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.

Doris is a bit of a rehash of Margot Venables isn't she? Sweet quiet lady, bit bedraggled due to what life's thrown at them. They also then appear rather over dependent on their "rescuer" Jem In Margot's case, Joey in Doris' case.

I wish we'd seen more of Margot as matron, and making a really good go of it, but I don't think we see it at all do we?

Doris, it would have been nice if she'd found a new interest and got really into it rather than just fading away in ML and Joey's shadow.

Oh, that's interesting - I'd never considered it like that. I suppose Doris is someone I'm happy to accept as sweet but boring - I thought the grandmother was the most interesting member of that family - I'd love to know the kinds of tensions that might have been simmering away under the surface though. Can definitely picture Doris being quite passive-aggressive on occasion.

Margot Venables, otoh, I imagine as having been a rather brave and bolshy young woman before her awful experiences brought her low: it must have taken some guts to marry the man she loved, on pain of being disowned by her family. And she seems to completely hold it together for her living children until she gets them somewhere safe. I always think she was probably quite similar to Madge, in her way. I also really like that she takes the job as Matron - I don't think we see the reasons for why, but Jem must have been financially in a position to support her, and I wonder if it was her choice or his that she earned her own income anyway. She could have married Robin's father, apart from then they would be a family and Rob, Daisy and Primula wouldn't need to be adopted into the Maynard/Russell clan.

I see her as a really admirable figure, but I'm seeing her so much through modern eyes in that sense. Particularly, I think she's a credible DV survivor, but I think that as an adult in the C21st who (a) reads DV between the lines where EBD might not have intended it and (b) thinks that DV is something that anyone might experience and doesn't make them deserving, complicit, a victim/tragic figure etc. I can't lose sight of those filters enough to be more reasonable.

Also Cheddar my lamb there is no one else. Not once you're absorbed into the CS cult! And even those within the CS with actual experience of losing their husband (Frau Mieders, Marjorie Redmond) know that they should defer to Joey on such matters of understanding and wisdom...

Hadn't Doris Carey already lost one husband? Why would Joey, who had never been widowed, be in a position to guide Doris through her bereavement? Doris herself would have known far more about the grieving process than Joey.

V true, VintageJazz - forgot that!

Nell, can't find my copy of New House right now, but I think EBD definitely said that Stephen Venables had 'killed (Margot's) love for him', and that he drinks a lot to blot out the pain of losing the three little boys. Not sure about domestic violence per se, but certainly living with an alcoholic who was unable to connect emotionally after the terrible tragedies they go through would be incredibly hard.

Yeah Cheddar that was the passage I first took to mean he'd had a tendency to get drunk and knock seven bells out of her, but when I read it again as an adult I realised it doesn't actually say that and that, as you say, living with a disconnected alcoholic who is also failing to financially support the family on top of everything else is horribly hard in its own right.

(Similarly, as a child I took it completely for granted that Bill and Miss Annersley were having a relationship because of a book referring to them as 'partners' and I only knew this as meaning 'something more grown up than boyfriend/girlfriend'. The perils of first reading old books in the 1990s!)

Yes But I do her the impression that EDB sees Margot as rather leaning towards spineless jellyfish rather than strong helpful woman.

Joeys famous councelling skills included the dry up simone

I see in jane she's in a conference with The heads on how to deal with the situation! Why why!!

Considering the huge amount of emergencies, accidents and illnesses at the CS Hilda and Nell could run a trauma clinic!

And how did Margot's boys pine and die in the cruel climate of Queensland surely there were doctors? Other children surviving quite well? What did they die of.?

I suppose it's feasible she couldn't have taken them to a doctor, if the feckless husband didn't have the money for it? I am confused though - I didn't think the Queensland climate was especially inhospitable - but then EBD also takes exception to the air in the New Forest ("too relaxing" ISTR) so it's anybody's guess really!

When did she tell Simone to dry up?

Was just thinking again this morning about the way she just took over Simone's wedding in Goes To It, with all her own nephews and nieces as flower girls and page boys.

