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.

In my head, Bill writes back ‘Dear Joey, I didn’t know Jem had retrained in orthopaedic surgery! How clever of him, especially at his age! Think I’ll listen to my own specialist, still. I’m sure Miss Bubb is great. Laters. Bill”

'I am glad you do not resent her familiarities then' said Miss Bubb in response to Bill who denied that Joey was rude.

That's a great retort from The Bubb, in fairness.

That would be the obvious solution.
Madge and Joey discuss it, mentioning Miss Slater, Miss Burn and Mlle. Berne.
All three are experienced and Mlle. Berne has been at the CS for ages - but although Miss Slater is the obvious choice, they dismiss the idea because she is only twenty six.

Which is odd, because when Miss Annersley goes off for a term in Challenge, she appoints Nancy Wilmot as interim Head. Miss Wilmot is twenty six at the time.

The whole thing is ridiculous. Another thing that's ridiculous about this is that Joey herself comes down to teach Latin three days a week, despite not having been to college or university and despite not having studied Latin for at least six years.

If I'd paid for my DD to attend a posh boarding school I would at least expect the staff to be qualified.

Yep. Miss Bubb had Joey well-figured-out.

I think (not having read if for awhile) they needed someone for advanced Latin, and then for the admin side because the other teachers were too busy for that (didn't they draft simone in as well not just joey)

But in which case I don't know why they didn't just draft in a Latin teacher, get Joey or Simone to cover Mlle Bernes language classes and get her to be head. I'm sure it would have been far easier on the whole school and simpler to slot in a new Latin teacher than a head teacher.

But then 90% of the chalet school trials and tribulations happen because a little bit of common sense isn't applied

Oh, the lack of common sense. “We’re not stepsisters, we’re sisters by marriage.” “You must be related because your given names begin with the same letters.” In the snow for a minute = pneumonia but cold baths every morning = good health. Child with weak lungs? Let’s house you with active TB cases, that will do the trick!

All three are experienced and Mlle. Berne has been at the CS for ages - but although Miss Slater is the obvious choice, they dismiss the idea because she is only twenty six.

Hang on a minute - how old was Madge when she started up the Chalet School? Wasn’t she about 24? How come 26 is too young to be acting head for a term or two, but not too young to start up a school from scratch?

If I'd paid for my DD to attend a posh boarding school I would at least expect the staff to be qualified.

While I agree with this, I’m also going to point out that even today, it’s not actually a legal requirement for teachers in private schools to have any teaching qualifications.

Thank you! And also thank you @TheShellBeach for the added info about the car crash.

EBD seems to have had some sort of medical / injury fetish.

Loving this thread.
I adored these books as a child and they are still my go to for comfort reading but my word Joey is insufferable. I remember aged 10 being outraged at the renaming of children with perfectly good names - how very dare she tell someone she only just met that their name is unbearable and she is going to call them something else. On the other hand, it's her awfulness and the random nonsense and the endless terrible accidents that reform recalcitrant girls that makes them such bonkers fun.

And yes to @CowPie - Kathy Ferrars was a way better character before she fell in with the cult of MaryLou. I had a lot of time for her in that first book.

Miss Bubb had issues but the fact she walked into the insanity of the Chalet School (Jo is perfect! Draft unqualified old girls for academic subjects! Interrupt lessons (not already interrupted by sports, guides or spontaneous picnics/rambles) for dorm tidying!) and tried to redirect it to a more sane path, in retrospect (as a responsible adult) isn’t one of them.

(AIBU, I’ve taken a short term contract and I think it’s with a cult. They are indoctrinating children. I want to try and change things while I can).

On the disabilty as redemption storyline - has anyone come across Canadian author Jean Little?

I love her books, especially FROM ANNA

She wrote her first children's novel as she was teaching a class for children with physical disabilities and therefore deliberately reading aloud to them classics with characters she thought they'd identify with. The kids pointed out that Clara (Heidi) Pollyanna and Katy all walked by the end of the book. In her autobiography Jean Little talks about how much that wasn't good for her group of students, and she wrote 'mine for keeps' about a child who has cerebral palsy at both beginning and end of book.

