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!

Grizel appears in Exile, playing the piano as the girls march out of the Hall. And she's there in Goes To It, teaching most of the music while Vater Bar takes the talented ones. Why she is supplanted in Highland Twins is a mystery - either an undiscovered Nazi spy, or EBD forgot her. I'm on Gay from China now, and she's back.

I'm on Lavender - I always think of it as the weakest of the war books, and perhaps it is, but only because the standard of the others is so high - I'm really enjoying it. Going back to a gripe I was airing about Miss Slater as an example of imperfect-but-alright, I think it's an interesting one in terms of the teachers showing different approaches to Lavender and these mostly all seeming justified (Mary Burnett is showing her inexperience by snapping, but there's also a clear difference between Pam Slater bawling Lavender and Bride out vs Julie Berné being incredibly patience, yet both seem v much authorially sanctioned) - in contrast to the 'one true way' didactic style of later books where the teachers are all basically the same as each other.

I really like Bride and her peers as juniors (also as middles and seniors - agree that this is one of the strengths of Tom too), I like Elizabeth Arnett as head girl, and I like a lot of the staff scenes in this one - Hilary Burn sprawled all over the sofa, Nell Wilson quickly hiding her chocolates and 'light novel' when Lavender's Aunt Sylvia arrives etc. The only downside is that Jo is really at her most unappealing IMO. There's a sickening scene of the seniors fawning over her when she first meets Jesanne and Lois...

If you split the series into three sections - with cut-offs at Exile and Three Go - this middle section is the only part without one dominant adored schoolgirl (Jo, Mary-Lou, Len) and I think it is so much stronger for it. Presumably the temptation could have been there to have made Peggy 'it', but instead there's a really strong cast of various well-rounded individuals and groups who develop well from one book to the next.

(Is it really bad that I find Grizel setting Len on fire quite amusing?)

I agree that Lavender is the weakest of the war time books. There's too much focus on schoolgirl antics and not the normal balance between the life within the school and the wider community/teachers' concerns that made the other Welsh books so enjoyable. It feels a bit more like the Swiss books to me.
I also found the introduction of Jesanne a bit jarring. And as usual Joey was all over her and mothering her for a while, and then just lost interest in her totally.

By the way, the cast list is up for the Nativity Play:

Mary - Peggy Bettany
Joseph- Bride Bettany
Angel 1 - Robin Humphries
Angel 2 - Sybil Russell
3 shepherds - Len, Con and Margot Maynard
3 Wise Men - Maeve Bettany, Josette Russell, Ailie Russell
Innkeeper - Mary Lou Trelawney

Scriptwriter: Josephine M. Bettany

Oh no. I bought a copy of Chalet School At War from Abe Books, finished it on the ferry last night and left it behind.
It was a tatty old library copy so I don't suppose they kept it. And it kept me going when I couldn't sleep because some idiots clearly can't understand the sentence, "please turn off your car alarm".

I wonder if I can still get a talking part as a sheep in the nativity, if I go and be really friendly with Mrs Maynard, I mean Aunty Joey, and play slidey mats and bathe her babies and stuff? It's got to be worth a try...

Lavender is the one in which she throws in half her escapees from other books, isn't it? As well as Jesanne, it's also the one where Gill Culver arrives, and there are some Significant Comments, which obv go right over my head as I haven't read any of the non-CS stuff.

Emily my lamb you will just have to buy a shiny new GGB copy instead - what a shame...

Oh EmilyAlice

Do try the ferry company though, I once got a fairly elderly and well loved cardigan sent back to me by P and O.

Sorry Nell I believe the Lucys and Chesters will be playing all of the talking animals.

Auditions for roles as palm trees and 'villagers' are being held this afternoon.

:( You mean to tell me I have been running around her garden picking up feathers in the wind for no reason?

I know. I had to listen to a lecture about mountains and how big they are and how small we are.......

I also admired her lime green sofa

Is this the appropriate moment for us all to gasp at how very absurd the suggestion of CS nepotism would be?

Are you trying for a palm tree or a 'villager', Vintage ? Villagers are just random simpletons who drown their puppies, think the devil is under the lake, and inexplicably adore Jo, aren't they. I think I'd be safer as a palm tree.

Vintage there's no way Sybil will be allowed to be a baby angel, not only does Joey not like her, but she has red hair!

I dislike the bit where Grizel assumes she's going to be chief bridemaid. It isn't really in character for her imo. And it makes her look terribly big headed. Joey's reply isn't nice either ("only a sister could-so Robin will be") but if someone had said that to me I'd have been caught on the hop and probably said something tactless, and I'm not usually tactless.

But she's family talented and deserving of the part DeWee.

Nell, I've just done my audition for a palm tree. I swayed a bit too far and fell over. Matron asked me, in a very nasty tone of voice, if I'd been in the summerhouse again

I think I shall send your answer Vintage to the AmDram I'm involved with. I complained that it was who you were rather than how good you are before the cast list came out. Now the cast list is out, it speaks even louder on its own than me saying that did.
Not family, but perhaps one with the mother who shouts the loudest, ignoreing the 6 or 7 who actually are better actors/dancers and singers.

Can you make like Yseult and redistribute parts by stealth, DeWee ?

