New Home for the Chalet School

[Vintagejazz]

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.

Yes, that's what I think it's supposed to be too, mopsytop - I think Jo describes it earlier as 'giving herself airs and graces and becoming unbearable', in some combination of vanity and disobedience - but I'm never really convinced by it. I think it's a deliberate lesson in the dangers of vanity shoe-horned in and not very well executed.

I think she's quite unusually unsympathetic to Sybil - Sybil thinks her beauty is important and sets her apart (because she's been too much admired for it as a young child), which is wrong of her, but it seems there's nothing else to value in her either. We see at the time that Jem's love for her is conditional on her obedience (when he doesn't talk to her for ages - I think a fortnight?). Sybil as a young child is deeply jealous of all the older cousins for whom her mother cares as if she were their own - which seems like a half-perception of EBD's, to recognise this reaction but then to discard it as aberrant.
Once Sybil is 'cured' of her vanity, she doesn't really get given any other characteristics instead - indeed, she's remarked upon as 'pretty, but don't let her hear you calling her that'. She's still held as some kind of suspicious character, I think, just a broken one.

Just finished reading the GGB version of Summer Term. Actually quite enjoyed it - but it ended really suddenly with a lot of plot threads unresolved - they discuss the silver anniversary of the school and decide to build swimming baths - but I don't think this is ever mentioned in the remaining books? And OOAO is meant to come back to dig the first sod for the library that past pupils are giving - yet we never hear any more of that either. It really seems unfinished and was annoying for that - although I did like the rest of it. (Joey doesn't annoy me as much as she seems to annoy some of you.)

Sybil is a very unsatisfactory character really. She starts off as an opinionated, haughty brat and then, in one fell swoop, becomes this innocuous rather boring girl. Even though she's Madame's eldest daughter she isn't given nearly as many storylines as the elder Bettanys and Maynards and is basically dismissed as a not very bright girl who's good at embroidery and then just disappears off to Australia with her family. Why EBD chose to shove her so much into the background while devoting so much time to the far duller Peggy and Len I really can't understand.

And she doesn't even get to go to the school of embroidery she's been working so hard for. :(

haggis swimming baths sound a million times more appropriate than the bloody chapels everyone is so thrilled by in... Excitements? Coming of Age? Can't remember.

Nell I know. I totally don't get the excitement over their own chapels. I mean, they're teenagers. It is just completely unrealistic!

EBD totally overuses the phrase "humanly speaking" about people recovering from illness. Irritating!

I've just been reading At War , the Armada version of Goes To It , and, amid generally finding it hilarious that evacuees think ringed pigs are married, or newly-laid eggs are already cooked, the Prefects discuss having a party for the evacuees, which never comes to fruition. Does it appear in the hardback, or is this just something else EBD forgot about? Did no one check these books, even for internal consistency? reminds me of the chapter in Camp which says no girls below fourth form are allowed to go and then low and behold, three pages later, Maria Marani is meeting up with a bunch of fellow third formers, all bound for camp...

Ooh, internal consistency! Like in Jo of - Grizel isn't going to go on the walk because she's not well, but then suddenly there she is, on the very next page, walking along with the rest of them.

I've only read the hardback version of Goes To It, and I can't recall the prefects party for the evacuees, but I think I did rather rush through it, and I remember especially skimming past a lot of mentions of evacuees because I really didn't like the attitude towards them. (Is it also this book where Robin makes a comment about something-or-other helping Jo avoid having to take in evacuees, or is that Highland Twins? Ugh. I wish Madge had taken some - that would have made a very good story, and would have fitted perfectly.)

It feels like no one ever properly edited these books. Tons of inconsistencies. And weak writing. And (my personal bugbear) incorrect foreign languages!

Sybil/Josette's accident is one of those "happening off set" scenes that are very disappointing from what you hear about later.
Another one is Phil's polio, plus Margot's frailty/spoiling. It felt like there was a book missing about the former, and the latter is only mentioned it retrospect.

They're all things that sound really interesting to see what happened and how they're handled-and much more realistic senarios than the constant falling down the mountain side.

I feel very sorry for Sybil really. All the awe the children seem to have of Len should really have been hers by rights as the daughter of the founder. It would have been nice to hear a couple of new girls saying "You're mum is really Madame? Who started the school? Wow!" rather than always "really Josephine M Bettany?".

