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.

I think Malcolm Saville totally passed me by as a child. Is this something I should be trying to remedy? Any excuse to buy more books

Malcolm Saville is adventure stories more than GO, although he wrote a variety including nature and religious books.

His best known are the Lone Piners, 20 books written about a group of children (althogh I think the only one in which they all appear is the last) who form a secret scociety (The Lone Pine Club) which has a series of adventures. Not really famous five type adventures, bit more gritty really, perhaps more the EB adventure series and a bit above level.
The first one or two is set in WWII (which is how I got ds reading them as that's his interest) and the last is about 60s.
Personally I like some of his others better. Jane's country year is lovely. And his series written for older ones (Marston Baines) which is a spy series is really atmospheric.

What got me into his books, other than a cheap second hand bookshop that had 16 of the LP series for 20p during A-levels, was I discovered the maps. He sets the books in an area of country. In particular my interest was taken by his ones set near Rye, and that, if you've read them, is the area Monica Edwards (whom I was already looking for) had her Tamzin/Meryon Adventures.

Dh is now used to me getting excited when we travel and saying "Long Mynd/Isle of Oxney/Appledore... that's where X happened". --> his face

If you like adventure stories then try the Lone Pine set. The first one is definitely WWII story. My favourites are towards the middle: Wings over Witchend is one of his best, and makes good use of the country.
I do like his Rye ones, but Penny irritates me, which takes the shine of them.
If you want no adventures then Jane's country year is a big comfort read.
Or the Nettleford series are adventures but much more a fun holiday with an adventure added-perhaps like the Fell farm series if you've read those.

Now I want a Malcolm Saville topic and Monica Edwards, Noel Streatfield, Geoffrey Treese as well as chalet school.
What about a Collectable children's books topic. We could have lots in there?

We spent a fortnight last year in Shropshire visiting lots of Malcolm Saville places. I also like Swallows and Amazons books, Katy books and Anne of Green Gables. I would love to visit Prince Edward Island. Has anyone else read the prequel to the Anne books that someone wrote fairly recently?

Nell no dsis is shameless.

She quite happily flaunts her whole and entire collection of CS books and has massive amounts of all the others listed above too.

However as upright a senior lecturer she now is, several of the books have a library stamp on the front cover from 1986!!! Think the shame and scale of the theft might lead me to blackmail her the entire set! Good plan aye!

Ok who am I

1. my punishment was to make girls converse with me on walksin gloves and carry umbrellas and if ideas failed them to write an essay back at school.

2)my father manufactured glue and my mother was a silly woman?

3. I was locked out in the cold and rescued by the middles, not human?

4. I was married to a Russell but got bitten by a snake and died. I
   Liked a drink?

5. I am an old girl, tripped over my dressing gown cord and am a buxom piece?

6. I live at the Dragon house

7. we are twins called Pat and Marie who is mummy?

8. my step mum hates me but the cook is my Bessie mate.

9. I am a picture child pursued by a naturalist/paedophile.?

10. yellow is my favourite colour.

I have a big chunk of the Trebizon books on Kindle. I enjoy the earlier ones - I can remember how, when first reading them as a child, they felt more 'up-to-date' than CS/MT (not that that stopped me loving CS) and although they've dated in their own way now, I could still feel some of that on re-reading, but then Anne Digby made Rebecca into a single-minded athletics nut and they became a bit "samey".

Pony books are my Big Thing. I have all the Jills, all the Jinny at Finmorys plus a few other Pat Leitches, virtually every Pullein-Thompson, a handful of Jackies (with Misty, not the teen magazine) and various other one-offs / short series. I've probably got pushing a couple of hundred in storage.

I've also got about 20 Abbey books but my collection of those has stalled as I have all the reasonably-priced ones which turn up semi-regularly in second-hand book and charity shops, and I can't justify the price of the rarer ones!

