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.

The only reason I can think of is that she wants Len to commit quickly before she goes to university.

Did Joey really want the triplets to go away to university anyway? She loses the "wholesale mother of triplets" attention, the "mother of such a long family" in some ways, and her child care solution when she wants to gad about somewhere.
Mind you, can you imagine:
"Yes, my oldest children are triplets; Len and Con are at Oxford, yes the university. Margo is studying medicine at Edinburgh. We're so proud of them. Let me show you their matricularion photos."

I feel an Arthur Ransome quote is appropriate here.

"Better scholars, better professors at Cambridge. At Oxford, better marmalade".

Poor Len. I just want her to shag around and get drunk, and bloody enjoy herself, get a first class degree and a wonderful career. Then marry a really savvy builder/plumber. Have a massive wide screen TV and one kid.

No doctors, no babysitting and no endless church going. And lots of wine.

I thought Jacythns auntie being old and worn out was due to her illness whatever that was. Didn't she have an accident or something? Lavenders aunt however.....hmmm if she is elderly at late thirties I must be heading for prehistoric!!!!
How do you actually say Jacynth by the way????

I would say Ja (as in Jack) sinth.
I have only got two left to read

"Don't play fast and loose" is exactly the wrong kind of advice for someone as 'morbidly responsible' as Len. I can only imagine Jo wanted to make sure that if Len did get engaged, it was because she really meant it, but that line makes it sound as if she cares more about Reg than Len.

I suppose, though, getting engaged young to the first second man you've really known is all Jo knows about, though? She never seems to be interested enough in anyone else's different experiences to be able to use her famous sensitivity to imagine otherwise. It would be interesting to know what Simone might think - Simone who went off to the Sorbonne unattached whilst all the rest of the quartet were getting married - but of course Simone would never even think critically of Joey.

I pronounce Jacynth the same as Emily btw.

Has only just occurred to me that Jacinthe is the French for bluebell. Related to hyacinth, I imagine.

I think Len's engagement is about EBD tying up loose ends, like Margot and the nunnery. What did she have planned for Charles, do you think? I wondered at one stage if he was destined for the priesthood?

I could definitely see that. I have to admit the three eldest Maynard boys blur a bit in my mind (except for the bad one - Mike? - he'll be for the army, then?) but I would picture them having one for the priesthood and one doctor. Didn't pick up any hints for this (as I think there are about Margot's vocation), it's just what seems predictable to me.

Con's future feels relatively open - I like this. She was always the most interesting triplet.

What would you all have done with Joey's children's futures, at least the older ones, if you were EBD?

I haven't read enough of the later books to have them clear in my mind as verging-on-adult characters yet; the only really vivid one is Margot around the time of "her devil" and Emerence.

Len - university, teacher but not the bloody Chalet School. Gives Reg the heave-ho within months of starting at Oxford and shags around for a while like most normal people.

Con - Uni, journalist, Daily Mail. Marries in early 30's. Twin boys.

Margot - Nun? Really? No. Uni - medicine, works as a missionary doctor in the far east, turns a bit hippy and embraces buddhist principles. Eventually ends up running a womens hospital in Bangalore.

Steve - Surgeon in London. Divorced with 3 boys by 40.

Mike - can go in the Navy, no problem there. Becomes an Admiral eventually.

Charles - I see him as a David Attenborough type. In fact, he can follow his path and do nature documentaries for the Beeb. Happily married.

Felix? No idea. Nerdy nuclear physicist, works at CERN? Not really one for the girls, bit nerdy. Long straggly beard.

Felicity - Gets into the Royal Ballet School, dances in the Chorus for a bit, tours the world, leaves and sets up her own dance school in Sevenoaks or somewhere closish to london that's not yet too expensive to live.

I think somewhere Joey has the sort of "she had her own ideas about what Charles might become" musing, which with Margot means the convent. I like the hippy idea better though.
Cecil: at 4 months is a determined young madam who knows her own mind. Refuses to go to all girls school, moves to London to live with some vague acquaintance of the family, goes to LSE and gets degree in sociology, joins the barricades in Paris in 1968 (fluent French helpful), joins the women's movement in the seventies, lives with anarcho-syndicalist and has one child.
That should put a bit of grey in the old earphones.

Geoff - record producer. Joey tells everyone he works with King's College Choir, only to be spectacularly rumbled when he puts on his latest gritty rock album after Christmas dinner. Has to hide his long-term gay relationship from his parents, with aid of sibling who claim he's just not ready to 'settle down' yet.

Phil - gets sick of being patronised as the delicate youngest and runs away at 18. Not heard of for years, then discovered to be leading Latin American resistance movement. Later returns to Switzerland for top job with UN.

I thought Charles for the church was mentioned at some point, probably by Joey.

