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’m surprised it took so long for women to be allowed their own bank accounts - as Quater says, what about women without husbands or male relatives around?

And as for why drag the triplets out shopping for such insignificant items - maybe Jo fancied a break from having to deal with all 8 children at once and didn’t like to say so? The triplets are probably old enough to be pleasant shopping companions at this point.

Dunno if anyone here is on the CBB but there's currently a thread on there about why Jo doesn't spend as much time with her sons (answer: because EBD can't be arsed writing about boys).

My mum bought a flat in the early 1980s before she met my dad. Apparently she had all kinds of problems getting a mortgage, because it wasn’t something single women did (she was a teacher and head of sixth form, so not exactly a massive financial risk, I wouldn’t have thought.) I think she might have had to get my grandad to countersign it or something.

There’s a bit in one of the books (Ruey?) where they’re all going back to England and Jo says she’ll ‘go halves’ with Jack on the cost of plane tickets vs getting a ferry. Which does suggest she’s got at least some financial independence.

@Parker231 - and everyone Thank you!

I've recently re-read my own set but there are many gaps. My main concern is the number of parent deaths. While many go to the san, send their children to the school and then die, it often happens the other way round, or parents are killed in car crashes etc. I wouldn't risk sending dd there. If Jo wants to adopt her it's curtains for us.

And a lot of them happen offscreen and are treated pretty casually. Daisy's mum, Robin's dad, the McNabs, Clem Barras' wacky artistic parents...

34. Mary Lou of the CS
35. A Genius at the CS
36. A Leader in the CS
37. Summer Term at the CS
38. Two Sams at the CS

I have all these as Word documents. If they're missing from Dropbox, I could send them by email.

ooh lilamani you're a star! Parker already had Two Sams from me, but PM her to sort out getting the others on to dropbox (unless she's already gone off on holiday? In which case we'll have to wait )

Of course they are, PhilSwagielka Who needs actual parents when you could be assimilated into the Chalet School and adopted by the legendary Joey Maynard/ Josephine M Bettany! Do you think she was siphoning off money from all of these kids she was ‘guardian’ to to fund her scholarships?

I've PMd her
Now I need to remember to check my inbox (I'm a very infrequent Mumsnetter!).

Women couldn’t have bank accounts in their own name back then. Married women had their husbands and single women had to have it countersigned by their father or another male relative.

My grandmother was a single parent (not that uncommon, surely, as my mum was born in the war years), so I wonder how on earth that worked for her? Must ask my mother.

I found it strange that when my parents (in the 80s) got a mortgage only the husband's salary counted. My mother's was irrelevant.

(Despite that they could still buy a 3bed with garden near a train station in the London suburtbs on a mid range civil service salary...)

This is the first time I've ever seen a CS thread on here! I was such a fan, and I maintain the books are what gave me my European ideology!

Can you still get them? I have no idea what happened to mine. I really want to read them again.

I've just downloaded the synopses from p1. Guess what I'll be doing this evening

Thekla brings raw bacon, someone else pilchards or sardines or something and they eat it all on some cake...

Due to some obscure brain quirk, Thekla's raw bacon (smoked, I believe) haunts me still. More than 30 years after reading about it, the memory pops into my head every time I look at a rasher of bacon. I'm not even that repulsed by it, I just see bacon and think "Thekla".

Can you still get them?

If you type ‘Chalet School’ into Amazon (or perhaps Google) you’ll find a mixture of Armada paperbacks, older hardbacks and much more recent reprints by Girls Gone By. They all cost rather more than when I was a child, but the GGB editions look rather handsome for not very much money.

Enjoy the synopses!

As an adult, I’ve wondered whether EBD had seen air dried ham/speck being eaten and thought ‘bacon’? Because German people don’t actually eat raw bacon but they do eat smoked ham that may have looked similar to someone who’d never come across it before.

Due to some obscure brain quirk, Thekla's raw bacon (smoked, I believe) haunts me still.

Me too!!! I’m not sure why.

I have this image of a blonde girl in a blue dressing gown (think it’s on the Armada cover) insouciantly eating a raw bacon rasher. It’s just too fucking weird.

images.app.goo.gl/PVdFC2phqCq5Ts4h8

I'm glad I'm not alone, Laurie!

I've spoken to my DM and her friends - in their 70s now - about this. It was absolutely a thing, DM had to have her DF countersign her first bank account when she went to uni (also v rare back then), and one of her friends had her ex husband countersign her new solo mortgage after they got divorced (amicably, luckily!)

I lost a lot of CS books in a storage unit fire, so I've been slowly rebuilding my collection - mostly via bundles from eBay but I also managed to pick up 15 for 50p each at a recent jumble sale 😁. Having said that, I mostly read on kindle nowadays so as and when it's convenient I'd love a link to the Dropbox.

That was dreadfully bad luck LBOCS2. I admire your fortitude.

I sent most of mine into storage when I was moving in the 90s - and then through a combination of idiocy and events I never retrieved them. Don’t think I could bear to start again ...

Just finished the first one, brings back memories! I'd forgotten how irritating Simone was to begin with. And about Juliet being abandoned then parents dying all in the same book. I just love how easy it is to set up a school in a different country, you just move there and people send you their children even when you have no prior experience, no furniture and a poorly dependent young sibling!

Another who is late to the party. Been a big fan since childhood and used to comfort read, but not much if at all in recent years.

@Parker231 please can I have the Dropbox link when convenient. Have a lovely holiday!

Help! How do I get books from the dropbox onto my kindle- tried just dragging them and sending them via email. Neither worked.
Downloaded calibre but I don’t understand how it works!
Hope someone can help me :)

They need to be in mobi format (or pdf) to transfer to kindle. You can convert them in calibre. Set that up by putting your default kindle email address in and it will automatically email them when converted.

Try emailing a mobi one over first.