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.

I was building a story in my mind: Lactose Intolerant Lucy And The Chalet School Toilet Facilities

Yes, given the amount of senna, castor oil and 'Gregory powder' (which is apparently powdered rhubarb extract which purges you from both ends) that gets dished out, cleaning the bogs must have been the main reason why all those junior maidservants were always having screaming hysterics.

In that context, the term 'Splasheries' evokes some rather vivid images.

You’re all wrong about ink usage ...

I started school in the 60s but wouldn’t have used an ink-needing pen till the 70s. Our school desks had inkwells (and an Ink Monitor!) but I’ve never seen a dip own except in antiquarian or art shops. We used (I forget the proper term) pump action fountain pens - which required you to draw the ink up into a tube inside your pen. Eventually everyone replaced this type of fountain pen with the new-dangled type that uses disposable cartridges. At which point the old desks were gradually junked.

But I’m willing to accept that CS girls used dip pens.

Also - I see we’re over 780 posts on this thread.

If you want more - someone else will have to volunteer to start the next when the time comes ...

(I may actually have time to start the Mary-Lou years this weekend!!!)

@bloatstoat thanks for your suggestion about the kindle. I’m using my iPhone - do you mean if I go on email then when I click attachments it will give me the option to go into Dropbox? Thanks!!

So many typos!

Apols.

Hello, I’ve been lurking on these threads for ages, too shy to join in and ask for the Dropbox link please may I have it? Do I have to pm or something?

@Janeaustensquill Yes, I'm using my phone too, I use both outlook and yahoo apps for email, and when I create an email in either app and click to add an attachment there's an option to add Dropbox files - you can then add as many of the files from the drop box as you want and email to your Kindle address. It probably depends which email app you have but hopefully it should work for you too.

I’ve been through the thread and sent pm’s asking for your email address to anyone asking for the Dropbox link. There are quite a lot of posters who haven’t replied. If you would still like the Dropbox link, please can you pm me your email address. Thanks

Parker ...

I assume you’ve given up your day job?

I wish! I’ve spent a lot of time traveling for work and too many hours in airports. This site and the Dropbox link have kept me very happy. No one has had any idea I’ve been reading children’s books!

I’ve just finished Shocks. What a load of old tosh. It’s so unengaging and bitty - like EBD forgot any semblance of character or plotting

Plus another tedious Nativity play...give me a Sale of Work any day

I quite like the nativity plays, although I’ve always been slightly puzzled as to their popularity with the local population

Just finished Exile and now starting Goes To It. I'm trying to understand why, following the death of their mother, Daisy lives with Jo rather than with her Uncle (and Guardian) Jem and Madge. Splitting Daisy and Primula Mary up when they've not long been orphaned seems unnecessary.

Have I missed an explanation for this somewhere? It can't be space as both Madge and Jo seem to be able to take in visitors and waifs and strays at the drop of a hat.

There are a few comments about Sybil-the-Daughter-of-the-House resenting the waifs and strays - I forget which book - but it was why Jo rescued the Venables. (I don’t recall them being separated - I may have missed re-reading that one.)

Hard to entirely blame Sybil, I always feel. She grew up in an ever-expanding nursery surrounded by a succession of the Bettany children, the Robin, the Venables etc, and it’s hard not to hear that bit where a very young Sybil is reported as chanting ‘You’re only cousins, David an’ me belong!’ as the cry of a child who’s being a brat but also trying to establish her own place in the scheme of things, because she feels overlooked.

And I find the bit where her beauty is blamed for her upsetting a boiling kettle on Josette — which would seem to most of us like a failure of adult supervision — and her treatment afterwards fairly chilling. Years later, in Jo to the Rescue, where Sybil spends the entire ‘holiday’ looking after small children, Joey leaps down the throat of a well-meaning stranger who comments on her looks!.

I feel sorry for Sybil too. She seems to have been thoroughly misunderstood, blamed for an accident that wouldn't have happened if they had been supervised properly and then made to pay for it for the rest of her childhood.

Margot's behaviour is far worse and she is constantly forgiven for it.

The judgement on other people’s parenting can be jaw dropping.

Isn’t it Lydia Maynard whose child dies in an accident and the general consensus is that it’s her own fault for not teaching the child unquestioning obedience?

Funny how Joey gets a free pass on Margot and gets to blame ‘the devil’

Yes, Rolf runs out onto the road and is hit by a car (I think?), and it's definitely gruesome Lydia's fault for not teaching him unquestioning obedience.

Like the 'unquestioning obedience' in which the Robin has been schooled since babyhood that sees her run away from her group and wade into the middle of a dangerous anti-Semitic attack/riot that involves her entire schoolgroup having to escape the country.

(I mean, not that this wasn't an obviously brave and admirable thing to do, but it hardly suggests 'unquestioning obedience'! Surely a more natural response from an obedient child like Robin would have been to draw the attention of Bill or one of the older girls to what was being done to Herr Goldmann and wait for them to take a lead, not to dash out into the fray herself?)

I always wonder whether EBD had difficulty deciding which girl should have been the one who ran out and intervened and set off the whole escape plot which is the centre of Exile. In many ways, it's a more obviously Joey thing to do well-meaning and impulsive but I tend to think she didn't make Joey do it because Joey is old enough in this book to know she would be putting the entire school group in serious danger, but Robin is still too young to have thought it through? Though it still seems out of character...? Who else was with them on that trip to Spartz who might have been a more likely candidate?)

Who are Lydia Maynard and Rolf - they don’t ring a bell at all?

Lydia is Jack Maynard’s sister in law and Rolf, her son.

They don’t get much airtime in fairness.

Lydia dislikes/is jealous of Joey and therefore a total bitch.

(I mean, not that this wasn't an obviously brave and admirable thing to do, but it hardly suggests 'unquestioning obedience'!

Years ago i read a batshit, but nonetheless interesting fan article suggesting Robin was a divinely inspired ‘angel child’, channeling the spirit of God in moments like the above.

If you’re looking for an explanation, it’s an option

For me, that moment makes Robin a much more interesting character than she would otherwise be.

I don’t remember them at all - how strange.
I will have to have a re-read right from the start. Long overdue!