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!

Geoff and Phil are born after this operation, aren't they? Anyone else picturing Sir James Talbot tearing his hair and muttering 'I warned her not to have any more kids, I warned her'?

Ummmm, all I can remember for sure is a discussion about Ned Trevanion (is that the right surname?) at dancing school in Taverton, and Joey going 'Coo! Eustacia! It's enough to scare the birds!'. From which I am assuming that Madge told Jo all about Eustacia's recent orphaning, but I can't quite recall the details.

PMSL at the bit in Exile when Jack escapes the Nazis by cracking their heads together. What a solid lump of comfort he is! Jo doesn't cover herself in glory at the beginning of their escape, does she? Losing them in the mist on the way to Umfert and all. I am wondering how realistic it was for a whole group of people to just wait for a guard to turn his back and then dash across the border into Switzerland. Is that basically what the Von Trapps do as well? And Gottfried just happens to know 'the smugglers' way' into Switzerland? I am beginning to think that Gottfried is part of the master ring of spies headed by Dr Jem and Mr Flower. I do like Gottfried, though. He saves them all, and he also tells Jack not to drug Jo, although clearly Jack doesn't listen.

Gottfried was a hero. He should have been given that medal they start up in one of the later Swiss books...

I love Gottfried. Although when I applauded him on here before for his 'don't drug Joey' stance, someone did wisely point out that of course Gisela needs no drugging...

Joey's sole contribution to that escape is offering to read the Nazis' fortunes in Romany. Nell drags them through the crowd into the church, then carries Daisy much of the way to Otto and co. Jack and Gottfried carry Robin/Lorenz/Nell constantly. Hilary helps someone... Jeanne? Joey is just a nuisance. Same thing as on Nigel's yacht in Goes To It. Spineless jellyfish.

I really like Jem and Mr Flower, too. I approve of this Afrikaans-speaking spy ring.

A hernia wouldn't count as a displaced organ would it? Isn't it merely a weakened muscle with a gap in it and hardly worthy of Sir James Talbot's encyclopaedic medical expertise? A couple of stitches and hot sweet milk plus a knockout pill or ten should have sorted it.

(The above opinion is based on Girl Guide First Aid badge, circa 1956 and probably not to be relied on)

Yes, Joey does not come across too well in the escape from Tyrol. However i have sympathy with her leaving Guernsey with three babies not 6 months old....she must have been exhausted!

Well, fortunately Frieda's on hand to take over all the babycare, thus freeing Nell up to look after poor Joey...

(As an aside, how much actual looking after of own children/doing any other domestic work do we think Joey, or Madge, or any of the others, would have done? I have no frame of reference for these things.)

Oh and Tricky I think (haven't checked) that a hernia means some organ or other begins to protrude through the gap in the muscles - thus 'displaced'. I do not know why a milky sedative won't fix it, though.

Isn't it usually the intestines that start to bulge through the muscles, hence the vomiting?

Well, let's see. To run Die Rosen, Madge has Marie Pfeiffen (general cook and dogsbody), Andre-the-chauffeur-cum-gardener, Rosa the nursery maid - anyone else? Die Rosen is a big house, with magically expanding rooms. Isn't there another nursery maid as well, at least in New when Sybil gets kidnapped? Mind you, by that time she has David, Sybil, Rix, Peggy, Noel, Bride and Primula Mary in the nursery, and Joey is at least supposed to be at home to help instead of going to Belsornia. But anecdotally, all they seem to do is read the children stories, play with them and put them to bed. They certainly never seem to do any cooking or cleaning. They do the flowers in the salon, and I think they might do a little light gardening occasionally. Robin washes her own gloves at the beginning of Exile.

Later on, when they constantly bemoan the servant problem, despite the fact that Anna has contrived to get herself smuggled out of her country and found her beloved Jo whom she will serve forever more, Jo, at least in the beginning of her married life, seems to do a bit of housework, feeding the Triplets their bread and milk, doing a little cookery, dusting etc. There's the scene in Exile where Jo turns up at Madge's and Madge is baking a cake. I find it interesting that in Jo to the Rescue, the 4 adults think it is fun to do the housework for 11 children plus 4 adults, although they promptly engage Debby to scrub the floors for them. Um, in Gay From China Jo and Robin are being quite domestic at the beginning - aren't they cleaning the silver or some such? Then they get their own afternoon tea together with apricot jam. No idea who normally does the washing of clothes etc. Anna, probably.