EBD was very much a product of her upbringing. She was desperate to keep hold of her middle class status. And she also was very much a late Victorian in terms of many attitudes.

Especially when her ideas about names were weirdly arbitrary, anyway -- given the horrified shriekings at how awful a name Eustacia, Theodora or Richenda is, why does no one even mention in any negative light what I think is by far the 'worst' name in the entire series, Grizel?

We're supposed to see Tom Gay's adoption of a boy's name as something significant to her tomboyish nature and deeply weird upbringing to think girls were sly and bad at 'boys' subjects', but Joey's adopted sister and daughters Helena, Constance, Marya Cecilia x2, and Philippa are known as Len, Con, Rob, Cecil and Phil, which, when added to Steve, Charles, Mike, Geoff, and Felix, sounds like an overwhelmingly male family.

And at the other extreme, she has an obvious liking for extremely flowery names like Bernhilda, Loveday, Blossom, Primrose, which pass either without comment or are actively praised, but arbitrarily has characters express horror at Malvina or Ottillie.

I'm also always a bit puzzled at whoever exclaims to Joey, when she says she's naming a triplet after Madge, that surely she's not going to call her 'the full thing' ie Margaret...?

Such a good point (and in line with what I said upthread about Jacqueline Wilson reframing Katie in her version). Offering kids with disabilities characters who live their lives without being cured in some way (so they become ‘normal’ again) is so important. I’ll seek out Jean Little.

Another good book I loved as a teenager was Izzy Willy-Nilly, about a teenager adapting to life after losing a leg in an accident. I guess Deenie by Judy Blume has similar themes although less permanent.

Colin from The Secret Garden was only able to walk once he'd stopped being such a dick. Although to be fair to the guy, everyone around him was gaslighting him about the state of his health. It was all a fiction and I never realised as a kid how dark that was. All of Misselthwaite Manor was in on it!

Yes, the book's really well written with Colin, that the poor child has reasons why he's not walking and it's largely that he doesn't believe he can and is being gaslighted as you say! Jane Eyre shows the flip side of the 'good people get over their disabilities' thing in that Mr Rochester is only forgiven and permitted his happy ending due to being blinded and disfigured.

I will add as a wheelchair user I have been known to mutter about what I'd do to Cousin Helen if I was ever left alone in a room with her....

If you have the unabridged edition of Theodora you can be appalled at Joey's descriptions of her physical appearance - "little freak" "awful mop of hair" "oddest set of features" "most hairy specimen altogether."

Oh she was such a saintly pain.

I'd have kept lookout whilst you gave her a rousing slap.

Jeez that’s bloody awful 🙁 I do get really cross at some things in those books!

Cousin Helen was a nightmare.
Who goes to live next door to her ex-fiance and his wife?
I mean, that's weird as fuck.

There's no way Nancy Wilmot was 26 during 'Challenge'. EBD's maths was all over the shop. Nancy was at the school back in the Tyrol days (she first appears in 'New House' I think, after the merger of the two schools) and is about 15/16 then, and given that was c 1930 something, and Challenge is at least mid-1950s (New Mistress is set in 1952) she's at mid-late 30s by the time of Challenge.
Twenty-six, my arse....

The Sally Denny library hasn't had anything new added to it for about three or four years but you can read what's already archived there. You can't join either...there was a glitch with the site and it's never been fixed so it's essentially an open archive of fan fiction (but apparently there is some good stuff there).

The other places you'll find CS fan fiction is on A3O (archive of our own) and search the categories. Or Lime Green Musings (you need to join to read) which is basically now the place for current / ongoing ff after the Sally Denny Library crashed.

The CBB (Chalet school bulletin board) also has links to really old archives of stories - there are loads (but some really decent) - you don't have to join to browse these. (go to 'the school noticeboard' and then 'the board's archives).

My favourite fan fic is the excellent crossover between the Chalet School and Antonia Forest, in which Mary Lou marries Giles. It’s by the person who does excellent Marlows fan fic in general but I’m embarrassed to say I’ve forgotten her name. I think that one is on Live Journal.

Oh yes! The one bit I remember from that is Mary-Lou assuming that Lawrie must be short for Lawrentina.

OMG I hope Lawrie tore her a new one.