1. Miss Stevens
2. Diana Skelton
3. Minette
4. Steven venables
5. Barbara Henschell
6. Jessane Gellibrand (love her book!!!!)
7. Biddy Courvoisier
8. Grizel
9. Cherry Christie

10. Ok, this rings huge bells but you have got me stumped!!!!!!!!

I want to say for 10 that yellow is Jo's favourite (along with lime bloody green), but my brain wants to go back to bed, so that could be utter drivel.

Oh I have all the Trebizon ones in paperback except the last one, which I only have on Kindle as it is so expensive to buy. Also have all the Anne of Green Gables and Katy books.

I also thought Jo, but maybe I'm just confusing that with her having a yellow room in New House...

Flicking through Carola Storms, and wondering why (a) Dr Graves is carrying a knife whilst walking the dog and (b) Hilary Burn doesn't see this as sufficient reason not to marry him. Also snorting at the image of Matey having breakfast in bed. That really doesn't sound like something she would approve of. I hope she's wearing her bed jacket!

I used to love the Jill books. I still have one which I found in my parents' attic and discovered the very first one in a second hand shop for a euro. I also bought one on Abe Books about a year ago. They really stand the test of time and are brilliantly sarcastic and funny.
I agree 'I collect children's books' sounds quite respectable and I suppose that's what I do really. I have most of Noel Streatfeild's books, a few of the Lorna Hill and Drina books, quite a few Chalet books and a few other random books such as Little Women and a couple of Bobbsey Twins. I love buying old hardbacks that I know children were reading in the 30s, 40s and 50s. Often they have the name of the original owner on them or the stamp of the school library and I wonder if the readers are still alive and old women now.
My father quite openly collected the William books as an elderly man and my mother still has them. If I had enough shelf space I would love to take some of them. Most of them are very old and I think William can be read on an adult as well as a children's level.

I find old children's books very reassuring in the same way that other people, who would probably find it strange, still enjoy eating their mum's shepherd's pie or watching old re-runs of Top of the Pops. It's a reassuring reminder of the days when you all lived at home and your parents were never going to grow old and die and you were going to achieve all your ambitions and desires. I think it's nice in a crazy, mixed up, often disappointing and wearying - and sometimes downright heartbreaking - world to have that portal back to a safe and reassuring place.

I think you're right vintage. They are the comfort food of the mind.

The Bobbsey Twins are unbelievably racist ... I couldn't believe it when I read one as an adult. Completely passed me by as a child.

I've only got a couple of Bobbey Twins, but I think you do need to read a lot of the old books with an eye on what was acceptable then. Things like "working like a n*," was something that was "just an expression" back in the 50s. Wasn't said meaning to cause offense, but now would be considered totally racist.
I think they give quite a good insite how casual racism was so ingrained into society, and they provide a very good starting point for discussions with the children.

I think though that often what we see as racist/sexist/otherwise non-pc, back then was often the authors trying to show how liberal and kind their thinking was.
For example in Williard Price, the "native assistants" are definitely inferiors even to 14yo Roger, their skills are in the wild and can't read/write, they carry all the stuff, do the night shifts etc and either totally devoted to the "white men" or savagely enemies.
BUT for the time, Williard Price had Hal and Roger treating them very well, they listen to them as equals, they respect ther skills.
In a similar way EBD's Tyroleans treat the Chalet School like that-Anna' devotion to Jo-and the one who escaped from the Nazis especially to bring Rufus to Jo, or Marie whose best wedding present was a full picture of the Chalet School entirely because her mistress Madame had the same picture.
If EDB had chosen a country where the "natives" hadn't been considered to be white caucasion (sp?) then her books might well have found themselves branded racist, and not reprintable by Armada.

I always think EB would have been very hurt to be called sexist for the famous five. Because I think for her time she was very ahead. Yes, Anne did do the cooking and playing houses. Because she enjoyed it. George didn't, and she is shown to be "better than a boy" she is definitely the most adventurous of the set. So actually, for the time, George was a risk that people would think she was too daring, letting her do the things with the boys, and risk alienating both boy readers, and women who thought girls shouldn't be encouraged to do "unladylike" activities.