I have just finished reading the first section of Exile and I was struck by the fact that their escape takes 7 days, and for the first 5 days, everyone walks with the exception of Robin and Lorenz, who are carried continually. During the 6th day, Miss Wilson struggles on gamely and winds up grey with pain and half-fainting by the time they stop for the night. Joey goes a bit light-headed and hysterical and starts making silly jokes, so Jack pulls her up sharply. But actually, she does better than I remembered, after the first silly mistake of losing them in the fog - and she says herself that she made a mull of that. On Day 7 Gottfried carries Miss Wilson, but Jo walks the whole way herself. Of course, once it's over, she is the one who has nightmares because she is so much more sensitive than anyone else.

I suppose it was a different time though, with different expectations of who would do what.

On servants: although as you say, the only other member of staff at Die Rosen who is ever mentioned is the mamselle in New, I always imagine that there are more than this. I think this is partly because Die Rosen seems a massively well-equipped and prestigious place (golf course, billiards room), and partly - unreasonably - because I like to imagine Madge is a perceptive and (relatively) generous employer.
Jo often talks about teething babies keeping her awake - does this mean she attends to her own babies in the night-time, or does she just mean she hears them crying? I think Jo also darns Jack's socks at some point?
I've not read Rescue, but I have to say I'd find sharing the housework, even for a large household, with three of my friends kind of 'fun', from the perspective of usually doing all the housework for a much smaller household on my own. Alternatively I suppose it does suggest that the novelty is in the work itself, rather than the company. Isn't there a lot of excitement among the girls when the downstairs is flooded and muddy in one of the early books, because they want a go at cleaning the windows or something? But again, I suppose housework-excitement in the early teens is a different thing.

I find Anna quite a problematic character. I know we are supposed to be charmed by her loyalty and perpetual good nature, but I just can't believe it. She thinks Jo is the kindest employer she'll ever get, sure; she loves Jo so much she turns down a marriage proposal for that exact reason? Nope. And Jo repays her devotion by effectively asking ever more of her, by expanding the household and throwing parties whenever possible? Ugh, I don't know. I know it's of its time but I don't enjoy reading it.

The thing about Jo on the journey is that she is another adult character, and apart from the random helpful burst of Romany she does nothing to help anyone else. I wouldn't expect her to be pulling her weight like the two sturdy men-folk, or like Nell who is the teacher, but there are references to the elder girls (Hilary etc) who are younger than Jo helping the little ones when they get tired, and nothing at all to suggest that Jo is doing anything. And then when they get to Gottfried's co-smuggler aunt's house and all the emphasis is on poor troubled Jo and her nightmares, and arranging the onward leg of the journey around her needs - which end up probably coinciding with the needs of Robin who is actually delicate, and Nell who is actually injured, but that feels like an afterthought.
It all seems, to me, to come back to EBD's usual division into 'people who are delicate and must be cosseted' vs 'people who are strong and therefore must carry on regardless', and - probably because I am a resentful carry-on-er myself! - I find this pandering-for-no-obvious-reason rather grating.

This bit: "Jack picked up Robin, while Gottfried lifted Lorenz. He gave his other arm to Jeanne, who was limping badly by this time. Hilary took Evadne, and Miss Wilson, who was also beginning to limp a little, had Cornelia. Joey slipped her hand through her fiancé’s free arm, clinging to him as if she dreaded being parted from him."

I suppose it's meant to be kind of loving and romantic, but it's bloody unhelpful, isn't it? Hilary, of course, is one of EBD's strong coping types - doesn't she actually lose a fiancé in the war? But of course she just gets on with it.

Slight diversion but is anyone else being a total mither to their DCs about doing up coats in this colder weather? I told DS to zip up three times this morning, to which he eventually replied 'I am. NOT. Cold mamma'. I think a continual diet of tam o'shanters and criss-crossed scarves is starting to take its toll...

There's one book when the triplets are small that really has the "pat them on the head and send them off to bed" feel. Joey walks in when they've just finished dinner and says one positive statement each alone the lines of "Well done Len, you folded your napkin, Connie, you ate all your greens, Margot you put your knife and fork together nicely."
They greet her rapturously when she goes in-implying to me that they hadn't seen much of her that day. or at any rate, mine rarely greet me with enthusiasm unless I've been absent.

To me the irritating thing about Joey being all spineless jellfish, is that she is inclined to tell everyone how well she's managed. I particularly dislike her lecturing (I think it's Doris) on how she continued after Jack was apparently dead "for the children".
Did she heck? She collapsed and left the triplets to the care of 2 teenaged children who were also in mourning (who then also had her to worry about and care for) until he returned.
I think there's another time when she talks about how she "escaped from Guernsey with three babies to care for"-that again she collapsed and left them to others to look after.

No she can't (necessarily) help collapsing, but she can help telling people how well she managed!

