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 think even now we look for ‘at least’ statements when people are suffering. (I once read something advising avoiding those words when trying to find something to say!). We want to alleviate someone’s grief and it’s a misguided but well meant thing to do. Probably the unrealistic bit is people accepting what she says, because, as you say, in reality it’s usually hurtful.

I bet Jack would have been worn out and in need of a rest, being married to Joey.

At least (!) now there’s a more general recognition that it’s an appallingly tasteless thing to say to someone struggling or bereaved — but even taking into account the different mores of the time period, my sense is that EBD was probably a tactless, if well-meaning person, and that characters she clearly intends to be ideal and wonderful, are frequently intrusive, interfering and tactless in their dealings with other people.

It often also sounds to me as if she desperately wanted someone to come in and take all her responsibility off her shoulders in her own life, there’s so much stress across the whole series on collapsing, being sedated and put to bed and ‘looked after’.

So true, all of it.

People said that and other platitudes to my sister that were at best worthless "God chose you to be a special mother" when my baby nephew died.

That wasn't very long ago. I don't think people think very differently, although it's expressed with the current fad language of the day.

Can anyone remember which book has Joey doing her usual "tell me about all the news girls" stunt at the beginning of term, and Miss Annersley mentions a Junior (whose name I cannot recall) whose parents both recently died in a plane crash?

Miss Annersley tells Joey the girl is completely over it and very happy, so not to worry.....................

As far as I remember, this girl is never mentioned again. But it does seem odd that a child whose parents are both dead is "very happy and completely over it."

A six-year-old. I remember that but don’t know which book.

I think she is called Linda, and it's in Tom Tackles...

I heard it a lot following a bereavement a few years ago - people are surprisingly conventional in the face of loss imo. Her characters tend not to people please and to be forthright. Very unlike Anne Shirley or similar who are always winsome. I agree it seems unlikely EBD had a winsome bone in her body but as she's enthusiastic and kind spirited in her writing, it doesn't seem to matter much.

Interesting you think there's an emphasis on being cared for - I find EBD is most at home with characters like Mary Lou who don't need much maintenance. The bed after an adventure seems like a useful way to wind up an adventurous episode that would otherwise be rather alarming to dwell on.

I LOVED the Chalet School books! I also have a love of languages, desperately want to be trilingual and want to be a writer. I don't care how bad or unrealistic they were - they were an ocean of girls and women in an unrelenting sea of male characters.

It's lovely to know the books still have fans :-)

It’s amazing how quickly everything gets attributed to Joey, Simone thinks of corn flour in the hair, Freida fetches it and five pages later it’s all ‘Ph isn’t Jo the edge for inventiveness!”

I'm up to The Wrong Chalet School and what I want to know is: why would you call your school 'The Chalet School' if it wasn't even in a sodding chalet? And especially if there was already one called that? It's a crap name anyway even if your school is in a chalet.

Anyway, if this is the least plausible plot I've come across so far I must be doing okay.

ZacharinaQuack
They were probably trying to piggy-back on the reputation of The Chalet School, hoping people wouldn't notice it was a different one. It doesn't help though; by Bride Leads the Chalet School, the other one has closed down.

'Wrong' - I could never see why Miss Annersley was so irked by the secretary of the 'other' Chalet School - she efficiently said they only had one pupil named Gordon who'd been there three years, and explained the Head was too ill to take calls - what more was she supposed to do? Yet Miss A came away feeling thankful that Rosalie was so different from this woman.

You haven't read Redheads.... ...

Yes, I thought that was obvious - it wasn't like the name was a mistake. It was deliberately chosen because there was already a school there with that name and a good reputation. The books are full of mistakes and open to endless criticism but failing to understand that is just odd reading. Not robust criticism. Why read them at all if they're so incomprehensible and aggravating to you.

Ouch! Well, performing robust literary criticism is definitely NOT among the reasons I'm reading them - not sure about anyone else on here...

Okay, so what I think is odd is: characters in the book present this as 'oh, isn't that odd, there's more than one Chalet School'. None of the Chalet School staff seem bothered about the fact that another school has nicked their name and uniform colours. And no-one has ever mentioned the existence of this other school until this one book. It's not like the coincidence of St Scholastika's happening to open their school at the same location (and all the girls being totally outraged about it).

I read them to take the piss out of them, not because of their supposed (and non-existent) literary merit.

It doesn't help though; by Bride Leads the Chalet School, the other one has closed down

Well, of course it has. No school is as good as the REAL Chalet School, is it?
Even Benenden.

They are a comfort-read for me. I find it possible simultaneously to love them and find them absurd.

"Poor infant! Why on earth did her people park such a kid as that at boarding-school?"

"She hasn't any - only trustees in the shape of her father's solicitors, who are also her guardians. Her parents were lost in that air crash two months ago.
You needn't pity her too much, Jo. She's quite happy."

Of course she is. A six year old child whose parents both died in a plane crash is quite happy only eight weeks after the event. So happy that she doesn't even mind being sent to boarding-school.

What nonsense EBD wrote, to be sure.

Same here. Their awfulness fascinates me.

It’s not ‘obvious’ at all, though. There’s no evidence to support that reading to the exclusion of any other in the text. Maybe the Tanswick Chalet School predates Madge’s? Or at least was founded while Madge’s was an obscure foundation by a remote Austrian lake, with few British pupils and no UK reputation unless you’re in the TB world. Maybe they were highly affronted when the Austrian CS arrived from Guernsey during the war and muscled into the world of UK wackily-named girls’ schools? (Because there are apparently no fewer than three Chalet Schools in Wrong — there’s also a prep school in Sussex!)

I do find myself trying to think of reasons why the others got their name, assuming they’re not blatant grabs — founded in a seaside chalet? In a manor house with a chalet folly?

I do find myself trying to think of reasons why the others got their name, assuming they’re not blatant grabs — founded in a seaside chalet? In a manor house with a chalet folly?

Must be blatant grabs. Jealous as fuck of Madge's success and hoping that enough people will get them confused and send their girls to them.

There is a Chalet School nowadays - it's in Swindon.

www.chalet.swindon.sch.uk

I do find myself trying to think of reasons why the others got their name, assuming they’re not blatant grabs — founded in a seaside chalet? In a manor house with a chalet folly?

Google tells me there is a current Chalet School in Swindon, a school for SEN pupils, but I can't find anything about its history to say why it was given that name - I'd guess either the buildings (current or original) must have resembled a chalet, or the founder was an EBD fan.