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!

I've always wondered that about Betty and Alicia. Although the two Alicias are totally different.

I think it must be MT as they were first published in about 1946 and the Swiss CS books were later than that.

The Betty and Alicia in MT were horrible bullies I remember that.

I

Has anyone seen anyone with violet eyes?

Thinking of Vi Lucy here but do they exist?

Violet eyes do exist, I used to have them, but only when I was wearing my violet contact lenses. Perhaps Vi had early experimental versions.

I have grey eyes. So does my son.
Unusual but not freaky. Mine are dark grey , his are more a blue grey. ..

I have grey eyes, I don't think they're odd either. Elizabeth Taylor was supposed to have violet eyes I think, though a less impressive shade than my Sindy dolls. I always instinctively imagine the CS violet eyes as Sindy-like, probably because that was my frame of reference on first reading.

an even more stringent ban on singing people back from the brink of death - this sounds like a death wish aimed at Joey, and as such I fully endorse it.

TooSpotty I am v envious of your Achensee trip!

hels I think the goatherds were disappointed not to see Joan Baker. Probably she usually plies them with Mr Kipling or something.

Didn't Elizabeth Taylor used to be described as having Violet eyes?

I have grey eyes as well.

Yes, that whole business with Miss Slater always amused me. Everyone absolutely flabbergasted that she wants to stay in her native country and accept a more senior and better paid post. There was one scene where Joey said to herself 'what is that ass Pam up to?' or somesuch. Just a complete lack of comprehension that anyone would give up a job in the Chalet School for anything other than marriage or ill health.

Which is kind of interesting when considered alongside Jo's own reluctance to teach (even pre-marriage - thinking of Jo Returns.)
Although, I suppose, that's a general reluctance to teach, rather than a stated desire to teach/manage elsewhere.

(Am I imagining that one of EBD's teachers - as in a teacher working at the school where she was headmistress - broke away and set up her own school at some point? I think I have read this somewhere - perhaps even on this thread...)

I liked Miss Slater. But EBD had a down on anyone who was mathematical. Surprising really that Sybil wasn't a mathematician.

Pam Slater had a hugely successful school, which in later years took over the Chalet School which was struggling after a particularly bad spell of health and safety flaws.

I think Slater is supposed to be a relatively likeable character, who is nonetheless flawed (clearly prefers the students who are good at her own subject) and integrates fairly well into a school dominated by Old Girls and staff who have been there almost from the beginning - until EBD decides she is not going to Switzerland, at which point she instantly becomes persona non grata.

It seems to me by the time of the move to Switzerland EBD basically goes 'fuckit, this is my school and I'm going to do whatever I like with it'. I don't think you see any 'flawed but basically alright' staff past this point - they're all just identical shades of justice-tempered-with-mercy, perfect poppets out of lessons etc. Thinking of Con Stewart, Pam Slater and Rhyll/Betty Everett, who are all firm favourites of mine precisely because they are explicitly imperfect, I can't imagine any of them existing in the Swiss era.

Yes, she seemed to suddenly turn against Pam Slater in the last couple of books before they left the Island. Before that she had been presented as a likable teacher who fitted in well. However, I think the books in general were beginning to slip significantly in quality at this stage and the school as an entity was becoming much more inward looking and losing that sense of being part of a wider community.

I wonder whether Miss Slater, like Madge, was named after someone she later fell out with... That would explain the sudden falling-out-of favour...

Yes, that's the problem with the Swiss books IMO - the fact that the Platz is an enclave of ex-pats: the School, St Mildred's, the San, various San doctors and their families, families of patients, and that's it. Unlike the Tyrol era, where we have Greta the apple woman, and the Marie and Eigen and family, and the owner of the Kron Prinz Karl etc.

Do you think that's an inevitability of EBD not knowing the area, and/or of the 'need' to people the School with second/third generations of Old Families - or more to do with her failing writing abilities - or, indeed, her falling out of love with the series itself? I wonder more and more about this last option atm.

I am up to Highland Twins now and already dreading the moment I pass Gay from China and the decline begins, when it has been so lovely so far. Once I get past Island I may as well skip straight to Redheads for the lols.

I'm reading in order and just got to Gay too., Nell. I do have a soft spot for some of the later ones - Barbara was one I read repeatedly as a child and identified with her. Also the one with the group of children who hate the school and a young one called Win who keeps going missing. I read it very young and remember being very confused by it.

I'm reading in order too, and have got as far as Feud but my pace has slowed considerably since I reached Switzerland. Lots of them I seem to have only read once, which is strange as generally I reread books a lot. Guess it speaks for the decline in quality of writing and, as lots of you have said, the insular feeling once they get to the Platz.

I think there are about ten I've never read at all (in spite of having had access to the transcripts for months now), whilst there are others I've probably read ten times over. This is why I'm finally trying the right order - it stops me from going 'meh, I'll just read New House again' whenever I hit a weaker one. That's the theory, anyway.

If this is Autumn Term, btw, does that mean it ought to culminate in a horribly boring deeply moving Nativity written by Joey or Madge?

I shall stand saint-like in a corner after the nativity and proclaim "Why does it make me feel like crying?" in hearing of either Joey or ML, so they can reply with a terribly pi statement for the benefit of all.

I'll sing a carol in silvery voice with the quality of a chorister.

I shall not get a speaking part, and then complain repeatedly that the people with the speaking parts won't learn them properly, and then be moved to tears by the play, so that I become a real Chalet Girl at last.

I'm reading in order (having read all of the transcripts I'd never read when I first got access to the transcripts), and have just finished Rosalie, confirming my suspicious that if I was at the Chalet School, I totally would've been Rosalie...

I've also jumped slightly out of order to read Mary-Lou and Excitements, which were birthday presents to myself. Once I've finished Excitements, Jo to the Rescue will be the only book I've never read!

I read in order but only the ones I hadn't read in years or had only read once. Now I'm about to start from School At and read the first few properly.

I shall do all I can to avoid having any part in it. What can I do to end up spending all rehearsals turning sheets sides to middle instead?

Obligatory I always really like the fact that 'being Rosalie' is considered every bit as fine as 'being Tom', 'being Marie/Gisela/Frieda', 'being Nancy Wilmot or Peggy Burnett' - for all the pervasiveness of growing up to marry a doctor, it actually seems there are a multitude of perfectly ok ways to be A Good Chalet Girl and you don't even have to grow out of them. There's none of the scorn that you find in some other books.

I'll be the tall 'sturdy' girl who never bloody gets to play Mary will be delighted to yet again be stuck with playing Joseph.