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.

Domestic science was introduced into the school curriculum post WW1 - I think there was a concern that girls weren't learning the womanly arts at schools

I love Frau Mieders. She seems one of the most normal of the mistresses to me.
Her recipe for rechauffee of veal was excellent.

I did not use the wrong kind of cloves when I tried it out, though.

Does anyone know which book contains the bit where Geoffrey and Philippa (Joey's youngest twins) get polio?

It is mentioned en passant in Althea, but only to say that Phil is improving.

Actually - WRT polio and Philippa Maynard - was EBD setting up a future scenario for Phil to be yet another delicate, "always-needing-to-be-put-to-bed-for-specious-medical-reasons" kind of child, once she gets to the CS?

Or is EBD, as usual, obsessively interested in giving us another character who has a brush with death?

The school has a party for them. Joey is represented by which ever old mistress (is it Con Stewart?) sends her the McDonalds as wanting an excuse not to have evacuees.

Obviously in a real-world situation one could entirely see how difficult having traumatised young children in your house would be (I'm currently living on a building site so can't host, but lots of friends and neighbours have taken in Ukrainians, DS has three Ukrainian children in his class, and it's not all been plain sailing by any means, understandably), but the fact is that it was expected that if you had space you would do it as part of the war effort, and given that Joey is represented as being unusually hospitable, unsnobbish and open-hearted, and has a big house, adequate money and staff (though I always wonder why Anna isn't interned like Frieda?), as well as herself having recently escaped the Nazis, it seems an odd decision for EBD to depict her as being quite so open about not wanting poor city children in her house.

I mean, clearly EBD didn't want to write about Joey knitting socks, planting spuds or hosting evacuees she wants pranks and unlikely coincidences involving the Linders brother and second sight, which I get! but in her shoes I would have invented a 'kinder' reason why Joey has the MacDonalds/isn't hosting evacuees. (Probably a wing of Plas Gwyn developing funny drains or subsidence, or some CS old girls showing up from the continent...?)

Yes, you're quite right that EBD makes very little effort to explain why none of them take in evacuees. She could have had a couple of mini Joan Bakers - it would have been fun. But I suspect that they would of course have gone to the village school along with all the other 'locals'.

It was unusual for Frieda to be interned, and more usual for Anna as a domestic servant who was well away from the South coast potential invasion zone to be left alone. I would assume Anna got one of the domestic visas (the only way German citizens could legally come to the UK, pre-war) and Frieda didn’t. It was largely men (well, also boys over 16) who were interned. There’s a recent book ‘The School that Escaped the Nazis’ which describes this really well, and its also really interesting as a description of a boarding school in wartime.

On a recent Enid Blyton thread it turned out EB had enjoyed a lesbian relationship herself. I was shook. I'd been (patronisingly, I suppose) thinking that Enid had been portraying lesbian characters without realising it.

But this is the chalet school, where children who are abruptly orphaned, sent away from their families for years or suffer other major losses are grateful and show no signs of trauma at all.

In some ways I am suprised that EBD didn't invent a young girl who was the daughter of a former maid who learnt good manners from aping her betters who comes to stay with Joey, turns out to be intelligent enough for the chalet school, conveniently has her parents die in the war so she can be casually adopted by Joey and have a life long adoration for her. The girl would also have been happy to give up all her time looking after the kids and would have probably over to Switzerland as an unpaid mother's help. EBD missed a trick there. She might even have been lucky enough to marry a doctor

Did Joey have more twins?
I thought Cecil was her last child.

We really need a Bettany family tree! Including the wards/adoptees etc.

Antonia Forest is the better writer by a gazillion times. I love all her books, except for the historical ones, and I believe I know Nicola and Lawrie better than I know my own family. 😂

Jo had a lacklustre last set of twins, Geoffrey and Philippa. No noticeable character other than Philippa getting polio off stage at some point.

Nothing good will come from calling one's sons Cecil and Geoffrey.

I missed that completely!
That made eleven kids I think?

Cecil was a girl wasn't she? I thought she was a Cecily?

Weird, I always thought it was 12, but I'm only getting 11.

Trips, 3 boys, first set of twins, Cecily, second set of twins.

That's 11.

Did I miss anyone hiding down the back of the sofa?

Oh yes, you may be right. What was the obsession with giving every girl a boy's name? Theodora became Ted and there was a girl called Richenda forced to take on the name Ricki. They weren't even given a choice. Sent to Jo for name selection on day one and that was that.

bonkers

Yes, Cecily. I think they called her Cecil?

Cecilia Maria, after Robin.

Definitely 11. Plus mysterious adopted and forgotten Marie-Claire.

My best friend in primary school came from a family of 14.

Just sayin' Jo.

EBD was so planning to bust out those quads for a grand finale, wasn't she?

The triplets, three boys (the singletons), the twins, Cecil and more twins.

Any more hiding down the back of the sofa? 😄

I don't remember Marie-Claire at all.

I don't remember Marie-Claire at all.

You're not alone in this, Joey/EBD forgot about her too 😂

😂