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AIBU?

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Original poster

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

996 replies

TheShellBeach · 26/11/2022 21:56

..........................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.

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Original poster
TheShellBeach · 02/12/2022 22:21

Talking about accents (Irish, mainly) I recall Miss Wilson being very sniffy towards a child who has a strong Scottish accent and she tells him that he can speak "good English" if he chooses to do so.

In EBD's day, girls with regional accents often got sent away to school so that they learned to speak how posh people speak.

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Original poster
TheShellBeach · 02/12/2022 22:23

Kidnappings!

There are so many. Cornelia, the Robin, Sybil Russell, Valerie Gardiner, Cecil Maynard.......

Maybe Cecil Maynard is kidnapped so that Joey can keep up with Madge having had one of her DC kidnapped.

Heaven forfend that Joey should lag behind in any way. It was ridiculously childish for her always to want to have more DC than Madge or Mollie.

She was so sniffy towards Simone for being less than fertile.

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StitchesInTime · 02/12/2022 22:42

When was Cecil kidnapped? I can’t remember that one!

Heavyraindropsarefallingonmyhead · 02/12/2022 22:44

StitchesInTime · 02/12/2022 22:42

When was Cecil kidnapped? I can’t remember that one!

I think it was a mad lady with a dead child who looked like her maybe? one of the later books.

MargaretThursday · 02/12/2022 23:10

Heavyraindropsarefallingonmyhead · 02/12/2022 22:44

I think it was a mad lady with a dead child who looked like her maybe? one of the later books.

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Yes, it was. And apparently the dead child was also called Cecilie too.

I think it was "Chalet School Triplets". Joey has to go away at the end so naturally her first thought is to ask for all three of the triplets to come home from school to help look after the babies. Equally naturally Mrs A has no issues with that.

Heavyraindropsarefallingonmyhead · 02/12/2022 23:19

MargaretThursday · 02/12/2022 23:10

Yes, it was. And apparently the dead child was also called Cecilie too.

I think it was "Chalet School Triplets". Joey has to go away at the end so naturally her first thought is to ask for all three of the triplets to come home from school to help look after the babies. Equally naturally Mrs A has no issues with that.

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That was it, for a shareholder in a school Joey really didn't have any respect for education

Jourdain11 · 02/12/2022 23:38

I reckon the Robin's mama was actually a Romanov princess who Ted Humphries had rescued while doing his mysterious government work in Russia. The Bolsheviks were after Robin, therefore she had to be hidden away in the San on the pretence of being delicate!

Is there not an abundance of people who appear at some point to be "still, grey and to all appearances dead"?

Jourdain11 · 02/12/2022 23:40

It's one of the Island ones. Jacynth Hardy is slaving like a n**r at her cello.

Jourdain11 · 02/12/2022 23:41

Jourdain11 · 02/12/2022 23:40

It's one of the Island ones. Jacynth Hardy is slaving like a n**r at her cello.

Sorry, quote fail! Was in response to the posts about offensive language reprinted in the GGB editions.

Geometricfreeform · 03/12/2022 04:46

Huge thanks for the Dropbox link! I’ve started an epic re-read; I loved these in my younger days but there were some I didn’t get to, and nearly all were the abridged ones. I’m at Rivals and it’s been interesting already to see some bits that had been edited out of the first few books.

It’s hilarious, reading them as an adult, to really see the utter nuttiness. So far the bit that’s made me giggle the most is in Head Girl, when Wanda and Friedel took two days out of their honeymoon to be at the garden party. Presumably they wanted to be at the opening of the caves as well, but can you actually imagine giving up some of your honeymoon for a concert out on by your old school? (Imagine Friedel’s AIBU!)

The lunatic storyline is nutty (his sanity returned to on his (convenient) death bed!) but from the perspective of the adults it would have been horrifying. And the falling through the ice was also actually really alarming (although the subsequent near-death illnesses and miraculous cure-all singing are of course ludicrous)

Someone mentioned EBD’s illness obsession - I’m sure I read that her younger brother died quite tragically and that played in to this as a theme in her writing.

Can’t see me getting much done until I’m through the Dropbox - the pink worm extract above is hilarious and not one I’ve read before!

Original poster
TheShellBeach · 03/12/2022 04:59

I am having a horrified re-read of Eustacia.
I'd forgotten how horrible everyone was to her. Both her parents had recently died and she clearly struggled with social interactions and I always get a sense that she was on the autism spectrum.

I think that EBD modelled Eustacia on a real girl she had taught, but they didn't know much about neurodiversity in the 1920s.

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110APiccadilly · 03/12/2022 07:32

To go back to the step-sisters/ sisters by marriage thing - it's not to make sure people know there's no divorce involved, is it? Or is she saying they're not biologically related as they don't have a biological parent in common?

Incidentally, when I finally plucked up the energy to read Boswell's Life of Johnson (I know, I know) one of the things that stuck with me was that he used "daughter-in-law" to describe what we'd call a step-daughter. I assume the term step-daughter is newer than Boswell.

Gremlinsateit · 03/12/2022 07:57

I read it as EBD’s mistakenly thinking that the term for a half-sister was step-sister, so making up sister-by-marriage to describe the step-sister relationship.

Yugi · 03/12/2022 08:01

Just been reading on the origin of calling someone a step-something. It's an old word that was related to looking after an orphan. It only started getting used for a relation by marriage in the 20th century. So may not have been common usage when the books were written. Especially not in a society that thought it was ok to fine children actual money for using slang

CorporateBull · 03/12/2022 08:22

I am not remotely an expert, but I’d say the general confusion of EBD’s own characters at the term ‘sister-by-marriage’ and the fact that I’m sure Mary Lou is asked whether they are step-sisters means this is a quirk of the author and not a widely used term. A curious Google reveals no use of it whatsoever other being occasionally used for sister-in-law.

