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.)

Isn’t Vera’s problem really that her family are ‘new money’ and worse, got rich during the war? Therefore she’s just not quite the right kind of girl, and obviously is going to be a bad lot, given half a chance.

See also Diana Skelton, who’s father ‘manufactures glue’, and Joan Baker, who never really does anything wrong (other than running away because she just can’t stand being ‘helped’ by Mary-Lou any more. And really, who could blame her?) but is always presented as being Not Quite Nice because her father won the money for her school fees on the football pools.

Joan Baker was described as cheaply pretty, I think, and had a perm! And her family won the football pools!

Wasn’t Joan Baker planning on bullying Rosamund Lilley because Rosamund’s mum was just a maid while Joan’s mum had worked in a shop, which made Joan’s mum superior? That didn’t show Joan in the most positive way.

Although the scene where Mary-Lou is asking Jack for advice on how to deal with Joan Baker contains some breathtaking snobbery about poor Joan not being the right sort of girl because of her unfortunate lower class background.

@NewSchoolNewName, I think what I don't like about the way Joan is portrayed is that EBD implies that Joan's unpleasant side stems from her class background.

Ros Lilley has learned ladylike ways because her mother was in service to the upper classes as a lady's maid, and her background is 'respectable' aspirant working class, but Joan is both sexually sophisticated and 'unlady-like' eating chips on the street with 'unsavoury' Vic Coles, swearing, her perm, make-up and grown-up clothes, thinking it's babyish to dance without boys and feckless nouveau-riche, looking down on Ros while her family is squandering the money they won on the pools.

When you think about it, given that we're told that the Lilleys don't have a bathroom and take their weekly bath in the kitchen, it would have been perfectly logical for Ros to have been the one who was slightly taken aback at the daily cold bath requirement at the CS, as it wouldn't have been something she'd done at home. But it's Joan who is depicted as a soap-dodger, and is (I think?) the only CS girl we ever see refusing to bathe, because, while she's concerned with her appearance, it's not in the dainty 'cleanliness is next to Godliness' EBD-approved way.

In Rivals of the CS, Joey and Frieda are given a punishment for putting cornflour on some of the Middles' hair. The punishment is to wash the hair of two of the Middles.

It takes them all afternoon. Unbelievable.

And re - class issues - why did Madge/Mademoiselle even accept pupils from WC backgrounds? The nouveaux riches gels are always depicted as "not quite quite" and the posh girls really look down on them.

And all the "peasants!"

Peasants always help the gels of the CS out when they get stuck on mountains etc.

In Rivals, seventy girls turn up to a peasant's house. Seventy. They crowd into the peasant's home (which must be the size of a threepenny bit) and are all given warm milk.

Visions of the peasant's DH frantically milking cows/goats to provide for the seventy girls.

Miss Wilson pays for the milk, though, as she knows that the peasants are very poor.

Peasants aren't necessarily poor, of course, though I agree a peasant having a house that can accommodate 70 but needing milk costs remunerated makes no sense.

What all peasants are, though, according to EBD. By CS book law, every encounter with a peasant must include a reference to his/her simplicity- usually their simple faith. I know EBD is saying it approvingly, but it's a bit rich, given the CS's studied lack of sophistication. The CS girls get married and start churning out babies at 17, just like a good pre-war Tyrolean peasant.

In Rebel, isn't Thekla ostracized for being snobby towards those of lower birth, like shop keepers daughters?

What is the age gap between Jo and Jack? Be must have been mid-late 20s when he arrives in Austria?

These poor peasants are, of course, always man mountains, able to carry strapping teenage girls and on occasions the mistresses too!
And the milk is always onion flavoured 😂
What I want to know is where the girls went to the loo during these frequent nights spent sheltering in mountain huts while blizzards and thunderstorms raged? I’d have my period too if I’d been a pupil there. It always did come at the most awkward moments!

@Aroundtheworldin80moves, it’s bad to be a Euro-aristocrat who looks down on jolly middle-class schoolgirls, but it’s fine to be a jolly middle-class schoolgirl who looks down on the feckless working classes with their perms and notions about boys. Apparently.

Peasants are ok as long as they’re useful, picturesque man mountains who carry fallen females about, have a childlike faith and can rustle up smoke-flavoured milk and oniony stew for seventy at the drop of a hat.

@Papergirl

Yes, what was all that about - the onion-flavoured milk? It sounds utterly vile.

@Papergirl1968

Chamberpots, obviously.

All good mountain huts would come equipped with chamberpots.

I’m just checking- we have given up on the link, have we? Nobody’s come up with an “expecto chatelio” charm?

When they kidnap Val by mistake, keep her drugged for several days before dumping her on a random stranger

... but the ruthless, murderous, international crime baron does make sure he buys Val a train ticket, of course!

Enid Blyton was just as bad for class warfare, though. And at least EBD never portrayed French teachers as jokes, or indeed French schoolgirls on exchange schemes as dishonest and in need of 'the English sense of honour'.

Also Jane Berry, who wrote the fill-in Guides of the Chalet School said that the first aid/medical stuff, including the Guides' training on health care, was a bit different in the 1920s to what it is these days. ISTR there is a disclaimer in the introduction to the effect that you shouldn't use the health care advice or first aid tips in her book IRL.

I'm assuming papergirl has heard nothing from nellwilsonswhitehair, Bertrand.

On the back of this thread I've started reading all the Lord Peter's. Lots on archive.org including downloadable ones. The second one is quite disparaging about the French (disclaimer - I've only read a few chapters and I don't think anyone sensible has said anything).

I think Enid Blyton had a bad influence on me as a child. I wonder if children's literature from other countries portrays UK characters in a negative light?

No, sorry, still waiting to hear from Nell. Maybe she’s on holiday.
I am mortified about breaking the one drive...

Don’t worry- not your fault! I was just wondering whether to keep sending it out as an act of faith.

I wonder if children's literature from other countries portrays UK characters in a negative light?

That’s a good though! I do hope so ...

I spent my early childhood immersed in St Clare’s and Mallory Towers - but I never believed any of the nonsensical stereotyping. Consequently I’m generally bemused by retropsepctive censoring of un-politically correct children’s literature - I don’t think children are that daft.

‘thought’!

@BertrandRussell

Have send you a PM.

@QuaterMiss

I love St. Clare's. It's only now that I look back and wonder why Claudine was so naughty.

Because she was French, of course. What other reason could there possibly be?

Have sent you a PM as well.

Worrying Development re - the OneDrive link - Please Read

Everyone - my DD has got into the OneDrive link which BertrandRussell kindly sent me.

DD has a degree in IT - and I had a feeling she'd manage it.

As well as the CS books, there are hundreds of photos of Bertrand's children's birthday parties

I have told Bertrand - please stop trying to get into the OneDrive link everyone.

With most people having shared devices it isn't desirable that we all have these photos as well.