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.

Apparently high altitude, and therefore lower oxygen slowed or sometimes reversed TB

Apparently as more TB is becoming resistant to treatment there are talks about going back to high altitude sanatoriums

Or was that Jo Scott’s mum? Maisie Gomme from the rival school St Scholastika’s.

The Erica thing was crazy. Erica’s mum hasn’t seen Joey in 20 years, has lost contact with Joey completely, yet still thinks that Joey is the best person to care for Erica after her death? Joey could have been killed in World War Two for all Erica’s mum knows.
And then Joey is appointed as Erica’s legal guardian before she’s even been made aware that Erica exists? WTAF?!?!

And then Joey acts like this is a perfectly normal and unexceptional thing to happen, and merrily whisks Erica off to a foreign country 🙄

Just about any other person in that situation would be completely taken aback and frantically phoning around for advice - social services, lawyers, DH, etc etc. But not Joey 🙄 Good thing she’s got a big house.

Ah ok. So who was Erica's mother then? 🤔

Blossom
Loveday
Emerence
Margot (even though I hate her.)
Kester
Hell, maybe even Thekla? 🤔 (I need help.)

I’ve just dug out my copy of Summer Term at the Chalet School.

Erica’s mother was Dacia Parson.

It looks like Dacia met Joey while Joey was staying in India with her brother.

Which just makes the whole thing even stranger. Joey can’t have been in India for that long. Her visit to India happens outside the books, but IIRC from the references made to it, she visits India before WW2 and her marriage to Jack.
Dacia can’t have had all that much time to get to know Joey. Joey is a seriously odd choice of guardian for Erica.

Erica was the appointed guardian one-and she recognises Joey from an old photo across the street.

Jo Scott's mum having not kept up with Joey since school sends Joey a letter telling her that she named her daughter after her (Josephine Mary) and thinks of her as "unofficial Godmother". Add to it then Jo Scott refers to Joey as "Godmother" which simply comes across as name dropping-which is out of character for Jo Scott so really grates.

I think though with some things you have to think that they're of its time. When Jem "whips" Mario after Mario had shot at him with his catapult, it was early 1930s and probably would have been expected. I don't think the readers of the time would have thought anything other than "he was asking for it."
The adopting of random children also would have been less formal than present day too, so would have been possible in a way it isn't now. However it did get very silly by the end. Really just a way for Joey to crow about her large family and an excuse to ignore the older ones while she was "busy".

The boys just get packed off to school in England and forgotten about.

Oh, just remembered that I like Felix and Felicity as names too 😂

There's a fill in book about India but I can't for the life of me remember what it's called

Two Chalet girls in India, I got it on Kindle.

It’s called Two Chalet School Girls in India.

I haven’t read it and am unlikely to unless it’s reprinted at a sensible price.

I think I might start a Chalet School baby name thread

@MissyB1 that's the one. I read it on kindle too.

I think I might start a Chalet School baby name thread

I bags Blossom and Cherry

Oooh, it’s on kindle?

I’m that used to Chalet School books being unavailable on there that I hadn’t even checked 😳

Thanks for the heads up!

Oh yes, I read Two Chalet Girls in India for free via Kindle Unlimited. Thought it was well done.

The bit I remember is from the one where they all go off to do a Guide camp, and 3 fourth formers decide to dose some younger ones they think are peaky, with senna pods, syrup of figs and god knows what else.When the staff come back they think this is hilarious. Then they find the girls have also washed some sheets, using too much starch, and become incandescent.

Visitors for the chalet school is also free on kindle unlimited. No idea if it's any good

I always wonder why the girls "march" everywhere.
They never walk, they march. Even when they're only leaving the dormitories to go down to Fruhstuck, they march.

[School - Stand! Turn - March! (Miss Lawrence struck up a lively march on the piano etc etc etc)]

Weird.

If anyone wants to read a great fill in (I’ve read a few) there is a great one called “A refuge for the Chalet School” by Amy Fletcher which describes what happens immediately after their flight from Austria, it also covers Jo and Jacks wedding.

They were told off for trying to wash anything before any of them had achieved their Laundress Badge.

Now THAT would be a very typical MN thread:

"AIBU to have ruined everyone's clothes by hand-washing them before washing machines had been invented and without the benefit of my Laundress Badge at Guides"

Oh thanks for that I will get it now!

What about their Dosing Badge @TheShellBeach though! I wonder if the unlocked medicine chest also contained sedatives, or perhaps laxatives were considered the only medicines a Guide would need

"Dosing Badge" LOLOLOLOLOLOL

Anybody normal would freak the fuck out if a total stranger came up to you in the street, called you ‘aunt’ and then announced that someone you knew briefly for 6 months 20 years ago has left their only child to you.

And yes to poor Claire. Just finished the two Sams where they were taken up to see the nursery folk and there’s no mention of Claire at all. Joey seemed to have remembered she exists in Althea goes to the chalet school.