She is the second child, and regarded as not very bright from fairly early on. When David is obviously bright (medic later) so overshadowing her there, and she has Bride snapping on her heels academically too-aren't they same form in Lavender despite Bride being younger?
She's not regarded as behaviourly good, academically good, sporting, musical, popular, a leader... her only points are good at needlework and very pretty. She's even passed over for prefectship until the prefects ask that she joins them. Which, if the rest of the Bettany/Russell/Maynard crowd hadn't been so dominant in laurels, could look like being careful not to show favouritism-but it didn't matter for the rest of them. It isn't even as though there was someone who was terribly obvious for head girl that year. Can't even think who it was? Perhaps Loveday?
And her aunt, who everyone else thinks is wonderful, has a real down on her. Can't you imagine that having an effect on how the school/staff view her?

Mopsy the chapel stuff is totally OTT. Can you really imagine the forms delighted that they can give their pocketmoney to build a chapel. They must have had a good amount of pocketmoney to be able to donate enough to make a difference, plus afford sale stuff without spending it on anything else.
And it was a real anticlimax when I read it for me. Len squeals and says she has a germ of an idea for a real form contribution to the coming of age, but needs to talk to "mamma" to really work it out. Sounds intreging doesn't it? Must be something really complex.
"Start collecting to build our chapels"
Well that really must have taken Joey's mind to be able to work it out to that level mustn't it? And how does that become such a form thing either. It's not really even a school pupil thing, it's the old girls and the ever devoted staff that donate mostly.
I think the staff should have been reminded of the bit in the Bible where Jesus says that you should give in secret and to your own conscience, for if you make a song and dance over it, you've had your reward. Was it Biddy that starts by saying she'll give 10% of her salary? Surely it would have been considered extremely bad taste to say that in front of everyone? Discussing money was considered bad taste at that time wasn't it?

Agree with everything you say there DeWee, about Sybil and the chapels. It's not even like it just stops at Biddy and we can say 'oh dear, got a bit overexcited and misjudged it', they all start piling in and iirc actually put their committed donations in writing. Even Hilda starts proclaiming she'll pay for a window for 'all the Old Girls called to Higher service over the years'.

I suppose the universal uber-piety "oh goody! Let's spend a year's pocket money on new chapels!" is completely in line with no non-Catholic-non-Anglican arriving before Naomi, which always struck me as a little unusual, even for the time. Although, isn't someone doodling in their hymn book in Eustacia? (I think it's this book cos I'm sure it's Eustacia who grasses her up - maybe Margia?) That seems v believable and yet at odds with the "yay, chapels!" decades later.

And totally yes, it's 'oh it takes Joey to think up a thing like that' major underwhelm! This is exactly why EBD never writes the scenes where Miss A reduces girls to tears in her office, or says what Elma's letter from her cad says etc. When the Joey isn't involved, she knows the underwhelm will be bad!

I always wondered what would happen if a new girl when asked Catholic or C of E, replied neither.

Richenda was Quaker, I think. I think she decides on the basis she sometimes goes with nanny to CofE but I might be wrong.

On that subject, I would expect that it to be the sort of thing the parents had to fill out on the form at the start of school. You can imagine an enterprising child managing to avoid both by telling each side she was going to the other On the basis of how seriously they took it, I can't imagine they would really leave it up to the child to choose.

I know at my school the boarders' parents were asked due to the discovery a few years back that a number had said they were Catholic when they weren't. Simply because there was confession on one evening which meant they missed half of prep time.
My year (6 of them) discovered the advantage to the CofE church though. they volunteered en mass for bell ringing. Not only did they miss the entire Friday prep for practice, they had to sit in the back room duing the service and the chap in charge of bellringing used to bring snacks (mainly sweets/chocolate) to eat during the sermon. They told us (daypupils) under strict instructions not to let anyone else know as they didn't want any competition-bell ringing had been deeply unpopular at the church before that.

Incentivising denominations!

I think the parents must have to indicate which prayers their daughter will attend - OOAOML ends up checking with Rosalie what she ought to do with Naomi and Rosalie knows. (I love Rosalie - Rosalie knows everything.)

I hate the mistakes in the foreign languages. I'm re-reading Jo of the Chalet School (sadly, the Armada version) and it just has so much more in it than the later books. It's as if EBD went off the boil and adopted the Barbara Cartland churn-'em-out approach to writing.

I think Naomi Elton was from am agnostic family who, of course, died in a fire. I airways wondered how Naomi was somehow crippled by a fire? Was she supposed to have jumped from a window or what? She isn't burnt so it's a mystery. However thank god the TB doctors perform the corrective cosmetic surgery aye.

Poor Sybil. My feelings of hate at Joey are highest over Simone's wedding when she tells Simone to have all the girls as bridesmaids so Peggy, Bride, Daisy, Primula and Robin but not Sybil as she wouldn't advise it. Presumably Sybil is not up be trusted.

Really horrible. How would that little girl have felt bring left out and why wouldn't Madge have told Joey to fuck off.

