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Original poster

Antonia Forest fans: your favourite parts or lines?

113 replies

TheOriginalSteamingNit · 21/01/2013 09:54

Inspired by posting near MirandaWest....

I often think of Nick's pondering in End of Term that 'it was queer and difficult being friends with someone who disliked one so much; at least, she supposed they were friends, and she supposed it was dislike, though neither seemed quite the right word.'

And for some reason, the description of Edwin Dodd in The Ready Made Family as 'an old, old man with three tiny, tiny tots'.

Yours?

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tryingtoleave · 29/01/2013 11:35

No, Peter expected to hang out with Patrick at the beginning of falconers lure. He was the one who had been friends with patrick before. He was surprised and hurt when he wasn't invited along.

tryingtoleave · 29/01/2013 11:38

I would have liked to have had a dd called Phoebe and call her Fob, but dh was not so keen.

RussiansOnTheSpree · 29/01/2013 11:41

But that's not Patrick's fault. 5 years is a long time when you're that age. And nick was just being his falconry slave at that point. Peter should have gone round the first night if he wanted to be friends again - but he didn't. I really like peter - prob my favourite of all of them - but he's a bit rubbish at the whole social thing isn't he? (Until Selby anyway).

womblingalong · 29/01/2013 11:41

Russians, thank you, I did obsess about tracking all the Marlow books down last year, but am currently job hunting, so no spare cash for lots of expensive books right now! I wish I had them all from childhood, but although an avid reader as a child, we moved countries twice, and all books were ruthlessly culled by my parents!

I have become an avid hoarder of children's books now, and constantly scour secondhand bookshops for them, building up a collection for my DD meWould love them to be made available as e books!

Original poster
TheOriginalSteamingNit · 29/01/2013 11:41

It could be Pippin! Doesn't Nick tell her so in TAT?

Patrick is a bit of a one, yes. I like him much better in EOT, but his behaviour to Ginty and Claudie and NIck is all a bit dodgy.

Oh yes, and whenever I think of 'A Little Princess' I always think of Miranda's haste to the conclusion when Sandra Grigg is re-telling the story: 'so when did Daddy turn up not dead after all with the Rajah's diamond, then?'

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DeWe · 29/01/2013 11:43

I think Patrick with Gin was more Gin's doing. She was very much out to get her sticky paws on him.

Not quite sure why, she wanted him. I'd have thought someone more adventurous than him would have suited her, or someone much older (although that avenue had been used with Karen). I could see her more chasing desperately fluttering her eyelashes after someone coming back with Giles. Say trying to persuade him to take her to a ball on board ship, and climbing out of the bedroom window because she knew her mum and Giles wouldn't approve type of thing.

Original poster
TheOriginalSteamingNit · 29/01/2013 11:48

DeWe, if only there'd been two or three more books, I could well imagine that happening!

I think Patrick bonded with Ginty over Gondal, didn't he - which Nick absolutely hated. There's a telling bit at the end of Peter's Room, where Nick pulls a Charlotte Bronte and abandons it, and Patrick says something like, Charlotte Bronte was an absolute heel. By which, in typically subtle Forest fashion, we understand that his feelings for Nick have become suddenly a lot cooler.

Also Ginty looked fit in the Doris dress at Merrick's hoolie, of course.

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jeee · 29/01/2013 11:55

I was always a bit Confused about the whole Nick needing to leave the school scenario. Okay, fair enough, they could no longer afford the school fees. But would any parent have been so blatantly unfair as to suggest that one twin should leave the school? And nobody, even Nick, seemed to think this - she was upset about having to leave the school, distraught even, but she wasn't angry. It struck me as so unrealistic that I didn't actually enjoy The Cricket Term.

I loved the nativity in the cathedral, though.

Original poster
TheOriginalSteamingNit · 29/01/2013 12:02

Yes, and having just bought a load of unnecessary horses only four months earlier, too!

And Kingscote was hardly helping Lawrie to stop being such a baby anyway, was it?

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RussiansOnTheSpree · 29/01/2013 12:05

I think actually that what Lawrie really needs is to be away from Nick. And possibly the rest of her family too (except Peter who bizarrely she seems OK with).

Original poster
TheOriginalSteamingNit · 29/01/2013 12:08

And Tim....

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seeker · 29/01/2013 12:09

No such thing as an unnecessary horse!

Original poster
TheOriginalSteamingNit · 29/01/2013 12:10

Well, if there was such a thing as an unnecessary horse Wink, that horse would be Chocbar!

