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!

Lonny, DSis and I went through a long phase of calling DM Marmee, after Marmee of Little Women fame.

Thereis, yy, much reference to Jo/Madge/Frieda/Gisela disappearing upstairs to return with a satisfied baby.

Can we talk about OOAO? I only got Three recently and was struck by the lack of references to Mary Lou acting older than her age or treating adults as equals. Now, by New Mistress, it's an accepted thing. When does the whole "it's not cheek, it's just Mary Lou" stuff actually begin?

Nooo Cheddar it starts immediately! I remember noting some variant on "it's not cheek, it's just ML" book after book. But the random official appointment as 'Head of the Middles' in - Barbara? Does It Again? You wouldn't think I'd just read these - that marks the turning point into madness, IMO.

In Does It Again the triplets appear to have a custom prie-deux for three. Was this really a normal kind of thing? For children to have at home, I mean, rather than it being a special triplet one. I've only ever known them in churches.

Also, I groused v recently about how odd it was that Ruth Derwent became Senior Mistress in Barbara. Evidently EBD agreed, as she's now mysteriously been replaced by Jeanne!

Just re-reading Richenda and enjoying this sweeping generalisation.
"Most of the new girls were from France where young ladies do not race about like schoolboys; Switzerland, where they are much more athletic, but more in the way of climbing than running; and Germany where, again, galloping down the road is hardly encouraged."
How did she know?
The French is excruciating and Canada (le Canada) is apparently la canade. I think she got confused with ducks.

Arf at "I think she got confused with ducks".

Also tut at my autocorrect above: ipad does not approve of Latin, believes it is French day, must pay a fine so we can keep the San going.

And I have just won 4 Tyrol hardbacks on ebay.

The French is excruciating and Canada (le Canada) is apparently la canade. I think she got confused with ducks.

That made me splutter all over my keyboard! I now have a wonderful image of a lime green adult duck together with a duck in white coat, swimming along with 11 little ducks (and a few hangers-on) in line behind them. And maybe a ghostly image of another four teeny identical ducks at the very back. Awww.

Last time I read Three Go I was quite startled by Verity - a spirited and fearless little thing. I'd forgotten she started out that way. When did she turn all moony and where did her personality go?

I don't know if you've noticed, my lambs, but the nights are drawing in and we're heading towards the middle of November. Is it time to get the baby angel costumes out of mothballs? Maybe if we've been really lucky Mrs Maynard will have written us the most beautiful play ever. I wonder what this year's version of Christmas through the ages it will be? When's the play reading?

Cross posted with Nell. Which hardbacks are coming your way?

I can't actually remember who Ruth Derwent is. Apart from a rhyme in one of the later books about Derry and Ferry were two pretty men.

... Actually I'm wrong, aren't I - is prie-dieu French or Latin (or both)? The ipad apparently knows deux but not dieu, though. Mon dieu!

I have been making sure my bell like tones are suitable for narrating....(Already busy with Christmas play songs in school......can't stop singing them!!)

Well as I keep (plaintively) pointing out - the 27th November is Joey's 96th and my 65th.
Humping the Kapok is almost fully choreographed, but you do all need to practise. We don't want those feather dusters going astray.

Arf even more at the image of lime green Joey-duck being haunted by the spectre of lime green quads.

The diminishing (? Poss not best word) of Verity-Ann is rather depressing. Likewise (ish) the constant insistence that Con Maynard is mainly 'moony' when in fact she is frequently the most interesting and astute of the triplets.

mornington I am eagerly anticipating the arrival of Jo of, Princess, Rivals and Lintons. Lintons I've actually already got a first edition of (for which I paid more than I've just paid for all four of these...) so that one is to sell straight on, and Rivals is an upgrade of sorts (already got a 1950s reprint - this is a 1930s one).

I hope everyone has been having nice quiet Chaletian Sundays.

Will you be expecting us to Hump the Kapok below your window at dawn on the 27th, Emily? Only it's getting a bit cold and I don't want the delicate amongst us going down with pleuro-pneumonia...

