AIBU To Think That The Chalet School Matron Would Be In Prison Nowadays

[TheShellBeach]

..........................for giving unprescribed sedatives to the girls so frequently.

(lighthearted) (in case a million people tell me that IABU)

The Chalet School Matron was forever doling out sedatives to the girls, without even asking Jack Maynard to prescribe them first.
Shocking stuff. Nowadays, she would be jailed and struck off the NMC Register.

Challenge (I admit to a recent reread of most of the series. Not even ashamed of it).

It ends with a very very boring Christmas play but it's one of my favourite of the late Swiss books. I like the amount of the book that takes place in the staff room.

Thanks for the link to flight. It looks like I've missed something somewhere.

There is quite a lot of slash fic based on the ‘Kathy, darling’ scene. Although my favourite example of that genre is the one in which Jem gives Jack a passionate hand job on his return from the war.

Chortling away at this thread, which is just what I needed today.

My mum got me a job lot of Chalet School books second hand when I was a kid, it was a complete grab bag of early, middle and late period books. As a result, I could never get a handle on who was who, where they were, why they were there, and how they had such prodigious numbers of random children and wards, as large periods of time seemed to have passed or been glossed over between the books I owned. I’d assumed the incoherence of the narrative was due to my not having the full set, but now I’m not so sure 😂

The random violence wasn’t so remarkable then as it is now, and that’s good, but drugging yourself out of traumatic situations still sounds pretty attractive to me in many ways 😂

Going back to Jem’s whipping of the child, the really horrible bit in that book is him telling a young girl that her mother had died, she died asking for her, and it was her own fault that she hadn’t been there. So incredibly cruel.

*‘IF only I knew what to do with you girls!’ said Dick in worried tones.

‘Oh, you needn’t worry about us!’ replied Madge.

‘Talk sense! I’m the only man there is in the family—except Great-Uncle William; and he’s not much use!’

‘Jolly well he isn’t! Poor dear! He’s all gout and crutches.’

And Madge threw back her head with a merry laugh”*

I’ve downloaded a couple of the books from the link (thank you !) and this is the first paragraph in the first book.

Really sets the tone doesn’t it? Casual sexism, laughing at disability, urgent need to get rid of girls. I love that “merry laugh” - what a cow 😂 I’m one page in and I hope she gets gout.

@Sophoclesthefox she gets a bit fat, if that helps? According to Jo, who is big on telling people they are fat.

I once saw a description of Reunion (a book with a school reunion, surprisingly) that made me howl with laughter. Along the lines of ‘having to stay with Joey, be sent off on random trips with seventeen year olds, and told you’re fat’.

It does a bit, corporate, but something painful that someone else merrily laughs at would be ideal

Jo definitely laughs at her fatness.

Madge gets written out of the series and becomes a lady doctors wife who travels around the commonwealth being invited to formal teas.

To be fair - she does go and almost single handedly go start an extremely successful school which she continues to own despite marrying a doctor after only a few years. Her brother clearly does not need to worry about her. Silly laugh or not.

I just love Madge in the early books. Still bitter about how she gets sidelined.

Extra evidence she's out of favour: her daughters don't get to be head girl. Barely even prefects.

In an alternate universe she starts another successful business in Australia with her daughters who are relieved to have left the school early and never tells Joey anything about her now very lucrative and interesting life.

Yes, I always liked Madge. And it's her fault that I now love the name Kester (she has twins Kevin (!) and Kester at some point).

I remember that. Awful altogether.

I have just started 'Gay from China'. The bus accident has just happened. Madge arrives in a complete state at the door, but Joey insists on fixing Madge's bun, wiping the smudge off her face and drinking a cup of tea before they start talking about why she is so upset.

Josette is a head girl (why don't the other girls ever complain about the nepotism?). I always hated the way main characters would get side-lined, especially Madge and Grizel.

My favourite example of poor medical knowledge is when someone gets jaundice. Matron immediately isolates her in the San, but too late - within a few days half the school have come down with jaundice. I think it's in one of the St Briavel's books.

Yes! The Bettany girls all seem to be either Head Girl or Top Boss Prefect.

Evidence that men's children are more important than women's? I mean, Peggy, Bride and Maeve are all Dick's children.

Madge is "just a girl" according to Dick.......................

My favourite example of poor medical knowledge is when someone gets jaundice. Matron immediately isolates her in the San, but too late - within a few days half the school have come down with jaundice. I think it's in one of the St Briavel's books.

Bonkers. The symptom of jaundice which alerts Matron is that the girl keeps yawning.

I was never taught that, but then I wasn't a nurse in 1910. Or 1890.

Or whenever Matron trained.

Does anyone think that EBD would have made Joey have quadruplets, if she'd written any more CS books?

Or if she'd have knighted Jack? I can see Joey being thrilled to be addressed as "Lady Maynard".

Or maybe (no, that's ridiculous) EBD would have made Joey a Dame for her services to literature, and Jack would have been apoplectic with rage to miss out on a title for himself.

At the risk of being a Simone-type know-it-all, Hepatitis A, which was much commoner in EBD’s day, is a highly infectious diarrhoeal disease that causes jaundice. (Let’s hope they all had their Launderer’s badge by then).

And hepatitis causes encephalopathy which cause drowsiness and confusion so yawning isn’t necessarily bonkers either.

I remember the yawning thing from when I was a kid in the 80s. I was a fragile child and had to try to hide yawns at school quite a bit!

That's true, of course, but I don't think that yawning (in isolation and without any other symptoms) would be the first indication that someone had Hep. A.
However, you're quite right, of course.

I agree, I’ve always found that bit so incredibly sad

Even for the times EBD had incredibly strange ideas as to what a good parent (or a good person for that matter) looked like. She may have been a teacher but I assume she was a very bad one based on her complete lack of understanding of children and belief that comments like the above were just fine and even necessary to properly punish the child. See also rampant bullying of Eustacia and by Margot, Jack Lambert etc. Margot committed multiple serious criminal offences (blackmail, GBH with intent) and wasn’t even expelled far less prosecuted.

Yes I have flight of a Chalet girl, it’s certainly very different, I enjoyed it (and it explains what happened to Elsaveta), but saying that I can’t imagine reading it again.

This thread jogged my memory

my older sister didn't approve when I read these books but I was too young to really understand why. Now I know!

I am slowly reading the first one, but don't remember any kids being whipped etc in the few books I read. I do remember Margot causing a girl a head injury and it being treated as if it was something that happens in anger and was seen as forgiveable.

I do remember Margot causing a girl a head injury and it being treated as if it was something that happens in anger and was seen as forgiveable.

The big problem with that attitude is Margot’s age at the time. I can’t remember the precise book it’s in, but it’s one of the late ones where Margot’s almost at the point of leaving school. So she’s around 17 or 18?
Old enough for such a failure to control one’s temper to be treated very seriously in most schools.

Of course, she gets away with it because her mum is St Joey. It’s difficult to imagine such an outcome if it had been Betty throwing the bookend at Margot’s head.