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.

I’ve just finished Shocks (the holiday in Tirol with Melanie one), and there’s an explanation in there about hair washing. Apparently Ruey tried curling hers and it went wrong, so she ended up washing it twice in a day, and then says she couldn’t do anything with it for days as it was so soft.

So I think it’s seen as better to have greasy hair that stays neatly in place than clean, soft hair. This is still true for ballet exams, dd has to not wash her hair for a few days so it’ll go up more smoothly and be less wispy.

The lack of showers, hair dryers, efficient boilers and central heating combined with everyone having long hair must have made washing hair a much bigger production as well.

Going to the hair dresser to get your hair washed and dried probably would have been a nice luxury. Like men going to the barber for a shave now

Plus the idea that having wet hair will definitely result in a cold, pneumonia, pleurisy and six months of bed rest 🤣

Indeed! I don't know what EBD would have thought of all the mad people doing parkrun in the wind and rain this morning (and it's county cross-country championships in many counties today too)!

We do have hot showers to come home to though

I'd love some enforced bed rest, as long as someone brought me my meals.

I always wonder if the Herr von Francius of the Austrian books is the same Herr von Francius who appears in the Swiss books.
Did he also move every time the CS did?
Maybe he fancied Miss Annersley.

Maybe he was Jewish and fled from Austria to Switzerland.

What I often wonder about is the baths in the morning. Were the baths tiny? How else did they run the water, bathe, drain the bath and start the water running for the next person in 3 minutes?

And don't forget they had to be cold baths!

Thinking about it, did we ever hear of regular hair washing? They certainly weren’t washing it in the 3 minute cold bath (and why on earth were they so rushed? Couldn’t they give reasonable time to bathe?) and I don’t think we ever heard of the students having times to wash their hair. Did they just … not during term time?

There’s the odd vague reference to warm baths in the evening but no way would they have gone to bed with wet hair. Maybe it was done at the weekends or something.

According to this archive from a 1930's London boarding school hair washing was something you were called out of class for along with doctor / dentist visit.

https://wisearchive.co.uk/story/memories-of-boarding-school-life-in-london-1930s-1940s-2012-part-1/

Surely there are loads of lesbians in the CS books? The two headmistresses in the book with Miss Bubb - there’s a line saying that one of them realises that the other is the dearest thing in her life?!

Aw @TinselAngel don't spoil the romance.

Actually, I bet Matron fancied Herr von Francius. She was always collecting together legions of girls who she thought needed to be seen.

On the subject of dental inspections (by Matron) I often wonder why Herr von Francius didn't just send reminder letters like dentists do nowadays.

And also on the subject of Matron and teeth, I frequently read in CS books about girls who develop toothache. Eventually, either Matey or a mistress notices that the affected girl is pale, and asks to look in her mouth:

".............what she saw there caused her to gasp. The poor cheek was swelling badly.........."

I've never had a swollen cheek when I had toothache, even when I had intractable dry socket (which is the most painful thing I have ever experienced, including childbirth).

BTW - whoever recommended Rosemary Auchmuty's book about girls' school stories has my gratitude. It arrived yesterday and I am deeply engrossed in it.

@Elle54321
that account of boarding school life is amazing! I’m only part way through.

The link didn’t work though, I had to search it up. Another link if anyone wants it. Link (please works!)

My sister was a boarder in the 1970s and was only permitted a hairwash once a fortnight,

Would one of Miss Annersleys ‘looks’ have made Harry shiver do you think?

I think one of Miss Annersley’s ‘looks’ would make anyone shiver.

And in the next book after her presumed prolapse operation, Joey is pregnant with twins.

See also Miss Wilson's sarcasm.

@Gensola on re-reading these books in my late teens, I thought that there were several lesbian relationships. However, when I re-read then again at one point in my 20s and having read Singled Out which is an excellent book about what happened to all of the women whose male counterparts were killed in the First World War (so not just those who lost husbands, fiancés or boyfriends but those who never even got to date as so many were killed or injured, physically and mentally), I reconsidered the relationships again.
For many single women, life as a teacher at the Chalet School was probably quite a nice option. A relatively secure job with meals and accommodation plus plenty of opportunities for travel and friendships with other women in similar circumstances. So many single women had no choice but to rely on the goodwill of relatives - which is probably why you end up with characters like the nanny who stays for generation to generation - or take quite menial jobs or poor working conditions or miserable living conditions and no welfare system to fall back on. Singled Out paints quite a miserable picture for many of these women. It also says that many of the women accepted the situation and formed closer female (and entirely non-sexual) friendships than might otherwise be the case as they didn't have a husband or boyfriend.

Thank you for the recommendation for Singled Out - I have added to my Amazon basket!

I was thinking about the long families & the facts of life talk. There’s the occasional woman who’s very clear about not wanting to get married, & that’s generally accepted, but I don’t think the concept of a married couple who don’t want children ever arises. It would probably have been viewed as unnatural.

I imagine the only acceptable form of contraception would have been abstinence, especially for Catholic families like the Maynards, and any woman who denied her husband his conjugal rights would have probably received a brisk talking-to from Joey if she heard about it.

Of course, if Matey was in charge, the meals would probably consist of invalid friendly fare like tripe.
The threat of that would be enough to make me struggle bravely on if at all possible 🤷‍♀️