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.

She sort of does. She doesn't look very pleasant with it though, I don't think.

Juliet looks lovely. And Grizel looks like a film star! Matey definitely looks all wrong.

She really does, doesn't she? The dress, the not-really-that-significant extra padding, and the jam-jar specs...

Simone is perfect but Miss Annersley looks wrong.

Juliet was blonde though

Were people generally thinner post war with rationing? That's when most of the fat comments come. I also think it was more acceptable to comment/joke about weight then (or even when I was younger)

Illustrators never seem to have read the books they are illustrating!

Hahaha, that is so not Miss Annersley. And Joey looks positively anorexic. Was it really necessary to label Bruno? I suspect most readers would have been able to make a pretty good guess at his identity.

Interesting. Just rereading the second book in the series (Jo of the Chalet School) and it says that Grizel is not at all musical, in spite of many enforced hours of practice. But doesn't she end up being a music teacher? I know she wanted to teach games and her father wouldn't let her, but it is a big jump from being not at all musical to being a music teacher!

I think Grizel as a music teacher is really interesting, in terms of being someone in a job which isn't 'her vocation'. I can't think of any other girls who end up in this position? Indeed, I think it's only 'having a vocation' that makes it OK to not get married.
I suppose she becomes musical at some point as the remarks about her as a teacher are usually about her sarcastic manner turning girls off music - no comment on her competence, in spite of a lack of passion. I guess high-level training can give you perfectly adequate teaching skills without needing inherent 'musicality'?

Grizel is one of the most believable characters in the series. Cynical, damaged and difficult but also vulnerable and capable of inspiring affection. Stuck in a job she hates and longing to do something different. And out in the real world coping with crap, disappointment and frustrations for many years before she meets her Prince Charming.

A great antidote to all those angelic pupils, difficult pupils who are miraculously transformed after a couple of terms at the school, and happy teachers content to return to the Chalet School and wait around for their various doctors to whisk them off their feet; or pupils becoming engaged the minute they walk out of the school gates.

It's really odd to look at the dross of the later books (I've finally finished Excitements - I don't feel I need any further justification for this description) and at Grizel, and wonder how on earth they were created by the same author.

Particular highlights of Excitements, btw-
-Jo being "always a Chalet girl", at least twice
-"it's not cheek, it's just ML", at least twice
-rapturous adoration of ML for saving Kathie Ferrars' life. Again. That was in a different book ffs
-ridiculousness of the whole school being thrilled at the thought of giving all their pocket money to build new chapels
-icky chummy-chummy moment in Miss Annersley's office, in which she congratulates Len on the above idea, and contemplates that Len was a pretty child and will be an attractive senior, but is skinny and unappealing at the moment
-boring pantomime (slightly enlivened by fire)

I may have to go and read Lintons or something to recover.

Oh! And of course this stellar example of reasoning from cause to effect:

"I think [...] that we won [against Napoleon] because once he is in the thick of battle, the British soldier does not know how to spell the word 'defeat'."

Did she really use the word 'unappealing' in connection with Len?

Nell "I may have to go and read Lintons or something to recover."

Or take an antidote pill by having a look at the love it or loathe it Chalet Girls Grow Up.... OOAOML (temporarily) makes off with Reg so in the long run does Len a huge favour, and right at the end Tony Barrass turns up and confesses he's held a candle for Len since early days..... My own confession is that I did like the book and found the social movement of each decade and the complications and interweaving of the characters interesting. Though it did take me a few days to approach a 'proper' Chalet School book again with enjoyment!

Winnie Embery was a House end Nice term.

EDB does seem obsessed with weight but fuck me that all eat so much

Sponge cakes and lemon biscuits twice a day not up mention 3 huge meals and puddings plus supper! Jees.

Cjaket girls grow up is just so sad. I mean Len is a bore but still. Her little girls death had me crying buckets.

I too loved the changing decades and the characters were very belivable, especially Con's life.

Couldn't read it again though. Once was enough.

Nell yes hilarious history lesson by Biddy.

We are British so will clearly win!

Jolly good.

I always thought all the pantomimes were crap.

I have read them with 2 hankies at the ready as I fully expect the first one to be soaked with years of laughter but no, bone dry. My hair didn't come gown either not did I slide of my chair in uncontrollable mirth.

Vintage I precis'd a bit unkindly: "At present, she was growing fast and was too thin and coltish for beauty, but, the Head decided, it was all there."

