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.

Poor Juliet. She has such a shit time of it.

Oh well, at least she goes to college and isn't forced into a career she doesn't want by unsympathetic relatives. And luckily, Joey is around to persuade Donal to marry her.

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)

I’m sure the facts that Margot’s mum is besties with most of the staff, and the financial interest the Maynard / Russell clan have in the school has absolutely nothing to do with that leniency 🤔🧐🙄

I’ve always wondered, did they just … not tell Betty’s family?

If someone caused that sort of injury to my child and the school dealt with it with a slap on the wrist, I’d be on to the police like a shot. How did they stop Betty’s family causing a massive (financially damaging) scandal? I assume ‘may be maimed by the owner’s family’ isn’t a selling point for a posh private school

Isn't Betty also victim blamed for being "tactless"?

Well, you could argue that victim blaming Betty, telling her it’s her fault for being tactless etc, is a Margot preservation tactic.

After all, if Betty thinks her parents will also go in for the Betty blaming line, she’s less likely to confide in her parents about it all.

Also Margot is made a sub prefect in the next book!

AIBU to sue school?
DD almost killed by violent pupil.
WWYD.

I bet if that was a real mumsnet thread, there’d be a fair number of posters suggesting getting the police involved because of the violent assault 🤔

And the response of Len - 'Betty's hurt her head'... No, your sister's just chucked a bookend at it! Talk about victim blaming. 🙄

"Miss Annersley laughed." "Miss Wilson laughed."

"Joey laughed." "Len laughed."

Has anyone else noticed the overuse of that phrase, used as a complete sentence in book after book? I see it all the time, even when laughter is not appropriate to the occasion.

I have to say that it cracks me up when Len Maynard is arrested for shoplifting.

Miss Charlesworth makes the store manager release her immediately.

Still haven’t started the first one with dd (getting put off my this thread 😂) but surely the correct response is ‘was the violent pupil either Joey or Joey-adjacent? If so, maybe it’s your child’s fault.’

I’m up to A Chalet Girl from Kenya & it says

‘Mrs Trelawney had married
Verity-Anne’s father the year before, and when someone had pointed out to the
two girls that they were not stepsisters, Mary-Lou, the every-ready had promptly
got around the situation by pointing out that, at any rate, they could call themselves sisters-by –marriage.‘

So it was down to a ‘someone’.

Also from A Chalet Girl from Kenya: ‘They were blindfolded by Matron, who was an adept at this.’

Why was Matron adept at blindfolding people???

She had quite the spicy sex life I believe! Well.. that’s what I like to imagine 🤣

"That's all rot," she said. "You took Cecil this afternoon while she was out with our nurse. You stole her! That's kidnapping and kidnapping's breaking the law. You could be imprisoned for that."

So says Margot in Chalet School Triplets, a few days after she gets off without any consequences, when she threw the bookend at Betty, causing Betty to lose consciousness and need sutures.

Actually, Margot gets a lot of sympathy and is told to lie down (after the obligatory cup of hot milk). Betty, on the other hand, is told off for annoying Margot.

"As for Betty......................................she received a straight talking-to on the subject of tact that left her quite subdued.................................no-one was unduly excited."

And on the subject of Chalet School Triplets, this is the book where Cecil is kidnapped (ARGH I get such a feeling of rage at the name 'Cecil') and not only do the triplets go and rescue her, but Gaudenz also does, accompanied by Jack Maynard, Dr. Graves, Dr. Entwhistle and Dr. Courvoisier.

Hopefully there were no patients requiring emergency care up at the San, with all the medical staff abandoning it.........................

"Hilda, you poor darling! Have you any news yet? I couldn't come before. I was in the thick of bathing Cecil. I came as soon as I could."

Thus Joey, haring round to the school at the first sign of something exciting going on, not that she can do anything, but she just can't resist sticking her annoying nose into everything.

Some Middles have gone for a walk and got lost. Gaudenz has gone to find them. Joey is catastrophizing, as usual - as is Miss Annersley.

Oh, and the missing girls get a telling-off when Gaudenz finds them. Naturally.

Well speaking of the hair washing, Joey is at death’s door as per usual at the end of book 1, and the doctor sends Madge to have her hair washed at the hotel with a note! Like a normal hair wash wouldn’t be sufficiently medical, only one with instruction from a doctor would do in those terrible circumstances

Dr Peters was on duty 🤪

OMG I'd forgotten that. Bonkers.

That wasn’t the hair wash where Grizel asked for holy water was it?

That would count as an extra ordinary hair wash, yes? 😉

Highly extraordinary! No, the holy water was right at the beginning when Madge, Joey & Grizel were travelling to the Tirol to start the school.

Hilarious enough to be mentioned repeatedly for decades after though.

See also: Con Maynard and Daniel in the lions' den.

Well speaking of the hair washing, Joey is at death’s door as per usual at the end of book 1, and the doctor sends Madge to have her hair washed at the hotel with a note! Like a normal hair wash wouldn’t be sufficiently medical, only one with instruction from a doctor would do in those terrible circumstances

Oh yeh - that was hilarious!!