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.

[Jourdain11]

I actually like 'Wrong'. Kat Gordon is a nice and believable character and I love Aunt Luce who stays in pubs!

[PuttingDownRoots]

My problem with Wrong is they basically have a child they weren't expecting and know nothing about. I know they did contact some solicitors... but I suppose its the modern klaxons of Safeguarding etc calling out for authorities to be informed

[ConfusedNT]

@PuttingDownRoots

My problem with Wrong is they basically have a child they weren't expecting and know nothing about. I know they did contact some solicitors... but I suppose its the modern klaxons of Safeguarding etc calling out for authorities to be informed

Isn't that the book where there's two girls one for the chalet school and one for the other chalet school and only the one turns up between the two schools

Bad enough that they keep the wrong girl, but there's literally no hint of a police investigation, countrywide manhunt etc given that two girls were expected in two schools and only one turned up

[PuttingDownRoots]

She wasn't expected... turns out her Aunt forgot to apply. They were expecting the other one, but got notice she was in fact in America.

[ConfusedNT]

So I've just had a quick flick through

By the time they realise the have the wrong Katherine it's 3 days into term, and matey says not to worry about it as someone would have told them if the correct Katherine was missing (despite the fact she could have been put on a train, got lost a la Peggy and co and be wandering round the country with no one raising a fuss)

To be fair they do then find out that evening when they finally finish opening the post that the other Katherine is in America but still

If I was expecting a child to come and stay with stay with for a few weeks if she still hadn't arrived after 3 days I would be going frantic not casually deciding it probably wasn't a problem 🤣

Still I guess EBD is used to casually losing girls right left and centre in her books so what's another one. I will still probably re read it countless times..

[NameChange005]

Thinking about it, it seems mad how they organised the travel to school.
Didn't they get met at Paris or Bern or somewhere? So you have a bunch of teenagers shoved on a train somewhere in England (or their own country), expected to manage the trains, boat crossing (no tunnel in those days!), passports and whatever visas/customs etc were needed before the Schengen zone/EU etc was a thing... what happened if the train from Brussels or Amsterdam or wherever with two Chaletians on it was late? What if they got on the wrong train? (EBD should have made that a plot... Mary-Lou and Verity landing up on the Orient express...)

[Yugi]

@NameChange005

Thinking about it, it seems mad how they organised the travel to school.
Didn't they get met at Paris or Bern or somewhere? So you have a bunch of teenagers shoved on a train somewhere in England (or their own country), expected to manage the trains, boat crossing (no tunnel in those days!), passports and whatever visas/customs etc were needed before the Schengen zone/EU etc was a thing... what happened if the train from Brussels or Amsterdam or wherever with two Chaletians on it was late? What if they got on the wrong train? (EBD should have made that a plot... Mary-Lou and Verity landing up on the Orient express...)

They probably went on the boat train. So shoved in the train in London and then straight through to Paris. The train went onto the ferry

[PuttingDownRoots]

@NameChange005 my mother has told me how she used to be responsible for her sister on the journey from the Hebrides (by plane or boat) to mainland Scotland for her Boarding school. Including once an airline hostess taking them home overnight since the plane couldn't fly due to the weather. (Apparently the airport told my grandparents where they were)

Their friends traveled to Kenya or the Falklands or Singapore in a similar fashion... the school was mostly Forces and Civil Servants of various kinds. (My grandfather was a Customs officer)

[MissyB1]

Mary Lou and Verity landing up in the Orient Express.

Oh Lord can you imagine it?! Mary Lou bossing Hercule Poirot around, snubbing any passengers that didn’t worship her, creating a “gang” of those that did worship her. And Verity boring everyone by wittering on about them being “sisters by marriage” in her silvery voice 🙄

[NameChange005]

@Yugi

They probably went on the boat train. So shoved in the train in London and then straight through to Paris. The train went onto the ferry

Oh interesting- I never knew that was a thing! Thank you

[Yugi]

@NameChange005

Oh interesting- I never knew that was a thing! Thank you

I sometimes work in the old boat train terminal in Dover. It’s a cruise terminal now. It still feels like Hercule Poirot will walk round the corner in some bits.

[sueelleker]

@NameChange005

Thinking about it, it seems mad how they organised the travel to school.
Didn't they get met at Paris or Bern or somewhere? So you have a bunch of teenagers shoved on a train somewhere in England (or their own country), expected to manage the trains, boat crossing (no tunnel in those days!), passports and whatever visas/customs etc were needed before the Schengen zone/EU etc was a thing... what happened if the train from Brussels or Amsterdam or wherever with two Chaletians on it was late? What if they got on the wrong train? (EBD should have made that a plot... Mary-Lou and Verity landing up on the Orient express...)

Peggy and a couple of new girls get on the wrong train in Peggy of the Chalet School. To be fair, they get shoved on it by an over-zealous railwayman.

[CorporateBull]

The massive row that Nicola Marlow gets into for pulling the communication cord on the way to school in Autumn Term always felt far more realistic than the calm acceptance of stray Chaletians.

