Sir James Talbot tackles Mrs. Jack Maynard's Displaced Organ

[QuaterMiss]

Would I be unreasonable to initiate legal proceedings against this man?

Previous thread here:

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/3624032-Not-to-have-realised-until-now-that-Joey-Maynard-s-displaced-organ-was-a-prolapse?

With thanks to Jemima232 for rifling through Sir James’ archives to supply the title of this one.

@BrittleJoys there have been some really interesting discussions on the CBB about that, and how EBD differentiates between 'good' working-class girls like Biddy and Ros, who learn nice manners from their betters, and 'bad' working-class girls like Joan. Some posters do find it very uncomfortable to read.

And yet, many of the c.s girls marry very young, especially in the earlier books. There is a bit somewhere, where Madge explains to Joey about it being usual for, I think, one of the Austrian girls to do this.

And all the servants are so very jolly and satisfied with slaving away for their employers, constantly wreathed in smiles, not seeking anything more out of life.

I was extremely boring and square at school- but secretly impressed by the Joan types! But I do love fish and chips on the seafront.

Pausing reading my way through the entire series in order (currently on Peggy) and also slowly typing up "Excitements" for the drop box.

I've realised I had less that half the books originally, and most of them were the Tyrol ones. You do notice the timey-wimey sliding of ages and years to suit plot when reading straight through - in Excitements they're gearing up for the 21st anniversary, which means Jo is 33 and has 9 kids . I know there's a couple of multiple births, but even so! My inner project planner is trying to mentally construct a Gantt chart of Bettany pregnancies cross referenced with school events and I'm wondering whether to actually go ahead and do it to get it sorted in my head, or to just Let It Go because of there are inconsistencies between books that make it impossible anyway.

By the way I get very confused with the Chester/Lucy/Ozanne tribes, who were inserted wholesale into the plot in one book - presumably because, having moved the school to start again, EBD needed an instant new crop of girls in the semi-supporting roles for the plots. Joey was instant friends with the mums but then seems to have ghosted them by the time they are in St Briavels.

I do like the fact that the later books actually acknowledges the girls going on to have some sort of job after school, unlike the Tyrol books where they all aspired to marry and have kids at eighteen. Or just went home to help their mothers or elder sisters with their kids.

Would be very grateful if I could I have the dropbox details @Parker231, too, please. Am desperate to read the war years ones again and some of the island ones I’ve missed out on. Thanks for doing this.

Geranium, re the school servants, Len tells Miggi off or snaps at her when she gossips in Prefects. Len might be Head Girl but presumably Miggi is much older - she’s certainly mentioned in many of the later books, and is really the only one apart from Karen to be named.
There’s also a scene in Prefects where a nervous new maid aged 16 is frightened by something and bursts into tears. Imagine being 16 and having to wait on “young ladies” of the same age.
And then there’s the Faithful Anna who had a suitor but dumped him in order to carry on raising Joey’s tribe.

WRT jaundice, I just had a wee look at the BMJ archives & there are various articles & reports of societies from the C19 up until EBD’s death that specifically mention yawning when discussing cases of jaundice - stemming from varying causes, so it was obviously considered significant/a [potential] diagnostic marker. Sleep apnoea wouldn’t have been considered during time period of CS (suppose a(n) [morbidly] obese girl might have been thought to have “Pickwickian Syndrome” - it’s now called Obesity Hypoventilation Syndrome BUT would have lumped in lots of sleep apnoea sufferers at the time of the CS [not that sleep apnoea is weight-dependent, but it was originally thought to be]); & suspect insomnia would be fairly swiftly eliminated as a cause as they checked on girls at night etc.

By Joey & Co in Tirol penicillin would DEFINITELY have been available for treating Roger’s infection, even allowing for it being set earlier than its 1960 publication date & their being in rural Austria; as would the topical bacitracin. The post-war period saw a huge boom in the discovery & development of antibiotics - tetracycline & erythromycin would have been available too. Am also assuming rock climbing would be very much out though - severed arteries can take [at last] a couple of weeks before you’re meant to start light office-work type-stuff again. I’m assuming that rock climbing falls under the “check with your doctor[s] in a couple of months to avoid a rupture” heading.