'George' was a very autobiographical figure, I think I've read? I really like the easy acceptance of tomboys in Girls' Own and am struck at how much of a regression there seems to have been since.

I think it's a difficult balance - whilst a lot of these things we now recognise as offensive were very much 'of their time', they often also weren't unchallenged in that time. I think we can let authors off too easily with that line.

Something that particularly interests me in Exile is a comment near the beginning, from I think Herr Anserl, that he 'doesn't particularly love Jews' but thinks they ought to be allowed to live their lives like everyone else, and I wonder if that was what EBD thought too, or whether he's being held up as an example of a different but alright position, or a different, not alright but obv far more preferable to Nazi, position; and whether he's being an example of European ambivalence wrt Jews, or if it's just him as an individual character.

I def think these are books I wouldn't want my own child to read alone and uncritically, and if books are republished for a child market I think there's probably justification for removing incidental racism (eg 'working like a n-' - easy to replace with something else). More embedded racism - like EB's golliwogs in Noddy - that's much more difficult. And my feeling is, this isn't great literature - it doesn't warrant preserving, when there's so much more available which isn't shot through with these issues. (And I feel v conflicted saying that, as someone who now, ahem, "collects children's books".)

Otoh, in context the history of racism, and of sexism, can't (and shouldn't) be denied. And I wouldn't want to advocate censoring or somehow sanitising Shakespeare's Shylock, or Dickens' Fagin, for example. The critical thing is the discussing it - and judging that a child is ready to think critically about a book, I suppose.

I've heard George was autobiographical too.

It is a very difficult balance, there certainly are some that I wouldn't want the children reading without me there to explain, and there are some that I really would much prefer they didn't.

Some books you can change a few words, like the example given, and I think that's fine. There are books that it is too far in to get out of being offensive (I think the first Mr Dolittle is like that). But some of them are much more useful as being instructive of how it was in history and why it is so offensive now, almost more offensive because it was such a casual racism back then.

Some updating is fine-no one would notice replacing "working like mad" or something similar. I think if that can, that's better -even GGBP I wish would replace little parts liek that, because it can spoil.
Sometimes it takes so much going round that I think it is better to leave it and use it to explain historical attitudes and how wrong they could be. Sometimes I think the books just are too far gone for even that.
But sometimes I think they can go too far in changing it, more in the sexist ones than the racist ones, and actually set out to make it go the other way.
I'm thinking of a set of "updates" EB adventure series where they had swung everything round. I particualrly remember one bit where Jack originally said "If I was Lucy Ann I would sit down and cry, but as I'm a boy I must just keep going!"
Now the obvious upate would be just to remove the "as I'm a boy", or they could change it to "as I'm older"
In their wisdom they changed it to something along the lines of: "If I was Lucy Ann I would have to keep going, so it's a good thing I'm a boy because I can sit down and cry."
The whole book was like that. Very time there was a reference to Jack or Philip being stonger/more capeable, they swung it wound to say they were weaker/less capeable. It made for a weird book. "Oh," said Jack. "I'd like to give it a go, but girls are much better at swimming, so they better do it." And then the next chapter had Jack and Philip doing it anyway.

Sometimes some of the books could do with a "historical note" at the beginning explaining changing attitudes.

I wonder what people in 70 years time will find offensive about our stories? Attitudes change all the time, and I'm sure whereas we think that our current books are screened carefully, I suspect in the future there will be some books that are unacceptable to current thinking.

Oh and another by the way - am I the only poster who feels embarrassed to let people know they still enjoy reading school stories? I've only really got back into them in the last few months but feel exactly the way I did when I was about 10. Dying to get my hands on the next one and the next and kind of wishing the world was a bit like that, really

I'm another who happily fesses up to 'collecting 20th century girls' fiction - it's got such a lot of interesting period detail, don't you know, and it's a wonderful insight into changing norms and values, and the history of girlhood'.