[Jourdain11]

@CorporateBull

The massive row that Nicola Marlow gets into for pulling the communication cord on the way to school in Autumn Term always felt far more realistic than the calm acceptance of stray Chaletians.

I always thought Miss Keith was quite lenient to write it off due to her not really being a pupil yet at the time!

[NameChange005]

@CorporateBull

The massive row that Nicola Marlow gets into for pulling the communication cord on the way to school in Autumn Term always felt far more realistic than the calm acceptance of stray Chaletians.

Kingscote seemed a lot more realistic.
The way Nicola was omitted form the netball team because of Lois, for example, or how Marie was treated - much more likely than a lot of things that happened in CS world!

[TheShellBeach]

@sueelleker

Peggy and a couple of new girls get on the wrong train in Peggy of the Chalet School. To be fair, they get shoved on it by an over-zealous railwayman.

And then find themselves staying overnight with a man they don't know, because a girl they also don't know suggests it as a solution for them.
FFS.
The man turns out to be Miss Annersley's cousin. As if.

[ConfusedNT]

Isn't Peggy the one where Kevin and Kester and born? And at some point Madge, wither in that book or a later one, says she thinks one will go into the army and one into the navy

I just cannot imagine having children, looking down at the as babies/toddlers and think 'I think they should be shipped off to fight'

I get the whole Mike going into the navy, because thats when he's older, fascinated with ships and possibly in need of a more disciplined life (or some attention from his actual parents)

But Kevin and Kester are barely even starting to develop their own personalities.

[FelicityBeedle]

Just onto Eustacia, one of the juniors goes down to the dreaded Herr Vom Francius for a ‘straightening bar’ presumably a primitive brace, I wonder just how badly the teeth must have been sticking out to warrant that!

[NameChange005]

Because I can't sleep, I just googled it, and tooth straightening has been around since Roman times, apparently! Obviously not in the same form as today!

[NameChange005]

Pressed send too soon... I assume none of this dental work would be free. Maybe the CS and HVF inflated the prices to the parents and kept the difference they charged the parents (nice lucrative sideline for HVF and would explain why he seemed to have followed the school around and why he fitted half the school in at short notice)

[FelicityBeedle]

Been doing a little reading about passion plays as I’m onto ‘and jo’, seems they were quite often a bit gory with big models of the devils head to represent hell, and Judas being hung by beelzebub instead of suicide, then his guts fall out. Not very genteel!

[Debtknell]

@FelicityBeedle

Been doing a little reading about passion plays as I’m onto ‘and jo’, seems they were quite often a bit gory with big models of the devils head to represent hell, and Judas being hung by beelzebub instead of suicide, then his guts fall out. Not very genteel!

Oh, excellent! If it was Tarantino- or ‘Passion of the Christ’-style blood and guts, then maybe Joey didn’t faint because she was a sensitive soul, stirred by simple peasant faith, she was just grossed out!

(I once saw a spectacularly bloody Globe production of Coriolanus, and first aiders had to carry out dozens of fainters with standing tickets…)

[ConfusedNT]

I'm just reading Jo returns to the chalet school and it's the first time I've read the unabridged version

It turns out that Anne is passed over for head girl (and made aware she is passed over) because she slipped when trying to get water for some flowers and fell down a cliff on the side of a mountain.

Now that could seem like a reasonable decision if it wasn't for the fact that only a few books ago Grizel still got to be head girl despite running away in a strange city!

Although Anne had argued with Joey so maybe that alone was enough to bring rhe curse of chalet school down on her. .

[StitchesInTime]

@ConfusedNT

I'm just reading Jo returns to the chalet school and it's the first time I've read the unabridged version

It turns out that Anne is passed over for head girl (and made aware she is passed over) because she slipped when trying to get water for some flowers and fell down a cliff on the side of a mountain.

Now that could seem like a reasonable decision if it wasn't for the fact that only a few books ago Grizel still got to be head girl despite running away in a strange city!

Although Anne had argued with Joey so maybe that alone was enough to bring rhe curse of chalet school down on her. .

I suppose passing Anne over for that crime might make sense, if they were choosing between 2 candidates who were almost equally suited to the head girl role.

But Grizel’s behaviour was definitely worse. She was running away to see some extra touristy sights that she’d been told there wasn’t time for on that trip IIRC. Aside from being reckless and selfish behaviour, and her disregarding any worry she might cause her companions, that running away was 100% premeditated.
Compare that to slipping and falling down a cliff - okay, falling is careless and Anne could have found somewhere safer to look for water, but it’s surely at worst a momentary lapse in judgment rather than planned disobedience.

[MissyB1]

@ConfusedNT

I'm just reading Jo returns to the chalet school and it's the first time I've read the unabridged version

It turns out that Anne is passed over for head girl (and made aware she is passed over) because she slipped when trying to get water for some flowers and fell down a cliff on the side of a mountain.

Now that could seem like a reasonable decision if it wasn't for the fact that only a few books ago Grizel still got to be head girl despite running away in a strange city!

Although Anne had argued with Joey so maybe that alone was enough to bring rhe curse of chalet school down on her. .

I always suspected it was because she upset Joey.