Suspect EBD had lots of anxiety re: class (& definite ideas on the Rough vs Respectable models of working class) partly due to her age but also because her own position in society was slightly precarious IIRC. My Granny’d a Serious Thing about Not Being Common/Vulgar - no kind of Notions, I hasten to add, just a very VERY clear sense of How We [Don’t] Behave.

(Oh & @IdahoGreen - in fairness to EBD, Guide Camps at that time would’ve meant lots of the day spent on cooking so spending lots of the novel on it is fairly realistic )

I agree entirely about EBD being anxious about class -- they were very lower-middle-class, by the sound of things, plus there was the rather murky issue of her father leaving when she was a toddler, and then living very close by, but unmentioned and with no contact, with his 'other family'. Presumably divorce wasn't much more respectable than bigamy in that world!

Joan Baker is everything she fears and dislikes, and wants to set herself apart from, even if her background was more Rosamund Lilley than Joey and Madge's.

I also think she had an anxiety about Catholicism I've seen in other English Catholics who aren't the the longstanding Tudor recusant families and who worried (worry?) about being viewed in terms of poor, immigrant Irish (superstitious, breed like rabbits, controlled by the Pope and their confessors -- all the usual stereotypes).

I think that's partly behind the intense idealisation of the 'child-like' faith of Tyrolean Catholics in the early books, Joey and Madge's ecumenism, the fact that there's no stress at all on major doctrinal differences between Protestantism and Catholicism (we're not told the school has fish on Fridays because of the Catholics, for instance, and there's no mention of Lenten fasting or fasting overnight before going to communion, or going to confession, and one reason Joey and Jack's marriage is skipped must be due to the fact that there's no time for Joey to take instruction between engagement and marriage, so they would have had to marry at a side-altar or in the sacristy, very quietly. as a 'mixed marriage', with no extravaganza of veil and bridesmaids).

Indeed, although ref Joey and Madges background, once you read the books as a whole they start 'horridly poor' and then by the middle books are counting up anywhere between one and three houses, and a holiday house on the Yorkshire Moors, and ...

Do we just assume they married it all?

Do we just assume they married it all?. I assumed they raked it in from San and School fees.

They're only fairly recently genteelly poor because their Guardian mucked up their finances at the beginning of School At, though -- they must have had a financially comfortable childhood, as Madge and Joey are well-travelled, they own a house substantial enough to sell/rent out to the managers of a mine when they leave England, and there's clearly never been any idea that Madge would need to be educated to earn her own living before now.

It's only Joey's health that prevents Madge going out to India to housekeep for Dick, and presumably pick up a nice British army/civil service husband like something out of an EM Forster novel.

@BrittleJoys
There’s a Catholic Church by me that’s dressed up as a Prod one. And my own church (or rather the one that preceded it & then became the hall of my Infant School after New Church was consecrated in 1930s) was built because they told the Irish Catholic immigrants there was no space for them so they’d to go away & build their own church. Which they quite literally did. Twice over, because Original Church was Too Wee within a few decades. Honest to God but the place is Notions Central. Telling when you go to a First Holy Communion & there’s not a word about the Sacrament just a load of chat about how incredible the Parish is & how hopefully they’ll all go back & get married there.

I think EBD might’ve had some quite “modern” ideas religion-wise, in the sense of You Choose The Right Way To Pray For You But It’s The Same God Who’s Listening. Like CS Lewis, though I don’t know if she’d extend it to other faiths rather than just other denominations in the way he did. I suspect some of the glossing may’ve been because mainstream publishers wouldn’t have wanted to go into that much detail &/or EBD was aware some parents wouldn’t be happy letting their daughters read about “Papist rituals” (or similar).

@TheForgetfulCat
“Horridly poor” is definitely a relative concept

Anyone know what the Bettany parents died of? I can’t remember if it was ever said.
I also sometimes wonder if the mother of the TV historian Bettany Hughes was a Chalet School fan.

