AIBU To Think Joey Maynard (Of Chalet School Fame) Was Insufferable

[TheShellBeach]

.............with her eleven children, infuriating husband and bizarre tendency to move house (and country) to live next door to the school her sister inexplicably started when Joey was a child.

She also managed to write (at least) two books a year, have a series of multiple pregnancies and poke her nose into the Chalet School's business on a daily basis.

True for you! I think Mary-Lou would be a lot less annoying if they weren’t all constantly indulging her.

I do struggle to understand just why they constantly indulge Mary Lou.

They’d all be horrified if anyone accused them of favouritism.

EBD often has her characters mentioning that Mary-Lou spent her childhood with older people, so that was why she spoke to adults the way she did.

I think there is a fatal flaw with that, of course. All children spend their childhoods with older people.

And, other than her meek mother, the main ‘old person’ in her childhood was a formal, rather fierce grandmother — I can’t imagine her encouraging a young Mary-Lou to behave as though all adults were her new best chum.

(And from what I remember the young M-L we meet in Three Go, anyway, she was a combination of slightly wild, from the Barrases’ influence, and rather formal and old-fashioned, which you’d expect from old Mrs Trelawney’s influence — doesn’t she say she doesn’t like the idea of sharing a dorm at school, that having a room to yourself is more ‘exclusive’?)

Certainly not bouncing around the way she was doing as a Middle…

Certainly not bouncing around the way she was doing as a Middle…

No. I wonder if EBD had had other plans for the character when she was created.

Well, most children also mix with other children as well as adults.

However, if we’re thinking of children who spent their childhood with older people and not many children, there’s other Chalet School pupils who didn’t get the “oh, that’s just Mary Lou” treatment. Certainly not for the entirety of their school lives.

Such as Eustacia.

Or Joey herself.

In Island, Gwensi’s older (and nice) half brother is referred to as her stepbrother 🧐

Any recommendations for fan fic? I loved the Bettany saga on the sallydenny library, LGM seems like every single story is slating Joey which gets a bit samey.

Girls Gone By publish "fill ins"

Girls Gone By publish "fill ins"
I've just read the one about Elizaveta's escape from Europe during WW2, it was excellent.

Katherine Bruce and Amy Fletcher both write really well for GGB. I loved Peace Comes to the Chalet School. Refuge (the missing bit between the escape from Austria and the start of the school in Guerney) is very good of its kind but definitely has quite a bit of the Jo to the Rescue domestic detail that I'm not too keen on.

Hilda Annersley: Headmistress sounds quite cheesy but it's fun - the story of what happened when she was injured in the crash that brought Miss Bubb to the school. But I think it's quite rare now and expensive to buy second hand.

I desperately wanted to like the CG books but honestly the socio-economic background of them baffles me to this day in a way that 1950s England in Enid Blyton does not! Like the concept of it being cheaper/more convenient to open in a school in freezing Austria, where you catch instant pneumonia apparently, rather than England.

I assumed that the post-war exchange rates favoured sterling - Germany was on the edge of famine, one of the things that helped Hitler into power. I was surprised on a recent re-read to see what high fees Madge charged - but suppose that at first, when the school was basically Jo, Grizel, and Simone they'd all have had to be able to live on the money the Cochranes stumped up to get rid of Grizel.

That obsession EBD had about people getting pneumonia just from getting cold is absurd.

She had all the doctors saying it, too (which I suppose is fair enough since she believed it herself and her characters can say whatever she wants them to).

I feel like I’m missing out on Chalet School Facebook groups! What are the best ones to join?

When I was young the message was always that you can't catch cold from being cold, but they changed their minds on that and said cold air did leave you vulnerable to upper respiratory tract infections. I know that my mild asthma, hardly noticeable most of the time, is triggered by very cold air, so I'm ever so slightly on EBD's side.

That said, my father spent several years in a sanatorium (Ireland, not Switzerland) and sleeping outside in all weathers was part of the therapy - he used to reminisce about having a slight, not unpleasant fever and admiring the snow on the red (recycled army) blankets.

Chalet School Sales and Wants is a good place to find books.

New Chalet Club is where you need to be careful what you say. LOL.

Yes, cold air brings on my asthma, too.

It does not give me pneumonia, though.

Thanks TheShellBeach. I’ll check them out (and be careful what I say!)

Have a look at archiveofourown.org/tags/Chalet%20School%20-%20Elinor%20Md%20Brent-Dyer/works

Started a wee re read, one of the chapter titles is ‘Juliet the Incubus’ after she’s abandoned 😂

Chalet School Triplets has just been delivered. I do not actually remember ordering it.

I may have had too many glasses of sherry just before Christmas

Anyway, this is the book where Margot Maynard gets away with attempted murder when she flings a bookend at Betty Landon and Betty becomes unconscious (naturally - this is the Chalet School after all) and bleeds a lot from the wound, which requires suturing (by the ever-present Jack Maynard - does that man live at the CS or does he just spend most of his time there, spying for Joey?)

Margot is forgiven because she did it when she had toothache (not sure how that would play out in court as a defence to attempted murder) - although Miss Annersley does tell her that she will be expelled if she does it again.

Phew.