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

I never noticed the thing about Alsations - when I think of dogs in Chalet books it's always St Bernards (and that must have been fun with all those babies, given the amount of slobber a St Bernard produces. Or is that a more recent effect of overbreeding?)

could I have the Dropbox link too @Parker231 please.

@Parker231 Could I be cheeky and ask for the link too? Thank you!

Please could I have a link to the Dropbox please @Parker231? X

It's more in her non-CS books - in The Lost Staircase, Jesanne has a GSD puppy and Sir Ambrose breeds them. Miss Mercier is clearly EVIL because she calls them 'nasty treacherous things', I'm guessing because The Lost Staircase is set in the '40s and anti-German sentiment was a thing. They Both Liked Dogs has a GSD in it, not sure about Kennelmaid Nan though.

Well, I am quite sad now I have finished my binge and closed book 58.

I am so grateful to you, Parker, for sorting out access. Thank you

I wonder how strange it must have been for EBD, writing about the perfect school, with the perfect Head, and the perfect Old Girl/Writer, knowing that her own attempts didn't work out (writing aside). Whether she felt inferior to her own creation.

Congratulations Athelstane! Stupidly (because I didn’t think I could face the earliest volumes) I didn’t re-read in order but went back and forth. And now ... having braved Exile very recently, I’ve been obliged to re-re-read its brilliant successors. Thankfully Lavender is just not in the very top league so I may be able to escape ...

I’m not sure it’s a matter of feeling inferior to one’s creation - rather one lives vicariously through them, so EBD was Madame and Miss Annersley and Bill (though possibly not Madame Lepattre). The fact is, all the genius of her life went into her imagined world - her performance in the exterior world must have been strangely shadow-y by comparison.

And, yes, she probably was Joey with her perfect husband, billion children and effortless writing career as well!

It's funny how obsessed with neatness and looking trig and dainty the characters are, because in real life EBD wasn't like that at all. She apparently used safety pins to pin her underwear together. She also had a very loud voice and not much concept of personal space, according to a guy who lived with her and the Matthewmans for a bit (there's an interview with him in one of the GGBP books, he was also on the CBB a while back).

I wonder if EBD herself was autistic. That would be interesting. Imagine if Eustacia’s transformation into Stacie was a piece of unconscious wish fulfilment.

Please could I have the Dropbox link @Parker231 ? Thanks very much in advance!

Who knows? She did have a tendency to form rather intense friendships with people. I'm autistic myself and I know I can be a bit like that. And she had special interests like cellos and folk dancing and whatnot.

Ooh, I wonder. To be fair, I think quite a lot of fiction writers are at least verging on it (and I can't really exclude myself, though I am not pursuing any kind of DX - I have always been A Bit Odd and a good half of my writing pals are officially on the spectrum...)

I was watching “The Man Who Knew Too Much” this evening. It’s a Hitchcock thriller from the fifties. In which the lead character, played by Doris Day, is called Jo and is married to a Doctor (James Stewart). The Doctor who insists on giving her sedatives before some bad news so she doesn’t get too upset and, you know, cry and stuff.

Oh, and Jo sings a bit.

Apart from the EBD shades, good film.

Can you imagine a Chalet School book written by Alfred Hitchcock?

I am loving this thread.
Please do not spoil my pleasure by telling me what it's about.

Would love a Dropbox link, haven't thought of these in years

Please could I have the Dropbox link too? Loved the Chalet School books

Val McDermid on The Chalet School

Btw thanks @Parker231 ! Thoroughly enjoying the books

CarrotVan thank you so much. You have almost literally saved my life - certainly my day, which has been on the miserable side so far.

Listening now ...

Oh! I had never considered the relationship between Margot and Emerence to be worthy of speculation.

Was that why EBD sent the Bad Triplet off to be a medical missionary nun who would never have a husband or children???

I think it’s more likely that EBD was going for a difficult child saved by the love of God theme there, given how prominent religion is in the Chalet School books.

That was what I’d originally assumed, yes!