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.

To my eternal regret, even having been to Austria more than once, most of these things have never crossed my lips. Although I do think the bread twists might possibly be croissants.

She was put to bed and sedated after Jack got her out of the trunk.

Tom Gay and Jack Lambert were obvious youthful lesbians. Not with one another, though.

I recall Jem declaring Robin "Too delicate for marriage."
No doubt he meant too delicate to have a baby every year. Anyway, they packed her off to become a nun.
Someone mentioned that Joey was only interested in the Chalet School: in fact she was obsessed with her "hero" Napoleon Bonaparte and wrote several books about him.
EBD really was bonkers!

Maybe the real problem was the hay that went along with the worm.

My DC acquired a pet hay bale once when they were small (don’t ask!). The hay made one heck of a mess and the clean up was horrific.

In 'Gay from China' Joey has cooly announced to Anna that she will have eighteen extra people to tea (a large crowd of new girls). She instructs her to make scrambled eggs and have Daisy and Gwensi to pluck any amount of rhubarb from the garden and serve it with a quart or two of custard😨if that doesn't bring out Matey and her brown bottles!

She also sets up the triplets up with toasting forks at the fire because she is determined that they should be useful at three years old or so.

Considering how tone deaf EBD was to innuendo, it was probably a really, really, LARGE pink worm 😂

Poor Anna. In addition to having to raise 11 children + the official wards + any extra wards there’s the cleaning, running the house and Joey inviting shedloads of people for tea at short notice.

It’s a miracle the coadjutor didn’t take one look and run a mile.

I cannot bear Len Maynard. So worthy and perfect. So utterly, utterly dull.

"AIBU to think this dad needs to give his head a wobble. Should I report him to social services. WWYD."

The instruction to Anna to make scrambled rggs for eighteen was during the war.
Where the fuck was
Anna supposed to obtain sufficient eggs for this? They were rationed.

They lived in the country. My mother grew up in the country during the war and they had plenty of eggs. They were rationed to buy in shops but not if you had or knew people with chickens. I’m sure Anna had a few hen houses to look after in her spare time.

I wonder if she had to make custard from scratch too?

It specifically says in one of the war era books that they have hens, I think Joey thanks Daisy for the idea maybe and says how helpful it's been

The flight from the Nazis in Exile is coming back to me.
Didn't one of the Nazis recognise the Robin because she was so beautiful, and after Jack banged their heads together, they tied Robin on to Rufus's back and he carried her back to school (she was about ten by then? I mesn, I know he was a St Bernard but even so!)

Anna gives 'a cry of horror'. Joey offers to lend a hand laying the table. 'Don't worry and don't panic! We can do it alright!' says she who only issues instructions.

The Robin must have been a very very small 10 year old.

Wasn't the St Bernard ride earlier on the series? Kidnapped by the madman and taken onto a cave?

Super worn is super long, super worm is super strong...

Oh yes, it was when she was kidnapped. For one so delicate, the Robin certainly had some adventures!

I always suspected Grizel had a ‘thing’ for Jack Maynard and that’s why she was so shocked when Joey got engaged to him.

Joey annoys me so much. In one of the later books (possibly reunion) she is going on about how resilient she is and how many horrors she’s had to live through (yes Joey - whilst you were heavily sedated leaving everyone else to sort out the problem. The triplets had to be weaned cos she couldn’t look after them)

If you look at her life, other than losing her parents as a baby, it’s been pretty damned charmed. The escape from Austria and a rocky channel crossing from Guernsey are the only things that really disrupt her otherwise happy life.

Wanted to show my appreciation for this thread (and for the reminder of the Dropbox). I've had a terrible realisation though; I thought I'd read most of them and so didn't need to read too many more from Dropbox, but mine were almost all the armada paperback editions. Am I right to think these were abridged (and possibly some racist language removed - I certainly don't remember that in Jo of the Chalet School)?

I've always thought it a bit ironic that probably the best book was only written when EBD suddenly had to remove the school from Austria due to circumstances beyond her control!

Well, my Armada version of the Oberland one still had Charles and Mike looking like 'two little ni*r boys' after they paint themselves 😑
All the books at my parent's house, but I remember that line clearly unfortunately. They definitely do cut some stuff though

I don’t think the Armadas were edited to remove offensive racial language, just abridged for length to varying degrees. Not sure whether GGB altered hints in their editions.