Has anyone ever read Malory towers?

[Orangejelly1]

I used to love the books as a child! I read them cover to cover so many times and my favourite character was Darrell. I recently found my old collection and re read parts of them just for old times sake and I was actually really disappointed to see, as an adult, how awful some of the popular characters were. I know it was a product of its time and a different era, but Darrell, Alicia and some of the most popular girls would be called nasty bullies nowadays. I also felt so sorry for Gwen, which surprised me because as a child rearing the books she was my least favourite character.

just wondered if anyone else re read the books and thought this too!

@Helgadaley - I bet you've never forgotten it. Unfortunately that kind of attitude persisted.
As recently as 1992 (yes, I remember the year, and the teacher) a colleague referred to me as Sambo because I'd returned from holiday with a tan.
I'm white, so goodness knows what you've experienced 🌺

I read them all again a while back with my daughter, and I still love them, fair enough, none of them were perfect and some words used, wouldn't be acceptable now, but still good books, written for their time.
Gwen is still awful, a liar, a snob, bossy and mean spiritted , though Darryl is short tempered, she's also honest and kind, and apologies when she's wrong, so good things to learn for anyone 🙂 I don't think there's any book where all characters are lovely to kind of irrelevant really.

Did anyone read the extra 6 Malory Towers books that Pamela Cox wrote?

@lurker2003 I think I read a couple. They weren't bad but there were some language errors

I am not going to forgive EB for her xenophobia and racism, which is a thread throughout her fiction. She isn't alone in that - lots of writers from the past had those attitudes. But I don't know what sort of children's writer she was if she wasn't for all children, regardless of class, ethnicity and nationality. I suppose she is interesting from a historical perspective.

A random musing - I've always wondered why Darrell didn't go to Miss Potts and admit the Fourth had had a midnight feast, as soon as Felicity told her the First form were under suspicion. It would have been the decent thing to do; and especially once Felicity told her June was going to 'own up' - at that point it would have been common sense - rather than going off to have a go at June.

Good point. If she had gone to Miss Potts, quite possibly the very serious matter of girls from another tower being there might not have come up.

I read them as a child and loved them! I also read the St Clares series a year or so later!

But no, looking back, they don't stand the test of time. Darrell is unpleasant and violent (she hit a couple of people hard enough to leave marks, I seem to recall) and Alicia is a bully.

The best story out of Malory Towers and St Clares was Fifth Formers at St Clares - that book was hilarious and entertaining from start to finish:

Angela going power mad at having 'servants' in the form of the lower formers and her ongoing battle with Claudine's cousin Antoinette who made her eat shoe polish sandwiches

Mirabel also going power mad and the whole school turning against her

Anne-Marie setting up that teacher who openly despised her with the fake poem and exposing her in front of the whole class

The night with the midnight feast and Mamzelle on the prowl locking up girls she thought were burglars, including Alma who was stealing food because she was jealous that she wasn't invited to the feast, and Jane who was ill to the point of collapse after being bullied by Mirabel. Also the aforementioned Anne Marie who pretended she was sleepwalking because that's what Felicity "the musical genius" did and she was jealous of the attention it got her.

That is one I will always reread.

Was coming to see if anyone else read Trebizon. I loved them, Rebecca the amazing tennis player and her crush on Robbie, Trish's brother. Sue who wore glasses.

They seemed so modern compared to MT and St C. Loved those too - Claudine seemed so exotic a name to me. And Carlotta!

Angela going power mad at having 'servants' in the form of the lower formers and her ongoing battle with Claudine's cousin Antoinette who made her eat shoe polish sandwiches

And used up all of Angela’s incredibly expensive face cream to polish Angela’s shoes.

Her name WAS Alma Pudden.
At the end itvturned out ut was glandular and she had an operation. :0

That was my first book and I loved them! The Mystery of the Siamese Cats with Fatty and Busted 🤣

An interesting thing about that book is Mirabel suddenly becoming sports mad. When she's introduced in 'Second Form' her passion is music, specifically the violin and it's mentioned in passing that she's no good at lacrosse.