This is totally a half-baked idea I've not fully thought through yet, but could Jo be jealous of Sybil? She could justifiably have seen herself as Madge's first daughter... And then Madge gets the 'real' daughter, and - worse! - she's pretty and assertive.

Though, even if it is 'true', I suppose it's only true in a subtext kind of way - can't imagine EBD deliberately making Jo jealous, ever.

Nell that would explain it very well. She is thoroughly nasty about Sybil from the start. Doesn't she say something derogatory when she first sees her about her having red hair?

I can image her being delighted with David. He's little and cuddly and all the school are thrilled with him-gives her lots of attention asking about him. Then she notices how Madge does spend a lot of time with him, but she's already adoring him, so it doesn't matter.
Then the baby sister arrives, and Madge is all over the baby sister. Now Joey begins to realise that Madge has a family that actually she isn't part of, and nor ever will be despite protestations. At that point Joey says she won't ever marry-and probably can't even see herself meeting suitable men. The school are much less excited about Sybil, so Joey doens't even get attention through her.
She's beginning to look forward to leaving school, and realising she has very little to do except help Madge. And noticing that now she is going to come 4th... Jem, David, Sybil all before her. And all the "girlie" chats and things she used to have with Madge she will have to share with Sybil, and then probably see Sybil doing them.
And then Joey's never been regarded as pretty. I think it's in "and Jo" where she gives Madge a photo of herself and says whistfully "no one would ever call me beautiful" and Madge agrees. I suspect having such a striking niece would make her jealous. She obviously did wish she was pretty from that comment above, and to see people raving over the looks may well make her feel very resentful.
Perhaps a little like Vicky in "A Vicarage family" whose mother resents her because she 's so healthy, she feels she could have spared some of her strength to the baby who died, Joey feels she could have got a little of the beauty and still been nice looking.
(and as an aside, did anyone else find it strange that Cecil is touted as beautiful enough for people to stop and rave over her, and also the child who is most like Joey )

And I think it's around then she really starts getting possessive about the Robin. Resenting anyone else who doesn't immediately adore the Robin, or who stops them from being together. That could be her trying to make her own family "grouping" where she is important. Robin gets fairly quickly displaced by Jack when he comes on. Yes she has Robin living with her for some of the time, but one gets the impression it's as much for Robin to do Joey's work as because Joey really wants her there.

Thebody I agree about the bridesmaid scene. When I first read it, I thought it was rude for Joey to say "use my children and nieces" anyway. But to say "don't have that one" is really nasty.

That's a possibility. I always thought Sybil was overlooked and when she appears in the later books is actually much nicer and more realistic than some of the other Bettany/Maynard/Russell. I think she is the only one not to be head girl? As Peggy, Bride, Maeve, Josette and Len all are. Think she got married in Australia, probably to escape her Aunt Joey!

Just to say bloody loving this thread.

Wasn't Sybil a toddler at that wedding where she wasn't a bridesmaid though? I figured they didn't want a tearaway tot having a tantrum in the middle of the service and wanted to be able to take her out if needed, but the others were all older? Though not sure actually how old she's supposed to be there - this being EBD and all.

Didn't she go to needlework college in the end?

Sybil isn't that much younger than Bride. At any rate she's about 4 years older than Josette, and Josette was born in Guernsey, so she must be at least 4 or 5.

And it's the way it's expressed too. If she'd said "Sybil's a bit young" fair enough. But "I don't advise you to have Sybil" it nasty. I wish Simone had said "oh we can't leave her out". And at 4 or 5yo she would be just the age to love to do it too. She'd feel really left out, and would probably compound Sybil's feelings of being less important as she'd be left behind with the babies.

Yep Sybil would have been reception class age I think. Joey was just nasty about her.

As far as I remember Madge insisted on both Josette and Sybil going To Australia with her, do Josette missed being a Millie, and they both got engaged to Australians.

Josette was only 19 so neither of them had careers.

By the way how come joeys triplets arnt Millie's? Peg, Bride and Sybil were?

changing the subject slightly, but in the one where Madge has Sybil, I know she's 7 weeks early but Jo is all surprised and never knew. How on earth, having left school, should she be so innocent that she didn't notice her sister was 7+ months pregnant ? It is completely unbelievable!

Agree nell and DeWee interesting analysis.

Yes so Cecil is seen as a picture but then she's like Joey in minature, as is Con! Although Joey isn't pretty at all. Strange.

EDB seems a bit obsessed with beauty. There's Wanda, Marie, Vi Lucy, Beth Chester, Diana Skelton, Blossom, cherry Christie, Grizel Blah blah all beautiful.

And then the ones who get better like MaryLou and Len Maynard.