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Original poster

New Home for the Chalet School

999 replies

Vintagejazz · 15/08/2014 20:15

Welome everyone. Dormy lists on the board as usual and I know you are all hoping like mad that you are all not in the same dormitory as Mary Lou. But only some of you can be the un lucky ones and the rest of us will have to make do with each other.

Oh, and the good news is that Joey has sabotaged discovered something wrong with the roof on her house and believe it or not, the only property available to rent is right next door to the school.

Shit Hurrah, lucky us.

Got to go. Matey wants me for unpacking.

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RueDeWakening · 22/08/2014 22:19

A couple of the transcripts have at least two versions of them in the drive wossname. I've definitely read the Gillian Linton romance in one of the versions, so it's there somewhere... Try checking the publisher details at the start, if it's there, that normally gives it away.

DeWee · 22/08/2014 23:20

EBD obviously went off Gillian didn't she? I mean! Artist!!!
Even Joyce got a vicar! A vicar must be a step up from artist!

SignYourName · 23/08/2014 07:33

I am reading, for the first time ever, Gay From China and have spotted what seems to be a pretty big plothole ("surely not, in an EBD book?!" cries a nation).

Josette being scalded by Sybil playing with the kettle is a major plot point. It's the reason repeatedly given for not bothering Madge over Miss Bubb's dictatorship, and is supposedly the turning point for Sybil's character. I seem to recall it is referenced once or twice in later books too.

It happens while Madge is introducing Miss Bubb to the whole school on the first evening of the new term. She is supposed to return to the assembly after fifteen minutes or so to give another pronouncement, but is called away by the phone call telling her of Josette's accident. But why wasn't Sybil, who is ten years old at this point, at school herself in the first place rather than at home playing with kettles?

FruitPudding · 23/08/2014 09:09

Re Sybil not at school - I guess she would have been a day girl, not a boarder since they live close to the school.

SignYourName · 23/08/2014 09:36

Hmm, didn't think of that! Fairy nuff.

SweetestThing · 23/08/2014 11:16

I'm reading one of the two copies of "Carola Storms.." that I bought during the week and the girl who owned it has pencilled in the margin the other books that plots and characters have featured in. It's quite sweet, really. She even mentions about Rufus being replaced by Bruno in a future CS book. I wonder if she's on this thread now? :)

SweetestThing · 23/08/2014 11:17

I'm reading one of the two copies of "Carola Storms.." that I bought during the week and the girl who owned it has pencilled in the margin the other books that plots and characters have featured in. It's quite sweet, really. She even mentions about Rufus being replaced by Bruno in a future CS book. I wonder if she's on this thread now? :)

JuniperTisane · 23/08/2014 12:54

Thats entirely the sort of thing I did with my sister's old Armadas, SweetestThing. I made many attempts on paper and on early excel programmes to keep track of characters, classes, mistresses, etc from one book to the next. It usually failed by about Exploits or thereabouts. Totally failed if I tried to extrapolate Tiernsee to anything after the war.

If I wasn't sure my Carola is only held together badly with sellotape and very dogeared I'd almost think it was one of my books you found.

SignYourName · 23/08/2014 13:09

If I had the time, that's what I'd still love to do now with Excel yes I'm a saddo but I know it would wind me up beyond belief when the chronologies and ages didn't tally from one book to the next. It would be very bad for my blood pressure Grin

TooExtraImmatureCheddar · 23/08/2014 15:54

I'm not sure the Sybil-is-a-day-girl excuse stacks up, though - they are having a whole school assembly on purpose to hear the Terrible News. Why wouldn't day girls be there? Especially when said day girl's mother was holding the assembly - you'd think Sybil would be going home with her afterwards, wouldn't you?

NellWilsonsWhiteHair · 23/08/2014 15:55

That is sweet.

Anyone for another round of paper games guess who?

  1. I have the biceps of a female infant Hercules
  2. After I am rescued from falling into a mountain, I have to kiss my bearded rescuer
  3. I buy some of Jo's jigsaw puzzles for my sick wife
  4. I regain consciousness when Jo talks to me in her authoritative Head Girl voice
  5. Somehow I am Protestant in spite of my twin brother being a 'cradle Catholic'
  6. I sleepwalk after Biddy tells distinctively Oirish tales of banshees
  7. I don't think my sensitive little plant of a niece should be told anything about the War
NellWilsonsWhiteHair · 23/08/2014 15:58

Maybe someone else was supposed to bring Sybil along to the assembly - presumably Madge had been hanging around all day/afternoon preparing and greeting arriving girls, and that would have been boring for Sybil and difficult for Madge to be responsible for her at the same time. The accident could have happened in this time?