Ha DeWee, that updated EB sounds more like some kind of art provocation, rather than an actual book for children to read.

Yes, I agree I wish GGB would make those minor changes, though perhaps it's all a bit of a minefield or 'slippery slope' and if X is deemed deserving of a change then what about Y blah blah... I do appreciate the ridiculously pedantic bit at the end where they explain the tiny changes they have made, whether they've hyphenated half-term or not depending on whether there's a clear majority usage etc - these are the kinds of earnest detail my heart rejoices for.

I suppose that at least a significant minority and poss a majority of adult collectors might be quite purist about the text and not want any changes at all made, and I guess these are the main target market for GGB. But then, the nature of the GGB books, with the end notes on editing issues, and the topical articles included (eg in Oberland there's a piece on finishing schools, in New House on the Queensland climate), would lend themselves nicely to a combination of removing 'working like n-' and explaining this, and critically acknowledging the problematic bits which can't really be swiftly edited out without massively altering the story (eg when the Middles act like 'savages' to rag Miss Norman in Exploits, or paint themselves as 'Red Indians' at the Oberammergau).

I also often wonder which of our modern values will be thrown aside in horror in the future. I can't guess any though.

I think I'm quite purist really and like children's stories to reflect the time and society in which they were written. I have had several interesting discussions with my niece and nephew recently regarding the removal of the gollywogs from Noddy as they have some earlier editions and some later ones. It has got us talking about racism and explaining the kind of statements that can be construed as racist and the ones that shouldn't be so I think as long as you discuss these things with your children the original texts can be educational.
On a slightly separate note it really irritates me when they introduce decimal currency into stories quite clearly set in the 40s and 50s as they continually do with EB books. It completely jars and totally underestimates the ability of children to understand that things were done differently 'long ago'.
Also, would Darrell Rivers in Malory Towers really have been eating salad from a cardboard box and mayonnaise when her parents took her for a mid-term picnic? Maybe I'm wrong but I bet that was originally something like potted meat sandwiches or tomatoes from Mrs River's greenhouse, and some bloody editor changed it for modern children.

We should feel sorry for Darrell having no handy Karen to pack up a picnic of rolls filled with shredded lettuce and meat prepared in a way only she knew how to do.... (Although i am fairly sure she had salad and mayonaise and pickles from little boxes in my ancient hardback version which i can't find right now..)

Quite right and 10) was meant to be Daisy but got that wrong. Her favourite colour was I think green.

I agree with that Vintage I too have copied of EB books and one in particular that has the 3 gollys in it called golly, woggy and n..,er.

I absolutely loved them as a 70s child and my mother read them to me. Seems incredible now but I do remember my mother going shopping and asking the assistant for a particular colour thread which was actually called n...er brown.

I think to sanitise them too much is to rewrite history but of course you couldn't possibly have that particular book on sale today as it's so offensive.

I would love an Anna in my life!

YAnd now the decimal currency put into the books just looks like the author has no idea of price of things. I can remember being much confused as a child that my 25p wouldn't buy 5 hard boiled eggs and some ham as it would in my Famous Five book. I had no issues with hearing old money talked about. Although maybe that's because the cries of "but that's 6 bob" from df when asked for money for ice creams (or whatever).

I also hate the change of currency. Surely children can cope? My 6 year old reads Milly-Molly-Mandy without worrying about all the old fashioned stuff including buying things for one penny.....
I suppose being abroad the CS needs updating to euros for slang fines!!!!

Apparently Eb wrote a Noddy story called "Noddy spends a penny" and had to be told what "spends a penny" was an euphamism for.

So, if the chalet books were reprinted with updates like the blyton books what would change?????

'Noddy Spends A Penny' is almost as good as 'The Chalet School Gets Nits'.