To ask the Abbess to find me a solid lump of comfort and a cream cake

[CarrotVan]

Shenanigans at the Chalet School featuring sales of work, sub text and full fat menu

My god, but Exile - the full version - is magnificent. Really outstanding.

EBD’s writing had improved so much since Eustacia, which was a compelling story rather stiltedly told. I forced myself through that over days; but after starting Exile late last night I sat up till 5am with it, then resumed after breakfast. She really hit her stride with this one. Flawless, wide ranging storytelling, all the insights make sense. And, after my recent diversion into the La Rochelle series it was an utter joy to see how beautifully she linked the two series together.

Thank you again to everyone who’s made it possible for me to read this version - I’d been cursing the loss of so much of my Summer to the tail-end books, but this was worth all the time in the world. Especially the bits left out of the Armada publication.

I guess my main question is just exactly why no-one suggested university for Joey - once they’d escaped and were safe in Guernsey. All her cleverer friends seemed eager to seek degrees. For some reason I’m not finding baking triplets or writing school stories an adequate explanation. They could have waited. But then, thinking about it, Jack was a Catholic, so perhaps not. I just wonder whether in later years she might have regretted her relative lack of - not education - but scholarship.

Exile is EBD at her very best IMO.

Absolutely!

Serendipitously the Chalet School’s war effort has segued brilliantly into this R4 afternoon drama set in 1942. Wonderfully written and acted.

Wasn’t Joey married by the time they got to Guernsey?

I’m pretty sure that back then, women were supposed to give up things like university and careers if they got married. IIRC at one point women were automatically fired from certain professions if they got married, so I can imagine universities having similar policies.

I have now finished Joey & Co and a few things strike me:

1. Does EBD have a 'thing' about Roger Richardson? There's a bit where she describes him emerging from the lake in very minimal swimming shorts and his dark red hair dripping over Joey whilst being rather dismissive of her directions in the sort of dictatorial man way that Joey seems to respond to. fans self

1. I quite enjoyed the housekeeping aspects

1. The bank robbery sub-plot didn't seem to go anywhere

1. I really hope Prof. Richardson's story gets fulfilled in the future. The randomness of space exploration from a secret Himalayan base and the various safes and lock boxes that he has reminds me of The Champions

1. Margot seems totally normal and everyone has made up after the Theodora shenanigans (and the devil/angel stuff in Theodora is BIZARRE as is the communul vaccination for small pox)

1. Do you really take people mountain climbing a couple of days after they sever their femoral artery? And what about tetanus?

Also given the propensity for drugging the girls at every opportunity I'm amazed there's not a white slave trade plot line anywhere.

When Chalet School girls grow up I think they must become Mary Stewart heroines

I'm amazed there's not a white slave trade plot line anywhere.

Cannot help feeling someone must have pointed this out to EBD during her writing life. (Just imagine the CS written by, for instance, Evelyn Waugh ...

Still, we made up for this lacuna in earlier threads!

I headcanon that Prof Richardson was murdered by the Russians.

Also, that bit where Margot's devil and angel are fighting over her is one of the maddest bits of writing in the whole series.

Please could I have the Dropbox link too @Parker231🙏

Oh! Poorly at home and just found this thread! Amazing! Please could I have the Dropbox link @Parker231 ?

There was a hint of being saved from the white slave trade (or worse!) in one of the books, was it Adrienne? The girl left destitute in Paris who is saved by the nuns?

That’s right, @Paper. The nasty Parisian landlady could not be any more obvious about Adrienne having to earn her rent in the oldest profession — she’s like a cartoon brothel madam, complete with lipstick, but gets her ass handed to her by Robin in full-on melodrama nun mode.

And another slightly seamy bit in (I think?) Redheads where the wrong girl (Val?) is kidnapped with the intention of turning her into a drug addict and returning her to her father?

The bit that cracked me up when I read it is that when the international crime gang baddies realise they’ve got the wrong girl, they leave her drugged on a train with the correct ticket home tucked into her hatband!

And also, it was Val’s fault she was kidnapped, obviously.

@Parker231
Me too please?! Dying to get stuck in!

Clearly EBD got more and more dissipated in the later books.

Oh, yes! Those opening chapters of Adrienne - with Robin as avenging angel - are stonkingly good. And again made me wish it had been written for adults not children. Even so, the ‘trade’ aspect is kept well away from the school itself in EBD’s mind.

Yes, and we know Adrienne is a ‘nice’ girl, even if she lives in a slum, because of her ‘pure’ French and exquisite needlework.

And yes, both EBD and Joey are totally into Roger Richardson’s six foot of young manhood in his minimal trunks!

Redheads was a strange book altogether, Ekundayo - it was like EBD suddenly decided to branch off into thrillers

If I read the absolutely hysterical description of how your skis keep crossing when you learn to ski, I am going to scream 😱

Yep, it’s in every single book, the winter ones anyway. With some old hands explaining to a wide eyed newbie how their skis are fatally attracted to each other.
Yawn...

Could I please get the Dropbox link? I was deprived as a child of the pleasure

There is a new fill in due out at the end of this month, it covers the missing 10 months in exile, from when they arrive in Guernsey, Jo & Jack's wedding to just before the triplets are born. It is called a Refuge for the Chalet School by Amy Fletcher, there is also another one about that time being written by Katherine Bruce. If anyone is looking to buy the unabridged copies of any of the books, there is a group on Facebook called Chalet School sales & wants, I've spent a fortune on it this last week, I got Chuleigh Hold, CS Christmas Stories, Janie of La Rochelle, Janie Steps In, Highland Twins & Bettanys on the home front. All Girls Gone Bye publications

Thank you. Christmas list time. Katherine Bruce wrote Peace Comes to the Chalet School which goes for a higher price than the original books, but I think I read somewhere that it might be reprinted next year?

FelicityBeedle You poor thing! How did you manage to drag yourself through all those long, dreary years of pointless existence?

I've just finished The Lost Staircase. It's barking mad, but brilliant. All the usual EBD tropes are there - cellos, big dogs, girls getting injured, Catholicism, a teacher marrying a doctor, double pneumonia, deferential servants. The Gellibrand family are basically cursed. Jesanne is lovely (and I wanted to smack her governess) and I wish there had been more of her in the CS books - I think she only really appears in Lavender. The ritual where she has to wear an ancient blue robe and wander the house with a dog and a lantern and ask, "Is anyone there?" every time she enters a room is great to read about as well. The plot about the hidden treasure also makes me wonder if it was an inspiration for all the Dai Lloyd subplot in Shocks.

I'm up to Summer Term and WTAF is Joey doing just acquiring a small child in a train crash to be a sister for Erica Jane? And why would someone who knew Joey for a few weeks 20 years ago refer to her as Aunt Joey and leave her child to Joey? The batshit woman doesn't even know where Joey lives and Joey doesn't even know the child exists so they clearly weren't BFFs.

And Adrienne being related to Robin is a stretch and a half. And the sheets and pillow cases party for the whole Senior School at Joey's place. When there's seas of mud outside. How about doing it at the school instead? So it's less bloody work for poor spinster Anna and the Coadjutor (or whatever Rosli's ghastly title is)

Plus the cartoon gangsters in Redheads

What in the name of My Aunt Sophonisba was EBD smoking???

And I've started skimming straight through descriptions of skis crossing and interminable Christmas plays