Autumn Term at the Chalet School

[Vintagejazz]

Just starting a new thread here as I can't spot a new one.

So my lambs feel free to keep spreading the hanes, but watch the slang!

Gruss gott leiblings! And thanks for the new thread OOAOVJ.

Gruss Gott. Is it German day? Oh help I never learnt any!

Not to worry DeWee you will pick it up in no time by osmosis. We will all speak slowly to you and then obviously you'll understand. Probably the American girls will use some kind of polyglot language and some uppity patriotic Brit girl will refuse. But you'll all be trilingual Chalet girls in the end, even when you're 90!

We will just make you keep repeating everything several times until it sinks in De Wee. And then we'll do the same with French tomorrow. By the time English day comes around you won't know whether you're coming or going.

But yes, you will be chattering away in fluent German in about two weeks time.

And if you're not then you will just be penniless!!!

I learnt all my German from reading CS books :o Ich verschte nicht. Or something.

In fairness hels71 I'm sure all those fines went to a worthwhile charity and not a piss up in the staffroom

I think I'll just imitate Verity Ann and be silent.

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Talking of speaking, or more accurately hearing, will someone, ideally with their own earphones of hair, tell us to what extent they muffle ordinary sounds. Surely they must be an impediment to clarity and rather impractical though possibly making the racket from eleven children tolerable.

They go the the san.....so maybe by using the wrong language or slang we would actually be doing other people a favour..

Good point hels. I am nothing if not charitable.

Gruss Gott. Where are the cakes? Just reading Peggy at the mo. I always think of her as fair and she is described as such but as a child she was dark haired (I think). And who is this strange girl who was in the Special sixth but made such a hash of being Head Girl. Tha t episode is not in any book. Where did she fit in? Inbetween which head girl?

Ah that's Marilyn Evans Flapping my lamb who dared to put her own academic aspirations ahead of her duty to the school. We do not speak of her. I'm too hazy on the details by that point in the series to say exactly when it is she was head girl though, sorry. ISTR Peggy was always fair, and Rix dark (in the compulsory way for multiple birth children to be identical with different colouring) - certainly in the Camp frontispiece which I rather love, she's shown as fair.

In New/United, when it comes out that Mlle is really very ill, there is this -

"Cornelia departed, and Matron arrived half an hour later with the milk; saw her talk it; then made her lie down, covered her up, and stooping, kissed her, ‘I know, Corney,’ she said. ‘I’ve only this for you, child. As one door shuts, another opens. And Mademoiselle want you girls to face it as bravely as she is doing. Goodnight, dear.’

Cornelia turned enormous blue eyes on her. ‘Guess I – feel ‘sif – my mother – ‘ She stopped, unable to go further; and Matron, with a final pat, left her, knowing that Corney would feel everlastingly disgraced if anyone saw her cry.

All the same, the coming years were to show her a true prophetess, and Cornelia was to have such mothering as even Mademoiselle had never given her."

Does anyone know what the future reference is to - the other door that opens for Corney? Who is supposed to mother her? Does it actually come to pass, or does this thread get dropped in all the changes of Exile ?
At the end of this chapter, she has a quite nice moment on the roof with Jo - is it Jo EBD had in mind as a new maternal figure, in spite of their v close ages?

I always assumed it was Madge but i don't know why I think that.

I don't recall Madge taking on Cornelia as one of her wards/waifs/long lost relatives. And Joey wouldn't really have been that much older than Cornelia.
Did they mean Miss Annersley or Bill or maybe just the staff in general?

Most probably though it was some storyline EBD had in her head and then the War and the necessity to tie the books in with that made her forget all about it.

I'm not sure EBD thought about storylines that far in advance to have the war spoil them. I think it was just a comforting throwaway line that she probably intended to follow up, but even if the war hadn't got in the way, she wouldn't.

It also came out of nowhere to me. It would have been better if you'd seen some signs of Corney really looking up to her, or also, when she was ill, really missing her. But we just have the two things, that one, and Corney fainting when she's told she'd died. I suppose that was a case of EBD following a story line up though, which totally contradicts what I just said.

Yeah but you're right - it's something EBD says (twice) but doesn't actually substantiate, which isn't so uncommon!

Mlle is often conspicuous by her absence though, through most of her leadership: my theory is that as far in advance as Eustacia, EBD had already decided Miss Annersley was destined for the headship (which is interesting if it's true, because it only happens after the first twelve books originally commissioned/otherwise intended as a series).

Now I've always thought that Eustacia is the one book where Mademoiselle starts to be seen as a character in her own right, developing that famous motherliness. So I didn't see that as the point where EBD decides the future is Hilda-shaped, but I think it must have happened soon after, because we don't see much of Mademoiselle in the next books. I always wondered, also, why Mademoiselle doesn't get the courtesy title of Madame when Madge leaves.

Help, I don't think I can reason from cause to effect in German. I give up. Anyone want to play noughts and crosses with me in prep instead? If we do it on our mobile phones the duty pree will never notice.

Tricky I haven't got headphone hair but I have got hearing aids and I have turned them off when the whining/shouting got too much so I can see the muffling being useful

Ooh I would Mornington, except that Vintage is the pree on duty, and she's most awfully on.the spot.

I have just read A Thrilling Term At Janeways - is this really EBD? Apart from having twins called Melody and Harmony, and five sisters all called Phil (I'm not making this up), there is witchcraft, looted monastic treasure, a corpse and a very inappropriate Rector. No Catholics, 'delicacy' or handsome young doctors in sight!

Hang on, I've just re-read the description of the twins: "the one who led the way was fair, with flaxen hair, a pale skin and blue-grey eyes; the other was dark and vivid and gipsyish". Of course it's EBD!

There is a sequel to that one you know. I think it is Caroline the Second. And is that the one with the spot supper song??

Hahaha Elisaveta. The EBD hallmark! Please expand on the Phils, though: the triplet Marys at least make some kind of sense, but I'm struggling to apply the same logic to a quintette of Phils.
Do you know when it was published? I know the CS has (I guess inevitably, given the location) a prominent Catholic aspect from the very beginning, but some people seem to switch from Protestant to Catholic early on, presumably in line with EBD's own conversion (Nell Wilson, and in a way, Jack Maynard, since Mollie never is - I think there's another member of staff too but can't place who - may be Con Stewart), so I wonder if some of her writing predates her having any interest at all in Catholicism. Actually, please also expand upon the inappropriate rector, because that sounds funny.

mornington I'm always quite struck by how Miss Annersley suddenly rises from complete invisibility to Senior Mistress at that point. And while Mlle does a nice bit of motherliness, she's also sidelined from much of the action (as she continues to be in subsequent books) and goes all spineless jellyfish when Eustacia's missing and gets sedated and put to bed while everyone else sorts it out. Hilda seems the better leader here, already - though I think almost everyone comes out of Eustacia looking at best a bit neglectful, really, which I'm sure can't be the intended reading of it!

It's also difficult that Madge never really stops being 'Madame', in practice as well as as a figurehead. She seems to continue to be the 'real' head whenever she's present, and I often have to read back to check which of the two it is that some trouble-maker has been referred to, or is making some kind of school decision. It rather limits the scope for Mlle to be much of a headmistress.
Even ages later, there's that occasion in one of the Swiss books where Peter Chester has leaned on Madge to get a too-old new girl (maybe Naomi Elton?) admitted...