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 in England it would be sha-lee-shan (short a as in cat in first and third syllables). As I am in France I shall practise saying sha-leh-tsian or even sha-leh-tsienne for the feminine.
Pretentious, moi?

Yes,I'm having a distinct problem with some of the prononciation now I'm reading them aloud to dd, I've realised how many of the words I've glossed over, it was only when I re-read the books this year that I realised it was Thelkla and not Thelka, for me it is Elis-a-veeta and U-jean which I know is wrong. I'm sure there's loads more I've done wrong and now I'm leading poor dd astray with them.

And for me it has always been Chalet (with a silent t) tee-an

I wanted to say Yoogun for years but following Froidishime I must say Oigun mustnt I?

I always read Marini for Marani and it takes a special effort to stop myself.

I always read Chaletian as sha-let-ion which must be wrong as it's sha-lay not sha-let but I'm too set in my ways to change now.

I've never had so much problem with the German names because I did German O and A level, so as Juniper says it's Froi-des-hime, Oi-gen, Tekla etc.

I can't help but read Elisaveta as Elis-a-vetta even thought logic says it must end -veeta.

I say sha-lee-shun, but this may be wrong.

Froidishime is pretty close to being phonetically correct, as is Oigen for Eugen. Eigen would be Eye-gen.

Elisaveta is just another version of Elizabeth, so the second e being short may well be right, though I say it Elisa-vay-ta in my head.

Well I have only just realised that I never actually pronounce Chaletian....I just sort of see it if you know what i mean!!!! However thinking about it I sort of read it as Chal e tee an...... hmmmmmm it's going to bug me now!!!

I've always pronounced it in my head Eliz- a -veeta. I have only just noticed that it is a "s" not a "z".
What is the consensus on the correct pronunciation?

I met an Elizaveta last term, it's pronounced Eliza-veeta :) In fact I posted about it a few threads back!

But how is Elisaveta pronounced?

I pronounce Chaletian, Shal ay shun

Well, the Elisabeth I know pronounces it the same as Elizabeth, so I assume the same way...but then this is EBD we're talking about! :o

Ahem. As I am Veta for short, it must be Eliza-veeta. Vay-ta would be too silly, and as Belsornian is a mixture of Romanian, Italian and Greek there is a fair amount of leeway!

But then Tiern See in my head is still the Tye Urn Sea, as I read it as a child. And Carola Johnson is Carola Storms.

I can't open some of the transcripts - does anyone else have that problem? And does anyone have a copy of CS and Jo you could send me please?

Some are iBooks files, some are Kindle format, and some are pdf/word docs I think too. Try different readers?

I say Shal-ee-shan, Elisaveeta and Froydeshime.

I can't believe I'm part of a quiche. How exciting. Nearly as good as being in Mary Lou's gang .

I stand corrected on Darrell's picnic lunch.

I was reading some St Clare's books at the weekend. Did school girls in the early 1940s really have record players and radios in the common room. Surely in the original editions it would have been gramophones and wirelesses. I think some of the charm is taken away from the books when they try to update them like that.
Maybe just as well the Chalet books are out of print. They'd probably replace 'playing paper games' with 'watching a DVD' and 'twists of bread' with 'panninis and wraps'.

Snort at possible updates for paper games and twists of bread. Even well within canon, I find it deeply unsatisfying when the CS morning milk and biscuits becomes morning lemonade and biscuits in the Swiss books.

Can you imagine if they'd had radios in the common rooms at the CS? How would Joey persuade the mistresses to come round to Freudesheim then - on the one hand, a radio with Joey and Bruno bounding around energetically; on the other, a radio, a cigarette, Mlle's nectar-like coffee and - whisper - no Jo?

Nell, you're overlooking the greatest treat a schoolmistress could ever have - the chance to help with bathing the latest Maynard baby. And hang on, now I think about it, why was radio such a treat in the 1960s? Was television really that late reaching the Platz?

I'm reading Gay From China at the moment. Does anyone know if Gay's (or her sister-in-law's) backstory is covered in any of the connector series/books? When we first meet her there's a potted version, as if it's been told elsewhere and is being recapped, like when EBD refers to Chalet events from past books.

Except no doubt Jo would come crashing in, all enthusiasm and dumping babies into reluctant outstretched arms.

"Cooee! I tried to call, but the lines were down, so no wonder you couldn't call me and ask me to come over. Never mind, I'm here now!" Jo beamed happily around the staff room.

mornington I wondered the exact same thing but I don't think it is actually told anywhere.

I'm sure Jem would've had a television, even though it was more the 1950s than the 1960s, wasn't it? At Die Rosen he seems to have a golf course, a billiard room, and a load of fencing gear. If he was on the Platz, he would definitely have had a colour telly, complete with Channels 4 and 5!

I'm sure they would have got one to watch the Coronation. Joey probably invited all of the staff to her place and ordered Anna to make a fabulous English spread while she just sat around scoffing food and being the life and soul of the party. And the staff probably drew lots to see which un lucky few got to remain at the school and listen to it in peace and quiet.

mornington I felt the same way, but I don't think Gay is mentioned beforehand. I thought when I first read it that a lot was cut from the Armada, but the original doesn't give that much more.
I wonder whether EBD was planning on writing it, perhaps as a separate book, not strictly part of the CS series, or a short story somewhere.

I felt the same about Gay. It was as though the reader would know about the SIL kidnapping if they had already read a preceding book.

Collapsing here form vintagebody's revelation of the names of the Three Golliwogs! I read all EB I could get in the late 70s/early 80s, so was aware at the time they were being considered inappropriate and that golliwogs were apparently bad which confused me no end as in all the available Noddy and other books, the golliwogs were always in smart suits and got to be Mayor! Clearly the ones that escaped the library's cull...

Spent this weekend re-reading a couple CS books at MIL's. The hb of Exploits explains at length that the original Matey is "Matron Gowland" and the new one for Le Petit Chalet is "Matron Lloyd" - whereas most other books swear Lloyd is the 'real' one... Thekla's snobbery goes into a bit more detail and Marie's reaction made more sense - I think the Armada cut half of the scene where Marie loses it.

Then in New Mistress, some pupils were staying with an Old Girl of the school, one of the foundation stones - Marie Drooghafer! It's fairly garbled but this Marie seems to be Marie von Eschenau on one page and then a sister of Arda (Peik? van der Windt?) on the next. I used to think at least the foundation stones had consistent histories...

I can never keep on top of the Matey thing. I think she may expand and contract at will, a bit like when Karen manages to be at Millies and the main school (and Carnbach?) for ages until that weird "my Karen, your Karen" conversation between the two heads.

I think Gay is also wrongly titled. Isn't it Jacynth's book, really? That definitely added to my confusion the first time I read it. Yes, I wondered if EBD was giving herself a gap to come back to, but did she actually do that much? I keep thinking that Mystery, Tom and Rosalie were written out of sequence but they weren't really, were they? - they appeared in the annuals of the right years afaik.

Actually, that reminds me: would you rather be Karen or Anna? I'm thinking Anna gets the worst deal - surely largest work ratio, and no real company (can't imagine she saw much of Rosli). But I don't much envy Karen her job either...