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.)

Oh dear! Mixed them up with Jennifer in The Archers.

Nope - meant Lilian in The Archers ...

@Parker231 big thanks to you for sending me the link, and to everyone who has helped by contributing books. I'm really enjoying re-reading them!

In between reading some books that I've never read before (thank you again to all who put the books in Dropbox) I was idly googling something and came across link and it got me thinking.

Which actors would you cast to play the main Chalet School characters?

What is your link Pootie?

@quatermiss it's a random blog post about fantasy casting for old books ( I think). There's a suggestion in it for Jem and Jack and the Jem one is how I'd imagine him - which is what got me thinking about other characters

Thanks, will look.

Does Two Sams get better? (Have forgotten the synopsis.) Ten pages in and I’m bored - there’s no pressing event or exciting character so I’m not seeing the point of its existence.

What I do want to hear about is Margot’s decision making process for her chosen career. If it’s not in this story I may move on to the next.

Adult Jo- Winona Ryder?

No idea about the Chalet School chaps, but the 'young Patrick Pennington' is spot on!

I loved those Pennington books.

I don’t see Winona Ryder playing Jo. She’s closer to my image of the Robin.

Amanda Hale perhaps

I’m not sure I ever bothered to reread Two Sams so this post comes to you from the 90s but I seem to remember it is unmitigated tosh, largely based on the bizarre premise that people with similar first names will be related.

Two Sams is not one of the best ones IMO. I don’t recall Margot appearing much in that book.

It also has a terrible example of how to break bad news.

Nina, old Chalet School girl and piano genius, has been in a car crash. The driver of the other car dies (his first and last appearance in the books), and Jo is given the task of breaking the news to an injured Nina. And when Nina asks how the other driver is, Jo says “He is quite well now”

FFS, Jo!
If I were in Nina’s position, my response to that would have been along the lines of “what a relief, I was worried that he was badly hurt”.
But Nina’s faster at guessing Jo’s true meaning than I would have been in that situation.

Thanks both! Am battling on.

Have been reading that episode with Joey’s report of the driver’s death. Apparently it was all for the best because his mother had just died and he wasn’t close to anyone else ...

The thing with the names is just pants.

I just came to post apologies for what is actually a spoiler but I think it’s possibly hard to spoil Two Sams! Sorry nevertheless.

Nah ... I imagine most of us have read most, if not all, of the books - and their charm lies somewhere other than in cliffhangers about minor characters. It’s not the same as spoilering The Archers or Line of Duty!

I feel sorry for Blossom, getting told off for obeying an order.

Yes, that really annoyed me. She was supposed to have used her common sense to realise that Herr Laubach wouldn't be around in the afternoon. Imagine if he'd really sent for her, she hadn't turned up and she'd tried to use that as an excuse. She'd have been slain!

@Parker231 please could I have the dropbox details too please?
Double please there, terrible grammar but it's worth two pleases so I'm leaving them both!
I am so excited about this.

I just finished Fued. I enjoyed it, especially the starring role of the two cats. However the nativity play at the end went on for ever!

Feud, I mean!

Just finished Eustacia. Was thinking - surely on the spectrum? Difficulty with social interactions and following rules at all times seem to punt in that direction. But then she has one of EBD’s regular accidents that miraculously change horrible people to be lovely, so no, she’s just the wrong un that the CS fixes that crops up in each book.

Maybe I’m reading them too fast, but I’m tiring of reading about continental children being trained to obedience from birth, and that girls need only aspire to be wives and mothers as soon as they leave school. Was that a middle class thing in the twenties and thirties? My own female ancestors were of more working class background but they all recognised that if you had the brains and/or luck to go to a good school, then you should grab the opportunity and make of yourself what you can.

Just reread what I wrote last night and wanted to clarify - Eustacia seemed to be written as someone on the spectrum might have been understood/presented at that time. It annoyed me that all her perceived character flaws were then fixed by an accident in EBDs typical plot device.

It annoyed my because a) it is an overused plot device and b) it seemed to imply autism is something you can and/or want to fix. And then I realised I was possibly being over sensitive, and maybe Eustacia was just written as someone with the self awareness of a brick wall.

Just a book funnel, just a book.

I pick up exactly what you did, Funnel. My guess is that EBD encountered real life people like the original Eustacia and then fictionally ‘fixed’ one into Stacey.

Yes, that seems very likely Doubleraspberry. It’s difficult to read the voice that she gave Eustacia with that thought in mind, but then this was nearly 90 years ago and thankfully things have moved on since then.

On ebay currently there is a set of 29 hardback chalet school books, some with dust jackets and titles not reprinted by armarda. bidding is at £112 today, I expect they will go for much more. I am so tempted.