In 'Fifth' we meet Felicity, the violin-playing genius, and Mirabel doesn't seem to feel any sympathy for her.

It's almost as if EB has conflated Mirabel with Margery, who is brilliant at games but a similar pain in the neck when she first arrives at the school.

I loved numbers 1, 2 and 4 but not the others.

I identified most with Violet. She is the quiet, shy child in the form and is pretty much invisible. She is only mentioned twice in the first book. Also Emily, the studious one who does embroidery. I always felt like Enid Blyton really despised those characters though. And I thought Darrell was mean to invite Emily out at half term then ignore her again because she was boring.

How strange! I've just googled it and you're right. This part:

Margery is playing in a school match, but is not cheered either time she scores a goal, all because Pat O'Sullivan reminds everyone that Margery is in Coventry.

Until I just read it, I thought that was Mirabel!

It’s awful but the name Alma will always be a fat girl name to me because of Enid Blyton.
In fact when I think of it, I always picture Gwendolines as blonde, lazy and mean and Sally as a good sort.
Clearly more influenced than I realised 😄

The characters are flawed but the reader was supposed to see that. Alica’s bullying of Gwen in particular was clearly highlighted and supposed to be thought provoking.

The snowflake generation can only cope with “goodie” and “baddie” characters but fiction used to be more interesting and complex than that.

Loved these books as a child. Now enjoying the Iplayer series

Yes - just dug out my 'Second Form' and Isabel says of Mirabel:

'She's bad at lessons - no good at games - hopeless at art - poor at gym.'

Mirabel is only mentioned playing lacrosse at a practice, where she turns up late because the others have put stones in her shoes and sewn her sleeves up.

It's the girl she befriends, Gladys, who is marvellous at lacrosse - in 'Fifth' she is vice captain to Mirabel as sports captain.

Or had no ‘sense of honour’!
That book with ‘little Claudine’ was always banging on about teaching her ‘the English sense of honour’ as if no other nationality had any!

These were some of my favourite books as a child, despite the issues. Naughtiest girl, Adventure Series, Adventurous Four and St Clare’s too.

Was it? I remember Gwen publicly putting Alicia in her place once when she was particularly horrible to someone and Darrell(?) joining in, and Alicia not liking it because she wasn't used to being on the other end, but I mostly remember it as being simplistic: Sporty, loud, confident girls were popular and quiet, non-sporty, shy girls mere mocked and derided. I don't remember any nuances that deviated from this path.

Does anyone remember The Wishing Chair? And the story where three siblings had to overcome obstacles to reach Heaven!?

Also, that panto is ridiculously North Tower heavy. There are four towers - of the 8 speaking parts, four go to North Tower including the principal role; and of a committee of nine, seven are from North Tower. In reality, surely the other towers would have said something

The whole school is ridiculously North Tower top heavy, good luck being head of the form or head girl or games captain or even top of the class if you were in an other tower.

There appeared to be about 10 girls in NT so presumably the others were the same. There was no mention of streaming as the ‘duffers’ like Gwen were in the same form as the brilliant ones like Alicia. So were the parents paying all that money so their girls could be in a class of forty? Miss Grayling must have been minted!

Talking of Gwen and Miss Grayling I can’t help thinking it was a bit rich in the last book where she slags off Gwen to Darrell. She didn’t exactly bust a gut to sort her out did she? Maybe with a bit of support from the staff she could have done better rather than let the girls monitor her behaviour.

Darrell being HG annoyed me too, she wasn’t all that but I guess it was predictable. Packing Hilary off to India in her last year, so the OS twins got to be joint HGs, was harsh though. Poor Hilary! Why would she need to join her parents there full time, isn’t that sort of the point of boarding schools? They could have easily said they just wanted to give someone else a chance.

Do you mean 'The Land of Far Beyond' - EB's version of The Pilgrim's Progress? I'm a huge fan of the original Pilgrim's Progress, and I really liked EB's take on it - it wasn't just a slavish copy with children in the key roles instead, much of it was original while broadly following the theme of Bunyan's masterpiece.