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.

Which ones do you still need?
I'm about to put some on CS Sales and Wants

Also in my area, (Essex/Suffolk - also known as constable country) whilst they have many early (second) editions of Enid Blytons in local charity shops NO Chalet school books.

Now can anyone possibly point me in the direction of the PDF for Joey & Patrica A reunion in Guernsey, I think its a short story and was published in one of the GGB newsletters, not a standalone book.

There are loads secondhand on world of books website mostly under a fiver
some are the armada paperbacks from the 1970s some are more recent

@TheShellBeach I haven't got "Barbara"

Aw. I have only got the GGB edition of that one.
I also think it's the dullest book of the whole series. Nothing seems to happen at all.

Looks like your DH will have to shell out for it.

Already looked, and found a selection of Christmas stories which were shite.
I bought it not realizing that none of them were written by EBD.
I can't bear the fill-ins. I think they're awful.
They seem popular on CS Sales and Wants though, so I can sell it on there.

@TheShellBeach I know Barbara is dull but it's been a long held ambition to have a complete set (very sad I know). DH will indeed have to shell out - but it gives him an excuse to spend hours on eBay.

Yes, I’m always a bit baffled by the love for the fill-ins — I mean, I can read fanfic online if I want to for free, and it’s not that EBD writes such vivid characters that you want to see them in alternative situations. For me, her appeal is the oddity of her preoccupations (delicacy, ‘dainty’ surroundings, religion, the cult of Joey, her odd mental gymnastics around certain characters who can never be wrong, sedation and masterful doctors, endless repetition on ‘problematic new girl makes good unless she’s Joan Baker’, her bad French given to native speakers, strange names etc etc), and the extent to which her books are of their time in terms of their assumptions about social class, and appropriate behaviour etc. No one else can write that.

I completely understand.
I'm determined to have the full set myself.

That's exactly how I feel about the fill-ins. You've expressed it so well there, especially the bit about Joan Baker.
I never understood why Joan was even accepted as a CS girl, as she was the wrong kind of girl altogether.

And nobody else comes close to having girls with boys' names. They just keep the old characters.
The fanfic where Mary Lily marries Giles is good. The Marlows take the piss out of the CS mercilessly.

I've got some of the fill ins I buy them if they fill a gap or a back story that I think will be interesting, but having said that I'm not sure I've read any of them more than once.

The recent one about Elisaveta was good.

I read that after seeing it mentioned on here. I like the bit where Mary-Lou is doing her "raising her eyes to the mountains" and Nicola wonders to herself if she's seen a 'plane!

I am especially glad to read all the Marlows' thoughts about Joey Maynard.

They clearly think she's bonkers. Which she is. And annoying.

And despite her claims to Christianity she rides roughshod over loads of people's feelings. For over sixty books.

Argh she pisses me off so much.

I now need only twenty books to complete my GGBP collection. It has not escaped my notice that most of the ones I still need have "Jo" in the title.

Joey is okay for the first few books, it's after she has the triplets she goes off the rails for me

There's a line in one of the war books about how she doesn't have time for gardening like the unmarried gardening teacher does and for me that really marks the start of Joey as a sneery married lady who has to one up everyone and poke her nose in when it's not needed or wanted

Somebody once posted (can’t remember who or where) that having read books out of order with some missing, it took them literally years to realise the fairly nice (with some character flaws) child Joey Bettany was the same person as the pushy, arrogant, always right adult Jo Maynard. I can see why.

Doesn’t Lawrie make a pass at Con Maynard in that? Well, in fact they may have had a full-blown relationship and ended up getting married, but I think I stopped reading and forgot about it when things were just getting flirty.

I don’t suppose anyone can help me navigate Dropbox via my iphone can they? I successfully stored/opened one book, but now I have saved the zip file into drop box which I don’t seem to be able to open. Any pointers would be appreciated!

I am anything but a techno-wizard but I found I could only open the books on the dropbox by clicking on "Open with............"and then choosing my browser from the drop-down menu (Opera in my case).

I expect that's all bollocks though because I am usually a technofuckwit.

Yes. It was very well done.
And I loved the way the author of the fanfic denigrated Con's feeble abilities as an author.

If you are using a phone or tablet, download the kindle app. Then, in Dropbox, click the three dots next to the book you want and choose share and then kindle. It will then download and you can view it in the kindle app.

Thank you @TheShellBeach and @Yugi- really helpful - not yet cracked actually sharing with the kindle app, but somehow managed to get a kindle folder on Dropbox and can access them all there

Ladies....I have a terrible confession to make - I've just finished the dreaded Chalet Girls Grow Up. There's no hope for me is there? 😃

Depends!

Did you enjoy it, or did you think it’s an abomination that should be destroyed? 🤔

I read it years ago, and from what I recall, while it’s definitely not something EBD would have written - not in the spirit of the series etc - the directions the characters go in aren’t totally implausible.

It’s a much less reverent fanfic than the fill-ins published by GGBP, essentially.

I couldn't put it down until I finished it, so I suppose I did enjoy it! At the same time I found it shocking in parts but, what made it so compelling was its plausibility (is that a word?!), as you said. I have to admit, Joey going for a little spin in the car made me chuckle, and the hint of a happy(ish) ending for Len made me wonder if there will be a sequel 😊