Btw - Maria starts off the journey with them. She is there during the first part of the walk. However, at the end of their escape "Gottfried slung (Miss Wilson) round his shoulders in a 'fireman's lift' and...he led the way, followed by Hilary and Lorenz, Evadne and Robin, Cornelia and Jeanne, and Joey and Jack bringing up the rear." Where is Maria? Lost along the way somewhere?

Lonny, yy! My DC are indulging in streaming colds - DD has antibiotics for a throat infection and even yet she will not put her coat on properly.

On the servants: Marie asks for a small house with 3 living rooms and 6 bedrooms and explains that that will be 1 bedroom for her, 1 for Wolferl/Eugen's dressing room, 1 for Wanda, 2 for the maids and 1 for a nursery. So she has 2 maids for what sounds to me like a pretty big house! My house is half the size of that - can I have one maid? Oh, and in Janie of La Rochelle, Janie starts out married life with two maids!

I am a feckless mother and deserve to have Joey adopt my child because I so far have not argued when he's flung his hat from his head in great annoyance.

Cheddar do you think the maids are definitely getting a room each? That's much nicer than when Anna and Rosa-who-is-actually-in-Canada have to share at Cartref! Or maybe there are three or four maids...
I lolled at Maria disappearing from the escape, and nobody seeming to notice or care. Mind you, I can't talk, since I've never noticed that before either!

And yes DeWee that's exactly it - Jo then tells everyone constantly how bloody breezily she coped with it all.
I know exactly the scene you're talking about, when Jo walks into the nursery (I think with some visiting schoolgirls in tow?) and pays each triplet a careful and stupid compliment - and I am certain this is supposed to be an example of what a thoughtful, pally and loving mother she is, too. Gah.

Cheddar, antibiotics? Just force feed them some warm milk, that will sort them out, and if your voice happens to be golden, give them a bout of that too.

Coming in late to this to suggest that Joey might be wise to displace Jack's organ before any more busyness results...

TwoKitties

Sadly my voice is the type to send people deeper into their coma or kill them outright. Tis not a golden voice. What would the opposite be - a black voice? A muddy brown voice?

Cheddar, possibly a droning voice like Jessica Wayne's which drove Plato berserk in 'Mary-Lou'.

Having been to the area the Chalet School was set this summer I have to say a couple things about the great "escape".
The Chalet School was very very close to the German border, I'm not sure if EBD realised this, but they actually go even closer to Germany when they start off.
It is a very long way to Switzerland. Its closer to Italy (I wondered if that was where Belsornia was supposed to be).

Its really not an area I'd want to be escaping from the Nazis in. To get to Switzerland in 7 days would be really pushing it. Google maps reckons it is about 350 km and would take 75 ish hours of walking (and probably via Leichtenstein). But all those routes do have you crossing into Germany as well.

I always follow joeys advice though and have my babies with me from tea time to bed time. Then my rosy cheeked Austrian mainstay puts them to bed while I change my frock to my favourite soft green. I hear prayers and confessions and that's me done for the day my lambs. Well unless my solid lump of comfort is hoping to make me busy again. After all the youngest is 6 months now.

On a different tack dd has been studying the role of Natzi girls and women with the importance on health, marriage and producing over 4 babies at least.

Sounds a bit like the chalet school ethos and Joey and her contemporaries lives.

Google maps is giving me a driving route from Buchau (OK, OK, Pertisau if you must, silly Google) to Piz Mundin just over the Swiss border, of 160 km. I know they wouldn't have been able to walk by road on account of Nazi patrols, but would it really have been more than twice the distance to find a viable walking route, mummytime? The closest walking route Google will give me is Buchau to Scuol, a little further, showing as 167 km or 37 hours' walking. Although they might have had to take diversions as the first part is quite close to a main road, 37 hours in 7 days does sound more do-able, even with youngish children and a spineless jellyfish sensitive young woman in tow.

Pity they couldn't make for Belsornia, though, as it's anywhere in Greater Ruritania you want it to be - so its location on the Austrian/Italian border on the far side of the Zillerthal Alps would have been perfect.

Joey does all the most important parts of motherhood. She provides moral guidance at bedtime/confession time. That's what really matters. All Anna does is cook the children's meals, wash their clothes (and the children themselves if Joey hasn't invited new girls to English tea), clean their rooms, take them for walks and keep them occupied most of the rest of the time. Lucky Anna, such a doddle of a job for a mistress she completely adores. Oh how she must bless the day the Bettanys came into her life.

Joeys health is a mystery to me.

She's alternatively delicate, strong as a Moreland pony, wirey, but mental stress caused her to break down!

The 2 hour faint in I think Joey and Co if hilarious. That's a bloody coma or she knocked herself out.

A faint is a temporary loss of consciousness not 2 bloody hours.

That solid lump needs to go back to medical school.