Poor Eustacia very much reads as a child with autism to me too. @TheShellBeach I’m sure you’re right that EBD had taught a girl or two like her. And she just been orphaned too.

EmpressaurusOfWitchesBackFromTheDead · 03/12/2022 08:44

110APiccadilly · 03/12/2022 07:32

To go back to the step-sisters/ sisters by marriage thing - it's not to make sure people know there's no divorce involved, is it? Or is she saying they're not biologically related as they don't have a biological parent in common?

Incidentally, when I finally plucked up the energy to read Boswell's Life of Johnson (I know, I know) one of the things that stuck with me was that he used "daughter-in-law" to describe what we'd call a step-daughter. I assume the term step-daughter is newer than Boswell.

I remember a character in the Pickwick Papers calling his stepmother ‘Mother-in-law’.

I wonder if Verity called Mary-Lou’s mother her ‘mother-by-marriage’?

Heavyraindropsarefallingonmyhead · 03/12/2022 09:10

TheShellBeach · 03/12/2022 04:59

I am having a horrified re-read of Eustacia.
I'd forgotten how horrible everyone was to her. Both her parents had recently died and she clearly struggled with social interactions and I always get a sense that she was on the autism spectrum.

I think that EBD modelled Eustacia on a real girl she had taught, but they didn't know much about neurodiversity in the 1920s.

I've also read Eustacia as neurodiverse. I find it interesting that her character flaws as EBD describes them are 'cured' after her accident. I wonder if all of the peace and isolation instead of being in the middle of a busy school actually did more for her than getting stuck on a rock!
And then even when she did go back to school she would end up having to lie down frequently away from people because of her back, giving her a break from all the intense stimulation that is the chalet school.

Gremlinsateit · 03/12/2022 10:23

Yugi · 03/12/2022 08:01

Just been reading on the origin of calling someone a step-something. It's an old word that was related to looking after an orphan. It only started getting used for a relation by marriage in the 20th century. So may not have been common usage when the books were written. Especially not in a society that thought it was ok to fine children actual money for using slang

I’m not sure that’s right? I was just googling around and apparently Spenser, Shakespeare and Dryden used step-mother as we would, and the 1890 Webster defines step-sister as we would. But you are right about the orphan! I always thought step referred to a step up or step in but it is from Old English for an orphan - very interesting the places EBD will take you! :)

Yugi · 03/12/2022 12:17

Gremlinsateit · 03/12/2022 10:23

I’m not sure that’s right? I was just googling around and apparently Spenser, Shakespeare and Dryden used step-mother as we would, and the 1890 Webster defines step-sister as we would. But you are right about the orphan! I always thought step referred to a step up or step in but it is from Old English for an orphan - very interesting the places EBD will take you! :)

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My googling was fairly perfunctory, I may have got it wrong. EBD was very precious about language wasn't she? She may have just not liked that meaning, if she thought it was a bit common, there was no way her precious Mary-Lou would ever use it.

Jourdain11 · 03/12/2022 16:04

This is a random one - does anyone remember the book where there's some intense foreshadowing of a disaster to come (on some expedition or other) and nothing actually happens? It's in one of the Swiss books.

Original poster
TheShellBeach · 03/12/2022 16:20

Jourdain11 · 03/12/2022 16:04

This is a random one - does anyone remember the book where there's some intense foreshadowing of a disaster to come (on some expedition or other) and nothing actually happens? It's in one of the Swiss books.

That would make a pleasant change for the unfortunate girls and mistresses who found themselves falling off cliffs, falling into dangerously deep water, falling and finding themselves stuck on trees, falling into ditches full of water and not being near enough to the CS to have an immediate hot bath and a jorum or some horrible quack nostrum of Matey's, and therefore coming down with pleuro-pneumonia.

Oh, and falling through ice when rescuing badly-behaved and disobedient girls from rival schools who (quite frankly) deserved to drown (or die of rheumatic fever).

That Maureen Donovan (who Joey managed to rescue) ended up dying young. After she recovered from the initial bout of rheumatic fever, her parents were advised to take her somewhere warm for a year.

How nice that they could afford to do that.

But in one of the later books, Joey mentions smugly that Maureen died young, and suggests that maybe if she (Maureen) hadn't been disobedient she would still be alive. FFS.

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Original poster
TheShellBeach · 03/12/2022 16:21

EBD was very precious about language wasn't she?

Yes. Always banging on about "long" families. I have never heard that expression outside of a CS book.

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Talia99 · 03/12/2022 16:30

I’ve just been rereading the last Chalet School book where Reg mentions having been interested in Len for ‘several years’. Shortly before we’ve been told it’s reasonable Len is contemplating marriage as she is ‘nearly 18’. That means she was 14/15 when he started letching after her. He is, I think 11 years older so he would have been 25/26.

That ‘relationship’ needs social services and police not encouragement from family and friends. Yuck.

MargaretThursday · 03/12/2022 16:44

Jourdain11 · 03/12/2022 16:04

This is a random one - does anyone remember the book where there's some intense foreshadowing of a disaster to come (on some expedition or other) and nothing actually happens? It's in one of the Swiss books.

I think that's Corney Flower.
Something like she'd be mothered as never before.
Maybe in Head Girl.

RobinHumphries · 03/12/2022 17:22

How about ‘leafy cake’ from ‘problems’ that nobody ever (at least on the forums I’ve gone on) has ever heard of