I also can't see Con as a general journalist. She'd need to get sharper elbows. Perhaps travel writer?

I can see Len finding something she'd rather do than teach too. Perhaps translator living in London, or working for GCHQ-they're always looking for people with languages.

I think at least one of them should lead a campaign for small families. Maybe they could join together and do it?
BTW Is Joey still alive? If so she will be ninety-six next birthday.

Margot - Nun? Really? No. Uni - medicine, works as a missionary doctor in the far east, turns a bit hippy and embraces buddhist principles. Eventually ends up running a womens hospital in Bangalore.
YY. This is exactly exactly right.

Con I see dropping out of her degree and opting for a bit more of a 'university of life' approach, culminating in what Emily marks out for Felicity instead - "joins the barricades in Paris in 1968 (fluent French helpful), joins the women's movement in the seventies, lives with anarcho-syndicalist and has one child." Kinda Sylvia Pankhurst ish.

Len I could see teaching, or equally not. I actually really can't even believe her going back to teach at the Chalet School, even knowing it must be what EBD had in mind, and even knowing how dutiful Len was, I just can't picture it. Not sure how this change would happen, though. I think she would have to fall in love with someone profoundly unsuitable at university to bring family relations to a head - thinking another woman, or a mixed race relationship, maybe. Eventually I would want her to grow into a strong helpful woman who can do things because she wants to, rather than a spineless jellyfish who can only justify acting in someone else's best interests, but she'd need all the help she could get to cope with disappointing her family/the wider Chaletian community.

Could totally see Felicity campaigning for smaller families. Joey is immortal and will live forever, of course. I don't think her earphones will turn grey, either. And I'm sure she'll never need glasses!

Yeah, I can see all the Maynard DCs joining the board of Marie Stopes or local equivalent and working jolly hard for the advancement of small families!

I think Len constantly strived to recreate her own childhood, having several children, holding her mother up as an ideal and refusing to admit that the world had changed, or that she didn't really love Reg at all.
Con discovered that out in the real world she wasn't really that great a writer at all, became a librarian in Putney and married a geography teacher who wore socks and sandals and liked to go hill walking at weekends. They couldn't have children, and endured many coy hints and then sledge hammer comments from Joey before eventually adopting a little boy.
Margot hung up her veil, married an ex monk turned painter and had a volatile but passionate marriage in Cornwall which produced three wild children and absolutely no instant obedience.

Charles moved in with a plumber called Keith and Joey constantly wondered when he was going to find a nice wife and ditch that common friend of his.

Len gets approached by MI6 while at Oxford, thanks to all her languages. She looks like she's in a dutiful but strangely childless marriage with Reg, but in fact her academic career requiring lecture tours and semesters in various parts of the world is cover for spying. She has various passionate affairs. Reg meanwhile is aware of this but using his marriage as cover for his relationship with a nice young doctor.

Con uses her writing skills to rise high in the civil service and probably becomes some hot shot in the UN or EU. Probably settles down in Geneva or Brussels and rarely visits her family. Possibly married to a laid-back professor type.

Margot definitely qualifies as a medic, works abroad, and possibly settles down in India with above-mentioned hippy principles.

Stephen becomes a doctor and has many rows with his father and uncle about their outdated methods. They get on better once Jem and Jack retire.
Probably marries a Chaletian but live in the UK.

Charles becomes a naturalist. Like Kester Bellever only not creepy.

Mike ditches education and becomes a mechanic or rock star (probably the former until gets success with the latter)

Felix, Felicity, Geoff and Phil do whatever they feel like, and are remarkably well-rounded, having mainly escaped the focus centred on their older siblings. They end up very close. Cecil too, to an extent, but insists on being called Cecily once she's 14, and resents being a mere number among such a huge family. She sees Con, who looks like her, as more of a mother than her own mother. Probably goes to music college in the UK and never returns to Switzerland except when she wants a cheap skiing holiday.

Felicity emigrates to Australia and becomes friendly with her long lost cousins Sybil and Josette. They enjoy a good laugh about their days as Chaletians while resisting all attempts by their respective mothers to persuade them to send their own daughters to the school, which is now in its dying days and shortly to be turned into a hotel.

Cecily trains as an actress and lands jobs in an Angel Delight advertisement and as Ken Barlow's posh blind date in Corrie. Work dries up after that and she opens a drama school in Weybridge. Joey eagerly offers to help with any problem pupils because she 'understands girls' even though she's now approaching her 70th birthday.

Cecily trains as an actress and lands jobs in an Angel Delight advertisement and as Ken Barlow's posh blind date in Corrie. Work dries up after that and she opens a drama school in Weybridge. Joey eagerly offers to help with any problem pupils because she 'understands girls' even though she's now approaching her 70th birthday.
This is brilliantly possible.