I bet poor Winnie Embury was all of 11 stone.

Alice I think that's the first positive endorsement of CGGU I've read. I can't decide if I want to read it or not. I don't want to ruin the series for myself. But I'm also not averse to the more ridiculous bits of fanfic (in which everyone gets horribly murdered etc) so I don't think I'm so precious about it, maybe. From the summaries I've seen, it does all feel v much in character, and the changing decades thing sounds appealing.

I haven't read CGGU either. Contemplating buying it - it won't spoil the series for me, it's not like I'm especially sold on the Len-Reg pairing.

Grizel never becomes 'musical' in the sense that EBD uses it (ie, being transcended by music a la Jo/Margia/Jacynth/Nina). The books are quite clear that she is a good pianist due to years of practice, but nothing more. Her father refuses to fund anything other than music as a career, and her inheritance from her grandmother is tied up until she turns 30, iirc. Think there's a bit in Head Girl about her being resigned to her career rather than looking forward to it - interesting that in 'her' book she doesn't manage to change her father's mind, unlike, say, Richenda with the pottery. Fathers dictating girls' choices was clearly much more common/acceptable in the late 20s than it was by the 50s/60s. Of course, later books go on to emphasise that Grizel allows her disappointment to harden her, which really pisses me off. She seems to be expected to be saintly and accept her lot with beautiful resignation, and I like that she doesn't.

I'm sorry but try as she might EBD just cannot convince me that the triplets were the mischievous little monkeys she kept telling us they were as toddlers; or the attractive charismatic teenagers we are obviously meant to read them as in later books.
I always picture Len and Con as plain dull children and teens and Margot as pretty but bad tempered.

Cheddar I suppose that the 'ruining' I'm concerned about is the Chalet School world suddenly bumping headlong into the real world, if that makes sense? There's an element of it that strikes me as 'this is exactly what the CS looks like if you stop suspending disbelief'. And I'm not sure whether I want to stop suspending disbelief, or at least not on somebody else's terms.

The other really nice thing about Grizel, as a character, is that she's not 'fixed' in a single book, as most other un-Chalet girls are. And yet she's no pantomime (ha!) villain either - she kind of floats along on the edges, sort of sanctioned and sort of not. She's a beautifully complicated and believable character.

Cheddar I suppose that the 'ruining' I'm concerned about is the Chalet School world suddenly bumping headlong into the real world, if that makes sense? There's an element of it that strikes me as 'this is exactly what the CS looks like if you stop suspending disbelief'. And I'm not sure whether I want to stop suspending disbelief, or at least not on somebody else's terms.

The other really nice thing about Grizel, as a character, is that she's not 'fixed' in a single book, as most other un-Chalet girls are. And yet she's no pantomime (ha!) villain either - she kind of floats along on the edges, sort of sanctioned and sort of not. She's a beautifully complicated and believable character.

The trips are exactly the same as when EBD (via Jo's conversation) tries to persuade us that later-Madge is no longer "that sweet lady Russell" and is once again "crisp and brisk and snappy" after Canada. I even want to believe it, in Madge's case, but I just. don't. see. it.

Totally bumping into the real horrible world nell it traumatised me and had to lie in a dark room.

Joey mad ( obviously) Mary Lou a bitch ( yes) go on go for it. Love up read your experience after.

Nell I did wonder whether I'd ruined the series for myself, because CGGU brings us more or less up to date - even to the triplets visiting Miss Annersley on her 90th birthday - and there are a few fully believable deaths along the way, but I think the developing understanding of psychology over the decades is well portrayed and makes it a worthwhile read. Maybe the author is one who haunts Mumsnet for insight and attitude?

The less well documented 'other' Maynard siblings are also quite well fleshed out.

I did find a reluctance to return to the original stories for a few days after finishing CGGU, as it seemed to satisfyingly tie up a lot of loose ends, but that didn't last, and I have quite happily read Peggy and another (can't remember which now) since, with no ill effects!

Well I go away for a weekend and I come back to find you've not only hidden away in Children's books, but you haven't even managed to hide well enough to get away from Joey.
She's on her way over with her private hairdresser to show you all how to do your hair in earphones and with a personally knitted lime green twin set for each of you.

I think she must be planning something a bit like that parlour game the prefects did in New Mistress(?) where they asked the staff to eat a crab apple and the winner was the one who got furthest into eating it without pulling a face. This time you have to have Joey's makeover without complaining.