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.

About the trilingual thing. I think it's possible, but not in the way EBD organises it. I briefly taught in a Spanish secondary school where there was a bilingual stream Spanish/ English (the co-official regional language was also taught but if you wanted an education in that you went to the school next door, like a Welsh medium school in the UK). I think they had social sciences, and maybe PSHE in English, as well as actual English lessons, and other subjects in Spanish, which makes more sense than day by day split. Also the students in that stream went to the bilingual primary school where they learned English from tiny, I used to babysit a kid in the preschool (reception age) who was already learning greetings, colours etc as part of the daily routine. So they already had a decent command of the language by the first year of secondary school, such that I ran my lessons in English and they didn't even know I spoke fluent Spanish until several weeks in. In terms of fluency they were at least equal to the third years in the monolingual stream.
We also had a new student in one class who spoke no Spanish or English, and there seemed to be little official provision for her to learn apart from individual teachers making her up individual lesson plans. She was, unsurprisingly, totally lost in all the classes, which I imagine would have been the case for most new Chalet girls, even if they'd had some rudimentary French etc at school in England.

(I've been on these threads before but probably under a different username. I'm very much enjoying rereading!)

I assumed at the time it was because adding water to flour makes a thick paste which would be a nightmare to get out of hair but you may be right.

So when it’s talked about ‘thick curly tails’ of hair, are we still talking about plaits or where the hair is tied at the nape?

I assumed it meant clipped at the nape and touching the back all the way down.

If the hair was greasy, it probably wouldn’t move much.

I think by ponytail, EBD meant pulled away from the head and free swinging.

It also explains why they had to go so over the top airing their beds - the sheets / pillowcases must have reeked. There’s no mention of laundering bedding either.

I wonder how often those awful brown velveteen frocks they wore in the evenings were washed.
They must have smelt. The girls danced almost every night.
And the dresses themselves sound absolutely frightful.

I know but this happens with every girl who conplains of toothache. They can't all have had infections, surely? Some of them must have just needed fillings.

I think their dresses were washed and pressed etc. by the maids, as I am up to Lavender Leigh, and she is criticised for packing her NINE frocks! (shocking - who needs more than four?!) badly so they are crumpled and creating more work for the staff pressing them etc.

Thank you! I do like to browse the other threads for some high-quality bonkersness but I'm not sure they would be improved by me actually posting on them.

I've just been glancing through Prefects - the last book, which was published posthumously.

Con Maynard has started doing her hair the same way as her mother does it.

Plaits, coiled round her ears in shells.

AIBU to think my DD is a CF for copying my hairstyle.

It's thought EBD might not have written all of Prefects..

It’s ridiculous really that hairstyle was already old fashioned before then, Con would have stood out like a sore thumb at University.

I think its in EBD's biography that she dictated prefects to Phyllis Matthewman another author as she was too ill to type.

I wonder if Con stuck with that old fashioned hair style for more than one term at university?

I like to think that all three went completely wild and came home in the next holiday with fashionable hair, wearing jeans, smoking, drinking and dragging along an unsuitable boyfriend

🤣🤣🤣

Except the smoking wasn’t frowned upon!

And all three pregnant.

I can really imagine Len going wild at uni. Sheltered, responsible girl who spent all her time either at home or the school next door...
Margot at least was a little bit rebellious, if insane

I really would hope that a girl in Len’s position would break free and laugh in the face of horrible Reg.

No! Not pregnant! Let them have a break from babies.

I've had another thought - does anyone else think that the prefects are truly up themselves most of the time?

We didn't have them in my school - just a head girl and a few deputies but they had no role in behaviour management.

I hope Robin broke free in the Swinging Sixties and had some life, as well.

Didn't she become a Nun?

Maybe we need her at Nonnatus House delivering babies (although I think she was RC and NH is Anglican)