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.

No, no. It was just because PP said the book was boring.
Oh yes I see! Agreed there's loads in it.

And all that bullshit where Jack tells Joey off for her anxiety when he has to go through a storm to get something medically vital for Phoebe Wychcote.

Goodness only knows what it was. Jack tells Joey that she knew when she married him that he was a doctor and she mustn't be selfish and imagine that every time there is a storm someone will be caught in it and get pleuropneumonia just like in the Alps.

Still reading the tedious (and hair-despising) Theodora.

I've got to the bit where Emerence buys Margot the expensive clock because some man has brought her a large cheque from her father.

That reminds me of the scene in Joey & Co In Tirol, where Joey (& Co) meet the Richardsons. Professor Richardson abandons whatever he's doing miles away from the DC and reappears in the crappy cottage, and he gives Ruey a cheque.

I always wondered where the fuck she'd have been able to cash it. She could hardly use a cheque to pay for stuff; she would need hard cash.

I assumed they were like travellers cheques? Did the bureau de change exist in chalet school days?

She'd have had to go into Innsbruck I suppose, assuming you couldn't cash cheques at the Post (probably not)

I’d always supposed that a town big enough for a clock shop would be a town big enough for a bank where Emerence could cash the cheque.

I see someone's found it for you - that is the series I was thinking of, enjoy!

It used to be much easier to cash cheques - they were much more like currency than they are today.

😀

Yes, pubs and corner shops used to do it in the U.K., I think? So presumably the Austrian equivalents did too?

Joey would not have turned a hair if she had been asked to take on an entire form but to face one girl took some doing

From Jo Returns to the CS.

I am surprised by the title of the book, to be honest. Jo left the CS at the end of the preceding term and now she's back there because there is Measles at Madge's.

It doesn't seem to me that she ever left, never mind returned.

Oh, and why was she allowed to do any teaching, anyway? She has no qualifications.

Back in the day (by which I mean up to the early 20th century) a lot of schools (particularly girls’ schools) had unqualified teachers. Since many universities didn’t accept women, there wasn’t much alternative!

I'm pretty sure you can still be an unqualified teacher now in a private school in the UK?

Yes, that’s so. I think it just seems particularly mad when Joey, who was never any great shakes academically, goes straight from being a schoolgirl to being a teacher at a presumably very expensive school because of measles. I mean, even EBD’s own school got into trouble when the parents found out EBD was writing school stories while her totally unqualified mother did the actual teaching.

I'm pretty sure you can still be an unqualified teacher now in a private school in the UK?

Yes, very common. But they tend to have a related degree, just not a PGCE or equivalent. Jo hasn't!

I mean, even EBD’s own school got into trouble when the parents found out EBD was writing school stories while her totally unqualified mother did the actual teaching

This is true. You'd think she'd have known better.

Maybe they knew Jo was a bad choice for a teacher (what with the lack of qualifications and experience), but decided to ignore it because they wanted to save money?

Or maybe it didn't matter to them, given that Madge was also unqualified and she made herself headmistress.

In some ways it's actually quite odd that a bunch of respectable Austrians (with strong ideas about manners, 'feminine accomplishments' and chaperonage etc) decide to randomly send their daughters to a tiny, brand-new school run by a foreigner at their holiday spot. I know Gisela or one of the first Austrians to attend says something about how their parents think English schools are educationally deficient but healthier -- but this isn't even really a school yet! It's an unqualified foreigner who has literally just arrived at a place where she once spent a holiday, and rented a chalet with three pupils, two of whom are sisters of the only two staff members, the other of whom has been (I think?) a governess.

I can appreciate that within a year or two, Madge has built up a lot of goodwill, but initially, it's fairly unlikely that this would fly initially...?

There’s no mention of any nearby Austrian girls schools as I recall.
I suppose there’d have been village schools for local children, but I suspect EBD’s adult characters would have been rather snobbish about the thought of their children going to school with working class or peasant children.

I wonder if one of the main attractions for the Austrian families, at least initially, was that it was close enough for their daughters to be day pupils, or weekly boarders.

If the alternatives for the local Austrian families who wanted a suitable middle class education were a more distant boarding school, or home schooling, then it’s more understandable that they’re willing to take a chance on the Chalet School. Particularly if it was cheaper than the established Austrian girls boarding schools.

It’s not entirely clear to me what exactly the pre-CS arrangement was for the Maranis and Mensches — we’re told they used to go into Innsbruck for school, but that their parents found it ‘cheaper and easier’ to send the girls to the CS, and that said parents live at the Tiernsee because ‘living in the mountains is cheaper than in town’. But how far is Innsbruck? Would they have been day girls or boarding? And don’t Gisela and co board at the CS after that first summer? Which I realise is needed for plot purposes — the books wouldn’t have been so much fun if only a tiny percentage of girls were boarders — but doesn’t make much economic sense for cash-strapped parents who are living at the Tiernsee because it’s cheaper and chose the CS because it was cheaper than sending their daughters to Innsbruck….

According to Google Maps, it's about 44.5km between Innsbruck and Pertisau (roughly where people think EBD intended to set the Chalet School). It's 41 minutes by car/2 hours by public transport now but no idea how long this would have been on public transport in the 30s and I'm pretty sure the Mensches/Maranis didn't have cars? IIRC there was some explanation about it being easier for them to board in the winter as their families lived in town, but it's been so long since I read them I can't remember how convincing this was....

The Marinis and the Riccis had a governess (a Mamsell) who conveniently got married at just the right time for the girls to join the chalet school

The Mensches went to public school in Innsbruck but apparently it was very large, so I think we are supposed to assume they wanted the smaller class sizes? They make the less sense because the Mensches live in Innsbruck (that's where Joey and Madge spend their first christmas) and their parents stay in a guesthouse near the school for the first term, and then that's why they become boarders after Christmas. I can't understand why they would want their children to board at the school rather than live in Innsbruck with them and attend school there.

And the Marinis live a 20 minute walk from the school so I guess considering the snow, ice and floods they get the first winter boarding makes sense!

Then we are told Gertudes parents have long wanted to send her to an English school which makes the least sense out of the lot. I mean did European countries really lay that much weight on an English education?

Although Gerturde was originally not supposed to attend so maybe that was a polite excuse to send her without her mother even visiting the school or speaking with the head mistress first.

I know the Mensches live in Innsbruck by Jo Of (and there’s no indication they’ve just moved there, is there?), but I’m pretty sure we’re told in School At that both the Maranis and Mensches live at the Tiernsee because it’s cheaper than town. Presumably one of the (many) moments when EBD reinvents previous facts (like changing everyone’s ages and occasional surnames!)