Tinuviel · 23/08/2014 16:45

1 Emerence Hope
2 Cornelia Flower (I really like her!)
3 Herr Laubach the crazy art teacher
4 I'm sure this happens more than once but is it Mrs Linton?
5 Mollie Maynard
6 Alixe von Elsen
7 Lavendar Leigh's auntie Sylvia

I should try reading some adult fiction every now and again!

SweetestThing · 23/08/2014 20:10

I've just read a Malory Towers one....

Lurknomoreladies · 23/08/2014 22:10

At the cafe I was in today there was not one, but two people wearing lime green tops (and one of them was knitted). I can only assume the wearers didn't run away fast enough at the Sale when they saw Joey coming towards them.

Original poster
Vintagejazz · 23/08/2014 23:01

Joyce married a VICAR??? Seriously??

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NellWilsonsWhiteHair · 24/08/2014 11:49

Tinuviel yes I was thinking of Mrs Linton. Suspect it's definitely not beyond the realms of possibility that there are others though! (I find that bit a rather annoying end to what is otherwise one of my favourites - that her own daughters aren't enough to bring her back to life, oh no, it has to be Jo and her strident Head Girl tones.)

Vintage it's definite and unsubtle symbolism, isn't it? She's definitely fully redeemed at last and certifiably free from sin, but she's still not quite enough of a True Chalet Girl to get her doctor.

I've been flicking through Trials again this morning (was the only book within reach when the toddler started unexpectedly nursing to sleep). The bit where Herr Laubach, having handed in his resignation, starts trying really hard to control his temper and be kinder in his criticisms, really made me feel unreasonably sad. I sort of 'know' that this is an appropriate and admirable response from him, that he shouldn't have been so explosively grumpy in the first place, and I shouldn't really like the shouty unpleasant teacher he was, but I did, and he just seems so cowed by what was really just an accident. I can't work out whether EBD thinks some of the blame for Naomi falling over is due to him or not - not that her yardstick of blame is a particularly reliable one!

Also, OOAO comes across surprisingly well in it, I thought. Perhaps partly because she's not just butting in on her own initiative.

TooExtraImmatureCheddar · 24/08/2014 15:05

Am reading Lace by Shirley Conran. It starts off in a Swiss finishing school in 1948! V different story - girls are obsessed with clothes, boys and sex. They wear Dior and talk endlessly about how far you should let a boy go, including discussing condoms and semen. Not very Chaletian!

NellWilsonsWhiteHair · 24/08/2014 16:49

Grin Do you think that's where Elma Conroy had hoped to end up?

Original poster
Vintagejazz · 24/08/2014 17:30

How did Joyce even meet a vicar? She doesn't strike me as the type who'd be volunteering to help with jumble sales or sitting in the front pew every Sunday taking in every word of the sermon.
Gillian yes, she'd have made a lovely vicar's wife but I can't picture Joyce offering tea and sympathy to bereaved parishioners or making jam with the WI.

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Whyamihere · 24/08/2014 22:24

Nearly finished reading the transcript of Highland Twins (thank you for those), I can't believe how much was cut out off the Armarda books, I know some of it, such as the Elisaveta bits, aren't necessary for the flow of the story but they add to the interest of an old girl, plus there are bits that definitely add to the story. It's been interesting reading it. Shock, horror though, it's the first time that Joey hasn't got a part in the Christmas play, although she is now about 24 with three children.

Original poster
Vintagejazz · 25/08/2014 11:21

What was the storyline that was completely cut from the Armada version of Three Go?
Also, in the transcript of Gay from China the scalding of Josette incident happens very much off screen. It is mentioned that Madge has to leave a school meeting early because of a phone call regarding it and then there are mentions over a couple of chapters of how Madame mustn't be consulted re Miss Bubb as she is already so worried about Josette and then Joey describes a bit of what happened in a letter to someone. But there's no mention of Sybil's vanity causing the accident or anything like that.

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NellWilsonsWhiteHair · 25/08/2014 11:45

I think the blame is probably attributed in retrospect - I'm not sure where (and I think the story is never satisfactorily put together, presumably because EBD wasn't quite sure how it could be due to vanity, but she definitely merges it all somehow) - it's mentioned a number of times in later books. Maybe Peggy?

It reminds me a bit of the vagueness in Eustacia - Eustacia may or may not be to blame for Robin potentially becoming ill, in spite of Jem insisting she wouldn't be, and the fact that the blizzard would have kept them in the hut regardless - but Jo keeps insisting it is and EBD never really clarifies either way, as though she's slightly confused herself.

SignYourName · 25/08/2014 12:06

In Gay from China it says Sybil "deliberately disobeyed an order" and that she was "messing about with the kettle" so attributing it to Sybil's vanity afterwards is retrofitting. Unless it was a stainless steel kettle and Sybil was using it as a mirror!

mopsytop · 25/08/2014 13:15

I think the vanity aspect was perhaps supposed to be that Sybil was getting so full of herself because of her vanity that she was disobedient ...