AIBU To Think That The Plots Of The Chalet School Books Were Really Improbable

[TheShellBeach]

.................................such as Prince Cosimo, the endless kidnappings, all the train crashes/bus crashes/car crashes/plane crashes/boat sinkings hang on a minute, were there any boat sinkings

Okay, I've just remembered that there were a couple of near misses with boats when the CS was on the island. Joey was nearly flung overboard once (a missed opportunity for EBD to get rid of her IMO) and there were probably others.

Anyway - all aboard and ahoy there.

Because she’s ’too sweet to teach all her life’ (I quote)? I think Joey was the one who said it, or did she? Though why she didn’t also sit down Hilda, Bill, Matey, Nancy Wilmot, Mademoiselle de Lachennais etc and explain to them that they were ‘too sweet to teach’ forever is another matter. Maybe they weren’t too sweet. Or why, given her ‘butting in’, why she didn’t strong arm Anna into marrying her suitor…?

The fill-ins are a mixed bag, but I do enjoy how the ones I've read end up trying to rationalise some of the odd bits of the books!

Simone Lecoutier may be the exception among the teachers, but she only does it for a short while before following her True Destiny and getting married and having babies

Simone didn't bag a doctor though, so that might have been her punishment for liking maths.

I've never understood why Simone stayed friendly with Jo as they moved into adulthood. Didn't she realise that Jo had been a prize bitch to her since the day they'd met? Good MN thread material.

("Nasty old schoolfriend asked herself to stay with six of her DC. AIBU to poison or stab her as soon as soon as she arrives? She always treated me like dirt")

To be fair to Joey she was breast feeding triplets, no wonder she wanted a nap

Why does that bring Eccentrica Gallumbits to mind, @saffy9876 ?

Yes, she only bags a lowly chap who works for his uncle, and then they have fertility problems (through, from what I can remember, this in the CS world means ‘not having loads of babies in quick succession’). And even when Simone bags a chateau via inheritance from her husband’s rich uncle, she has to ask Joey’s advice about decorating it.

You can imagine Joey in some exquisite old chateau, all mouldings and chandeliers, and saying ‘Right, well let’s put up some dainty floral wallpaper and dainty chintz curtains and furnish it entirely in wicker!’

I hope Simone had no intention of taking Jo's advice and was just making a point about 'look how very very very rich I am'.

Now imaging a Changing Rooms-type scenario where Simone leaves Joey at the chateau unsupervised for a few days while she goes on holiday, and comes back to find Joey has redecorated the east wing in lime-green paint and dainty florals, and has thrown out the priceless Louis Quatorze furniture in favour of cosy wicker.

Biddy [ forgotten her surname] who said Begorrah a lot. She didn't but her Oirishness was very hammed up
Then she became a very patronising adult 😆

And married a doctor.

And managed to keep her creamy Kerry brogue despite not going anywhere near Ireland for decades.

Biddy was O'Ryan. Slightly unusual, most Ryans dropped the O for English usage, but no reason she shouldn't use it. Did she ever live in Ireland? For some reason I thought her father was in the army in India.

Her mother was a lady's maid to some Irish aristo I think

It was in the contract for all staff that if you met a fella and left to marry him he must be in the medical profession. Preferably he should work at the Sanatorium so that you never really get to leave. And Jo will be able to keep turning up to your house like a bad smell!

It was the ultimate prize for 'good' chalet girls. She also had twins, I think. Another prize doled out to EBD's favs.

Miss Honora. I’m surprised Biddy didn’t name her daughter after her.

Rosamund Lilley’s mum was a lady’s maid too. That seemed to be the acceptable job for working class women, I suppose because they were set a good example - I remember Mrs Lilley was ‘far more ladylike’ than Joan Baker’s mum, who had been a ‘young lady in a shop’.

A lady’s maid was very far up the scale in a large household. Although even by the 30s they weren’t very common! So they’d have been working in a pretty wealthy house.

I remember EBD was very scathing about Joan's permed hair. Obviously, only very common girls had perms.

I think EBD didn’t understand social class in Ireland. Deira O’Hagan is presumably Anglo-Irish, as she’s a debutante and presented at Court when she leaves the CS, yet she speaks the same ‘Begorrah’ Stage-Irish as Biddy, daughter of an upper servant.

And doesn’t Deira end up running a shop in New Zealand with Grizel? even if we assume the O’Hagans were burnt out during the war of independence, it seems like a slightly unlikely occupation for an Ascendancy daughter.

I don’t think EBD knew what to do with Irish characters if they weren’t all blarneying Wild Irish Girls or wheedling types like Juliet’s wet fiancé, who ditches her because she’s out of the wrong drawer socially until Joey reforms him…

And eat fish and chips on the street with boys! And eat shop-bought cake!

OMG yes! The shop-bought cake.
I have a feeling it was referred to as "cheap", too.

I did wonder, when reading this book, how Miss Annersley was ever hoodwinked by the common Mr. Baker into accepting his equally common daughter.

Money talks, methinks. Mr. B. must have agreed to fund an endless supply of Kuchen for the staff room, or was it some new cretonnes for the dormies?

Or even a large supply of illicit sedatives for Matey, so that she could continue to drug the CS at her leisure.

I had that book and I've always remembered that story. She had blonde hair tied back with a brown velvet ribbon! I can see the illustration in my mind 🙂
That was a lovely book. I think it might just have been called 'Stories for Girls'
I'm 68 so I must have read it in the 1960s!

Thank you @Howyoualldoworkme , that is it! The last screenshot of this Etsy listing has the Zipporah story :) www.etsy.com/au/listing/1670758690/stories-for-girls-selected-and-edited-by

That's exactly the illustration in my head!
It's quite easily available for a reasonable price in the UK so I'm going to get a copy 🙂

It's because the only men these women ever met WERE doctors! If there hadn't been a 'San' nearby (a complex facility that apparently had no problem being moved at the drop of a hat every time the school relocated), the teachers would have ended up with each other!

It is quite possible that I may have bought the Etsy one :) Thanks again!