I believe the Bettany parents had a premonition on the number of Grandchildren they would have and died of shock.

Do we just assume they married it all?

The husbands aren’t short. Jack has a family pad that’s mentioned a bit in the middle books. Jem carries himself like a man with family money, though I don’t recall any details.

Plus the doctoring.

The school brought in some I’m sure. And joeys generous royalty cheques.

Classic rags to riches tale

I believe the Bettany parents had a premonition on the number of Grandchildren they would have and died of shock.

And Jem is a spy according to loads of CS fans.

And then there’s the Faithful Anna who had a suitor but dumped him in order to carry on raising Joey’s tribe.

I swear to god, Anna’s story is the most tragic tale in all of literature.

The willing slave.

I think Joey gave her a Sunday afternoon off once, lady bountiful that she was.

jem is a spy according to loads of CS fans

I love it. Who for?

I read a 'Maynards in Space' fic where Anna was a robot. An Anna-droid, if you will.

I'll get me coat.

Around! 😂
And poor Anna is not only condemned to slave for Joey, and remain a spinster for the rest of her life, she’s usually described as sturdy and plain.

Jack’s family have an Ancestral home in the New Forest occupied by his brother Bob and Bob’s wife who doesn’t like Joey

I wonder who Mlle Lepattre left her share of the school to. Simone?

I’ve just finished Peggy in which Madge has buggered off to Canada for a year and had —bought— twins without anyone mentioning it to anyone back in the UK and Robin has taken orders despite being at University in Oxford when last heard of

I have now finished 'Oberland'. Oh my days that was amazing! I can't think what I would have made of it as a child, there being no school in it at all, but who couldn't love the randomness of various old girls popping up and Simone inheriting a chateau, and all the minute detail of various journeys. My favourite bit is when Simone's husband brings soap, towels and washcloths so they can wash in a stream after a picnic. And I finally understand references to Joey getting stuck in a packing case. I feel what my life is lacking is someone to look after my children and ensure I rest after any mildly irritating experience.

V interesting chat about class/ religion in the novels. It all sort of washed over me as a child - I'm Catholic and went to Catholic schools, so all the religious elements didn't seem too unusual - I remember being surprised at protestants and Catholics in the same school, and how strict they seemed about godparents being only from the 'correct' denomination, but that was about it. Now it does seem quite ott but how much is of its time I'm not sure? There's a lot of Enid Blyton stuff (not so much the well known series but others) that is very religious in tone too.

The class aspect is very interesting too, again reading them as a child it didn't really occur to me that far from attending the chalet school I'd have been more likely to be working in the kitchen or scrubbing the floors unless I'd been orphaned and adopted by a group of helpful middles. Money isn't enough EBD seems to suggest (like poor Diana in 'Bride' who shows her new money origins by cheating at cards!) but it does help - Thekla is judged for looking down on Sophie Hamel whose rich father owns a department store but EBD is happy to portray the poorer Tirolean characters as simple clichés.

@carrotvan the sudden Canadian twins thing is weird, both Madge and Joey seem unable to tell anyone about pregnancies ever, and no one seems to notice until babies appear, it's the same with Sybil! I also found it interesting that Madge must have been well into her forties when she has the twins, but no one comments except to say how much younger she looks after trip to Canada

@bloatstoat - surrogacy tourism and cosmetic surgery clearly. And lots of Sir Dr Jem’s ‘special milk’

I'm not sure if it's just me but being 'swathed in a huge shawl' seems to be a giveaway for imminent arrivals.
1950s maternity wear?

I think Joey once tells Anna that it’s a shame she (Anna) is having to bake bread on a Sunday. Anna says ‘well, there’s no other food in the house’ and Joey says ‘oh well then. Crack on.’

The Bettany’s also have an ancestral home which Dick finally inherits in ‘Tom’, which is what allows him and Mollie to finally come home from India and meet their children for the first time in about 10 years. (I think Mollie says something to Bride like ‘why are you wearing glasses’. I mean. Would you not expect to know??)