrah!) and independent (hurrah!) - with LP desperate to please (double hurrah!).

My absolute favourite is The Nine Tailors, even though I am not in it.

@QuaterMiss

I love Busman's Honeymoon, too.

However I must take issue with you on one point.

DH and I could not have coped on our honeymoon without our butler. He was an essential adjunct to our perfect communion.

Having said that, we didn't have to cope with a common charwoman upsetting our case of port and rendering it undrinkable.

Mrs. Ruddle was well out of order for not realising that the dusty bottles cost 17/6d a pop.

Or was it 35s? Aaaaargh……...now I'll have to hunt for Busman's Honeymoon...…...be back soon.

@QuaterMiss

I love Busman's Honeymoon, too.

However I must take issue with you on one point.

DH and I could not have coped on our honeymoon without our butler. He was an essential adjunct to our perfect communion.

Having said that, we didn't have to cope with a common charwoman upsetting our case of port and rendering it undrinkable.

Mrs. Ruddle was well out of order for not realising that the dusty bottles cost 17/6d a pop.

Or was it 35s? Aaaaargh……...now I'll have to hunt for Busman's Honeymoon...…...be back soon.

My absolute favourite is The Nine Tailors, even though I am not in it.

It lacks only you, Miss C.

I think Strong Poison is my favourite, largely thanks to you

However Nine Tailors has my favourite exchange in all the LPW books, along the lines of:

Hilary: most people are awful idiots, aren't they?

LP: yes, but it ain't kind to tell them so.

I have to remind myself of the LP response on a daily basis at work

@missclimpson

No. There is little scope for your activities in The Nine Tailors, but you were very perspicacious when deciphering Vera Findlater's confession shorthand in Unnatural Death. And you were nearly murdered by the murderer.