Nonsense, you will all be fine. Bracing Normandy air here. Apple-cheeked mikmaids, lashings of thick cream and apfelstrudel with the quaint local name of tarte aux pommes.

Here we go, gels. Plato (aka Cicero in one book) has written a charming air which Joey will trill in her golden chorister's etc. You will wear your silk tussores and gentian and flame bows in your ringlets.
We start with crossed plumeaux and perform sixteen bars of tips and butts and tips and butts in the Morris tradition.
In pairs you then perform your fancy twists.
Finally you join hands in two lines to represent the humped kapok while the rest trip through in pairs and join the line again at the end.
It should all look very trig and dainty.
Ready?

Could we incorporate a local figure into " humping the kapok" , namely , "rippling of the stream" in which the head(girl) of the line weaves between the remainder of the line in imitation of a school girl bobbing down a stream in spate. The tail of the line thrusts a hand out to stop her by grasping her girdle firmly in the manner of a St Bernard Dog. The "rippler" is then handed back up the line in a dead faint, and relieved with smelling salts as she returns to place.

Oh I like that. Could we also add a sort of Paul Jones line-up of the local doctors and you get the one facing you when the music stops?

Ooh it sounds tophole Emily and UniS. I am practising already and my downstairs neighbours hate you both.

I have a feeling this is meant to be awful, too - ouch! That price!

emily my lamb that sounds simply smashing! Although be very careful never to point your toes, because that isn't folk...

Nell...ouch indeed! I will be waiting for those ones until GGBP re print them!!
Having just been to 2 remembrance day services (and played LAst Posts at both...) I realised that they were never mentioned in the CS.

Well I'm going to practise God Save the Queen on my sax so that if fire breaks out during Humping the Kapok I can save the day by getting everyone to sing while Emily evacuates her house in an orderly fashion.

Maybe I'll play the Last Post as well. Though that might not be exactly tactful if everyone's trying to escape from the fiery furnace.

That's a strange miss out hels71 isn't it? When did the 2 minute silence really come in? I thought it would have been the sort of thing that they would have embraced totally.

I mean at my secondary we had a special assembly, with Last post, followed by reading of the WWI names, silence, WWII names followed by the second tune with I can't spell and can't get close enough for spellcheck to help me. .
I remember the year when the person playing them got them wrong way round and rose the dead before burying them. I think we got 0 mintues silence at lunch for giggling. Wouldn't have ahppened at the Chalet School.

They'd have loved that as a tradition: Can't you imagine them reading out the oath, and remembering people. Mybe EBD struggled with them not having any servicemen they could remember? And I can't think of any brass players to do the last post. Surely they'd have done it as Guides if nothing else.

We were talking tonight about people that stood up against Hitler, and dd2 came out with "He sent them to concentration camps to be killed like Onkel Florian" folowed by a blank pause while me and dh tried to work out which Uncle she meant, before I realised she was thinking of Maria's (Marani) father!

That was "10 minutes silence" my fingers were obviously so horrified at the memory.

There were never any brass players at the CS that I recall. I expect EBD did not approve! In fact in The School by The River there is some mention of there being no brass players at the school Jennifer is at because is takes too much blowing or something...

DeWee well done to your daughter. I always found that bit so very very sad. Also hearing about Luigia...

It's a good point. AFAIC the first Dimsie book is set in autumn 1919 (published shortly afterwards) and has a long concluding section about the first remembrance day.

I always remember reading an early school story (Angela Brazil?) in which one of the heroines played the cello - which was thoroughly disapproved of by old-fashioned staff as it involved putting the instrument between one's legs.

Remembrance day is a very British thing, it would not have happened in Austria or Switzerland.... Doesn't explain the absence of it in the welsh books tho.

I did find it odd being in Germany ( at a sport thing) on Nov 11th a few year back. We were given strict instructions to be at the sports hall before 11am , I thought it would be remembrance related, but no, it was so we could all take part in a carnival dance celebration of the apple harvest as was traditional on the 11th November in that town.