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.)

I do have the whole series. Loved them as a child, but I now find them rather irritating.
The Senior Consultant (Jack Maynard) rushing to the school to prescribe a "Jorum of hot milk" for everything is unbelievable.
The earphones.
Robin packed off to a convent because Jem Russell (not Talbot) decided she "isn't strong enough for marriage."
Can't decide who is the bigger pain in the neck - Joey or Mary Lou Trelawney.
But the books have something, and as badly written as they are, I still love them.
EBD did start her own school: The Margaret Roper School for Girls. I don't think it lasted long because she was so disorganised.

Biddy goes from recently orphaned homeless urchin in a foreign land, via being owned by the Guides who pay(!) for her to go to the lesser boarding school, (St. S), via ending up at the CS, teacher training, history teacher at CS and surprise surprise Marrying a Doctor.

Who'd have guessed it would end up that way?

Some of the early stories were batshit insane, but they were well written enough for me (and other readers) to overlook it. It gets ridiculous in the Swiss years though.

I really want to read Lintons. Isn't that the one with the clandestine midnight feast? I read Rebel, which is half of it.

Yes that's the one. Thekla brings raw bacon, someone else pilchards or sardines or something and they eat it all on some cake...

This has brought back some memories! I had the whole set at one point, sold a couple in my late teens to help fund a pre university holiday. Must still have most in my parents loft, have pm'd for the Dropbox as I'd love to reread them without fear of the children destroying them.

Had forgotten how crazy some of them were until this thread - Redheads in particular! I can still remember finding a huge basket of them in a charity shop for 30p each when I was about 8 and buying around 15-20. (If I'd known how much they'd be worth now, I'd have bought them all!)

Biddy didn’t even go to St Scholastika’s, did she? She was destined for the ‘local’ school! She did well for herself indeed, begorrah.

Could I possibly have the drop box? I’m moving house next week and am finding many Chalet paperbacks in boxes and also some hardbacks and GGB so once I’ve moved and then gone on my holiday (to the Tiernsee natch) I may be able to offer some paperbacks around.

Aha!

And, of course, we’re not a private concern any longer. It’s some years since Madge decided that the whole affair was getting too large for that and turned it into a limited liability company. I have some shares in it, myself, and so have most of the staff.

Excerpt from Changes. Which begins (almost) with the sound of ‘firm, manly footfalls’.

Bride was reasonably absorbing. Though I did skim through the blessed Sale. Smart linking though, having Commander Christie (and his manly footsteps) award the prize at the end of that volume and then open Changes which comes next.

If I’m not careful, in years to come all I’ll remember of the hottest summer on record is Kaffee and blinkin’ Kuchen.

Biddy is kind of like Rosamund, in that they’re both poor, but it’s acceptable because they’ve learned ‘nice’ manners and values via their mother’s employers.

I suppose, tbf, they would all have been used to darning and mending their own clothes, plus it was much more common for people to knit and sew things (like when Joey knocks up two complete school uniforms for the Highland Twins from one of her old summer dresses - never mind commenting on other people, how enormous must she have been??) So producing thousands of exquisite pairs of socks or whatever for the Sale isn’t that out there.

Just reading 'The Chalet School Goes To It' which I never read as a child - Joey plus 6 month old triplets escaping Guernsey by boat chased by nazi u boats!!! Absolute madness and I'm loving it!

Was that Jack talking about having shares, Quater?

From what my mum’s told me, I gather it was common practice for women to make their own clothes until the 1970’s or 1980’s.

Although she used a sewing machine rather than doing it all by hand. She still has the sewing machine she got as a teenager. They don’t seem to have even heard of sewing machines at the Chalet School, despite sewing machines being commonplace in middle class homes by the end of the Victorian age.

I remember feeling slightly horrified reading one Chalet School book, where Margot was complaining about her holiday homework - she had to produce a handmade nightdress, with beautiful neat stitching, obviously, to be donated to an orphan.

That’s horrified by the having to do it completely by hand BTW. Not the charitable aspect!

Yes! No way in hell would I be able to hand stitch any kind of wearable garment now, let alone at the age of 12!

It was Miss Annersley, Papergirl1968.

@Bloatstoat wow! Can't wait to read it!!

@NewSchoolNewName my mil made clothes for her family during the seventies and eighties and was really good at it, including coats. My mother was completely inept at sewing as I am. @Squirrel26, my worst nightmare. I wouldn't be able to see at at all, by hand or machine.

Could I have the dropbox link too please? I've managed to find an email address I set up years ago which I used to email out the word/pdf copies of books I had at the time, so if there are any there that aren't in the Dropbox, I can upload.

merci beaucoup/danke schoen, depending on what day it is

Please could I also have the link if not too late @Parker231?

Have a fantastic holiday!

May I have the link please. I had a link to the old site but am hoping that some of the missing titles may have turned up.

@Parker231, please may I have the link. I have just realised that I didn't tag you in the original request and so how I expected you to notice it, I don't know.

Another issue ...

In Changes someone resident in England has just been offered a Joey Maynard scholarship for the following year in Switzerland. Now, firstly I spend too much time already (elsewhere) here pointing out that the really generous boarding school bursaries are the result of long-standing endowments not personal gift, and secondly - Joey must have been doing awfully well from her books to have in excess of 40, probably closer to 50 thousand with expenses, per year to give away.

Puzzled.com ...

Ah yes, thanks, Quater.

I've sent Parker some missing books to upload, hopefully she'll get a chance before she goes off on holiday

It is a bit weird that Joey is simultaneously endowing scholarships for other people and accepting scholarships for her own children. Just pay your own child’s school fees. Or maybe don’t have 11 children.

Indeed Squirrel! At the moment she appears to have eight (Changes) which must wipe out a fair chunk of the profits from successful authordom. I guess it would be pointless for her to pay for her own daughters’ fees if she has shares in the business - but even so ... I cannot imagine that an independent girls’ school freshly transported to Switzerland could cost any less than an English public school. Although there have been discussions on education threads regarding the fierce increase in school fees relative to incomes in the recent past. Perhaps Swiss boarding schools would have been relatively less costly in the 1940s/50s.