Vintage Matey is so on-the-spot. :( That reminds me though, there is a v v funny bit in Highland Twins when her intention of administering a sedative is described as 'sinister'.
Also, reading in order has really highlighted the fact that sometimes Matey is Matron Lloyd (and Matron Gould is other) and sometimes Matey is Matron Gould (and Matron Lloyd is other). This may explain why Matey, who is bloody old in Tirol, is still going strong in Switzerland...

Nell I think pushing people off the stage to try and break their arms/legs might be considered not a good idea under the child protection guidelines and the health and safety ones. And we don't have a snowy mountain to try and concoct an accident either. I think they'd be less fussy than the Chalet School and would let you be a 18th Century lady with your arm in a very modern sling too.
Legs would be more interesting trying to get round as there's no way either crutches or wheelchairs could get backstage.

Problem is everyone's being terribly polite and saying "oh good" in front of the directors and muttering at the back-bet that happened at the CS too. I've been making some louder than normal comments, but have to be careful as my dd is one of the 6 or 7, so it looks like sour grapes. I don't even think she should have had a part-just know she should have had it over the favoured one^ along with several others.

Just to note: If you're going to have auditions at least make sure your favoured cast do the auditions rather than putting everyone through them and then giving your favoured cast, who didn't audition, the parts anyway. Bet they did that at the CS too!

Ooh, on the subject of muttering darkly about casting decisions, I can't remember whether I highly recommended this short-ish fic before: Chalet School Othello

And I also meant to link to this blog painstakingly collecting EBDisms. On the whole I think many are v v forgivable, but some are quite amusing:

"Jo Bettany and Evadne were both 12 in the first book. Now Evadne is 16 and Jo 20."

"Dick is said to be still employed by the Forestry Commission in India, although he resigned 4 years earlier in Tom."

"Frances Coleman and Mollie Carew are merged into Frances Carew."

"When the Guides go camping: "The Laburnums, headed by Julie Lucy and Elfie Woodward..." is followed on the same page by "The Poplars...led by Bride Bettany and Elfie Woodward"."

Oh goody. I'm an angel and number one angel at that. What can I say? I was born to play that part! ??

Bubchen the smugness does not become you!

Agree re Tom. Her friendship group sounds normal.

the gang doesn't ring true. No girls would out up with ML bossing them and why would Catriona be a gang member and not her BF Christine.

I assumed that the Bettanys were stuck in India with second twins because of the war but maybe like lots of the parents featured they couldn't be arsed.

Just re read Adrienne and it's as mad as a box of frogs

I have just opened my mouth and sang.

My voice is full of tears and has in it something no boys voice could have.

I have woken up many in a coma as well as averting a threatened illness/ mental breakdown

I am the fucking angel here

Nell thank a God you mentioned the elephant in the room

Matron Gould and Matron Lloyd. Which one is the definitive matey and the one Jack says should be Gwynneth after her sister dies?

Which one comes back to the school for war as in the conversation between Janie Lucy and Joey.

Troubled me for years

I win at opening my mouth and singing with the golden notes of a blackbird, for I have caused illness and mental breakdown, so profoundly moving is my musicality.

Back to Lavender (again, sorry): it very heavily foreshadows Gay, doesn't it? I hadn't noticed before.
There's a conversation between Robin and Daisy (when Daisy is fretting that the reason they've not seen Jo and Steve yet is because Jo doesn't want them any more :( poor Daisy) in which they talk about how awful Sybil is (because she doesn't want her mother to love anyone else, and because she has always been told by visitors how beautiful she is) and how "Jo knows what Sybil is" and Sybil needs to learn to get over her vanity and jealousy.
There's an increasing closeness between Hilda and Nell, and also a rather gratuitous (IMO) line from Nell about how, when she thought they wouldn't survive the crossing from Guernsey, it wasn't especially sad in her case because there's no one to miss her :(
There's also a helpful and plot-irrelevant introduction to Gay herself, including her having come from China.

I suppose these are the perks of reading in order...

It is particularly full of 'explanations' as to how Jo is special, though. I think I am actually finding Jo more irritating in these books than I recall finding her in later ones, because later on it just descends into farce and is therefore impossible to be quite so seriously annoyed by it.
And I don't buy into this idea that Madge is so cowed by Sybil's emotional needs that she refrains from showing affection towards her various nieces and nephews. Daisy saying that 'Madge is a darling, but Jo's just so special' and how she feels sorry for Peggy and Bride, feels like it undermines years of loveliness from Madge. It's not that I think Madge is perfect, exactly well only a little bit but finding endless unconditional love and managing difficult relationships among the children of her household is Madge's forte, isn't it?

There is also an odd comment on the problematic age gap between Sybil and Josette. This issue arises a few times in the series (Jo's gaps naturally being usually perfect) and interests me - can't work out if EBD is actually advocating some degree of family planning, or if she thinks ideal age gaps are gifts from god. I always wonder if Mollie Bettany's general ill health/delicacy later on is related to a number of births in quick succession when she's fairly young (doesn't she have the first twins at 19, and Bride less than a year later - then still a small gap between Bride and Jackie, and again between Jackie and second twins?). I was chatting with my own grandma yesterday, about her grandma who had 16 - all singletons (poor woman) and all but one survived childhood, too, in spite of great poverty. (NB actual poverty, not just 'our guardian has squandered all our money and we only have a private income of £100 a year' Bettany poverty!)