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Original poster
TheOriginalSteamingNit · 29/01/2013 12:13

Would be funny, too, if that had happened and it turned out that Kingscote's tendency to spend Maths lessons discussing the diaspora and English lessons doing hawking meant Nick failed the 11+, and rather than going to Colebridge Grammar as Pam so confidently assumes, she ended up at Colebridge Sec Mod with the chair-throwing hordes....

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seeker · 29/01/2013 12:17

Oh, I reckon Catkin was the unnecessary one- if anyone deserved a gee it was the poor downtrodden Mrs Marlow!

MirandaWest · 29/01/2013 12:18

I have inspired a thread Grin

I have also been LawrieMarlow and LoisSanger and possibly Ginty. And maybe a few others....

I also think I have an extra copy of Attic Term - that one's near the end womblingalong but if you would like to have it let me know.

Did anyone else try and read the Thuggery affair and fail? My grief is probably controllable it has to be said but I still feel a little bad about it.

Think I might need to have a read all the way through (I do love GGBP for having allowed this to happen :))

DeWe · 29/01/2013 12:18

Yes, I agree with jee over the Nick needing to leave. Why not Ginty? Or both twins, I sort of understand with Ann that it was a bit late. Lawrie might have actually been better at a less academic school that she didn't have her sisters to baby her.
Or both twins leaving or maybe saying Lawrie had been offered a place at a preforming arts and so they'd both be leaving. Although maybe she'd have hated a performing arts because she'd have found she was middle of the range and not the genius she thought.
And they had just had both karen (although she had scholarships) and Rowen leave the school, so there was no real reason why they suddenly found themselves short of money.
I also think most private schools would have come to some sort of arrangement anyway. After all, they could have said if we don't do it for one, then we don't for them all, and then they'd be 3 fees down.

And I didn't get why she didn't tell Miranda either. Yes, she didn't want Lawrie to know, but I think she would have told Miranda, particularly when she got upset. You can imagine Miranda coming out with some schemes, and I think it would have been much worse to tell her on the last day.

RussiansOnTheSpree · 29/01/2013 12:20

The Thuggery Affair is brilliant! Shock You must read it.

lucky I didn't choose KinkyMobster as my new username clearly at least one aficionado wouldn't have got it Wink Grin

MirandaWest · 29/01/2013 12:20

I do love how time is wonderfully elastic - it just moves on while the characters don't age. Did confuse me a little when I first read some of them. When I was younger Autumn Term, Cricket Term and Attic Term were the only ones I could find. Was very excited when I got a copy of End of Term for the first time :)

Original poster
TheOriginalSteamingNit · 29/01/2013 12:21

Oh no - Mrs Marlow does bugger all, all day long! She can't even take her child for a bloody haircut!

Farm needs running but Dad and big bro in Navy - let the sporty one give up school and do it! MOney situation a bit dodgy - sell the jewels and buy a horse! Mrs Bertie ill and can't do the cooking? Not to worry, another daughter has half term and can cater for all of us! Money really really short now as have used all savings for horse - take the most sensible child out of private school and leave the rest there! Mrs Bertie can't cope with 'the rough'? Get another maid in!

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Original poster
TheOriginalSteamingNit · 29/01/2013 12:23

Oh The Thuggery Affair is incredibly daft! 'Don't you see? Junkie - in their language - means drug addict!'

And when Patrick says 'that's where you're so very, very wrong' to Jukie - it's another phrase I like to use, but my god how did that boy not get his block knocked off quite frequently?

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seeker · 29/01/2013 12:25

Patrick is the best argument against only children I have met since Violet Elizabeth Bott.......

Original poster
TheOriginalSteamingNit · 29/01/2013 12:25

.... and Tim Keith?

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Viviennemary · 29/01/2013 12:26

I'm not exactly a fan so I'll probably be slated. Grin I don't think some of the characters sound very nice people. Saying that the books are very well written. I've only read two or three and bits of others and that was quite a long time ago.

That business in one of the school term books I think it was Autumn Term where there was a row over a desk. I thought the other girl (Marie or Maria?)was in the right. And I think she later became ill and died and they all felt guilty they hadn't been nicer to her. That was quite a strange event for a children's story.

jeee · 29/01/2013 12:27

I keep checking Amazon, in the folorn hope that her books will one day be available as e-books. Frankly, I think their out-of-print status is a a conspiracy to keep the resale value of tatty paperbacks spectacularly high.