Also the passage where it was mentioned that Joyce was staying in the village with Gillian so she could get married from there and 'the school' could attend. Even when she was actually in the school Joyce didn't strike me as someone who had much interest in anyone except herself. She was definitely the type who wouldn't have given the place a second thought after she left.
Why on earth would she want a load of pupils (most of whom she probably didn't know) and a gaggle of former teachers crowding into the church on her wedding day?

Oh she doesn't like the air in Oxford - also too relaxing. I tend to think she might have approved of Skeggy - bracing.

Think it's in an early CS book vintage but definatly remember a dry up comment.

Ah yes Simone's wedding and the exclusion of poor Sybil as a bridesmaid by Joey!!!

Can air ever be relaxing? Even if the house lies in a hollow!

Doesn't Joyce marry a vicar who according to Bill keeps her well in hand I also remember her making a similar strange comment about Laurie Rosamon controlling Daisy.

You know the paediatrician Daisy that seems to forget all medical knowledge after her wedding.

Yes agree about the doctor but how do you pine and die must be similar to Jacynths aunty working herself to death and glad to go at the age of 35.

Yes, I can never get my head around Joyce marrying a vicar. Where did she even meet him?

Tart and vicar party?

It's such crap. I wanted Joyce to go to Hollywood and become a movie star.

I think Joyce and the vicar is sort of similar to Margot and her calling, really - bad girl, needs god, probably can't be relied upon to be godly herself so needs to be formally 'kept in hand' by either a vicar-husband or a convent.

Maybe EBD was trying to recreate Bernhilda's (?) wedding, which works as a family event at which the school is welcome, because Tirol (also because the school is much smaller etc and the long-term relationships of the Mensches, Maranis etc to the school from its early days - they should really have been granted shares at the same time as Nell and Hilda). But it becomes ridiculous - and also really expensive, surely?

I don't understand why Simone never grows to her Joey tbh. She's not even very helpful about the wedding - doesn't she refuse to help sew because she doesn't like sewing?

Grows to hate Joey, even.

I want to be forgiving and say 'yes but when they understood health and disease so much less, it must have seemed that people really did pine and die in an unstoppable and frightening way'. Which is certainly true. But I'm not actually sure it's still true of EBD's era! Anyone?

That must have been it thebody.

Well it can hardly have been when she volunteered to run the white elephant stall at the Christmas jumble sale; or at a Friday afternoon tea party in the vicarage; or during bible classes or evensong.
I mean, this is Joyce Linton we're talking about.

And yes, why did Simone never realise that Joey was just a sad case, umbilically attached to her old school and clinging on to the idea that she was still the leader of the gang (now scattered around the world with husbands and children of their own) and cross her off her Christmas card list.

I always felt Joey was a bit not coping with Simones wedding. Either because she realised that Simone wasn't going to think of Joey as first and foremost any more, or because she simply didn't like not being the centre of attention.
So she slightly threw herself into overorganising it to mittigate her guilt.

I wonder if part of the idea of not having Sybil as bm was then Joey could be in control of them, whereas if Sybil was there then it would make sense for Madge to be dealing with them.

I know of one story of a family member who "died of grief" in WW1 after her young husband was killed. I suspect it was more likely to have been a neglected or undiagnosed illness. I think there were so many things that you could do nothing about before antibiotics and other drugs and I guess your personal strength and resilience was really important to whether you survived or not.
Also remember lots of talk about bracing and enervating air!

Yes Emily totally get that.

She had to kill them off I suppose as 6 additions to the nursery would have been a tad ridiculous even for Madge's famous coping skills.

I think Joey was jealous that Sybil was prettier than her dds. There said it now.

Yes the wedding organising was bloody annoying and if you remember Jo is head and chief at Daisy's wedding as Madge gets measles.

That's annoying too when the leader of the WI is do impressed by joeys flower arranging skills she makes notes.

Joey was famously not artistic!!!

I wonder why Joey never visits Marie? Is it because the castle rivals freudeshime?

She was bitchy too about Simone's inherited chateau helpfully pointing out all the bad bits. Yes I know she was asked but why would Simone ask her!

Joey salon with the flowering pot plants and the books piled on a table doesn't sound like grand designs,

If I was simone I would have Asked nice Frieda or Marie.

Oh yes nell she couldn't be arsed to see the dress even though she could! Meanie.