International Incident at the Chalet School

[RueDeWakening]

Hear ye, hear ye! Gather ye hence, all angels (be-costumed with slightly tacky silver halos and suchlike) with your lark-like notes and prepare to dazzle us all with your charm.

No, not you Joan. Shop bought cake and cheap looks for you, my dear. See Matron for some milk on your way out.

I never liked Jo as a child - not Jo as an adult, nor Jo as a child. Reading now, I'm much better able to tolerate her as a child - I can see what the appealing characteristics are, but 'tolerance' is still definitely the word! At every age I think she's someone I'd find exhausting.

I'm still very able to tolerate Len - I think she's very boring, but she's basically a fairly nice person. I can see why I liked her as a child - she is basically fairly perfect, until you become concerned about things like integrity, a sense of perspective or humour, interestingness etc! She's pretty, clever, hardworking, popular - I suspect she's someone I would have aspired to be like.

Mary-Lou... Mary-Lou I do now find very annoying and I'm not sure what exactly I found likeable, as a child! But - as often with Jo - the annoyance is much more in other characters' reactions to her, rather than her own behaviour. She's certainly got much more character than boring Len.

I do think the run of books between Jo leaving and Mary-Lou joining include some of the strongest in the series, and so much the better for not being dominated by a single personality. Equally, as a child reading mostly out of sequence, I know those dominating characters provided a kind of consistency and familiarity that the Armishire books might not have done. I don't really remember reading the Armishire books as a child, though I know I definitely read Highland Twins, Lavender and Tom.

I went as Len to World Book Day when I was about 9 (c1993). Nobody knew who I was then either. I liked her because we have similar names and she was the big sister and head girl, but since these threads have started and I've looked at her a bit more critically I do realise how tedious she might actually be.

Mary-Lou has grated on me more and more as I got older.

Actually, tangentially related to Mary-Lou - wtf is this business of "Mlle, the doyenne of the staff"? It's repeated so often in the Swiss books it almost becomes an official title (comparable to "Mary-Lou, head of the middles", a position which never seems to exist before or after). What does it even mean? Does it relate to EBD's apparent uncertainty about who is supposed to be Senior Mistress at this point? Unless this is a typo in the transcripts, Ruth Derwent seems to become Senior Mistress incredibly early (in Barbara iirc), but then gets displaced by Jeanne de Lachenais in subsequent books - before becoming Senior Mistress once again later on.

I always thought 'doyenne of the staff' meant top of the informal pecking order in the Staffroom Proper (i.e. no heads present) - and it would have been a combination of things like age, long-standing-ness, capacity and willingness to act as mentor and wise friend to younger and newer colleagues, coffee-maker extraordinaire, Alpiniste, and anything else that might confer respect amongst that particular peer group.

Yes I agree Mornington. When I started teaching in the seventies there were definitely people, well pretty inevitably women really, who fulfilled that role. They told you where you could sit in the staffroom and when you had to make the tea. We had one who used to knit in staff meetings and I remember her telling me that when she started teaching you were not allowed to wear an uplift bra.

Snorted at the verboten uplift bra.

It seems to me that multiple people might have filled that role at the CS? Sarah Denny too, no? (Is she still there in Switzerland?) Or Frau Mieders - slightly less convincingly, maybe. I think Marjorie Redmond is in that role too in the war books, but she's never repeatedly designated 'doyenne of the staff room' and she doesn't, afaik, get a special bedroom out of it either!

Not that I'm begrudging Mlle, mind. I'm very pro Mlle getting a bit of airtime! I suppose the reiteration of everyone's role is a typical feature of the Swiss books...

OK, here's the start of a story - more to follow. The inspiration is a short story written by Alexandra Kollontai (as well as the Chalet School of course!)

Josie wiped her eyes, and wrapped the manuscript carefully in its cloth. It would never do to have it spoilt, and it was so hard to stop the twins and Meggie getting hold of any of her treasures. With a big sigh, she tucked the cloth parcel carefully underneath her mattress – the most private place she could think of – and gave herself up to the last ten minutes of privacy before she was due at the cook-house to help prepare the evening meal. It was getting dark, and lights weren’t allowed before five o’clock, so she would have to stop reading in any case. Josephine felt dazed. Why did 'A Wartime Christmas' make her feel so weepy? As if nothing nice would ever happen again? As if she had been allowed to look into the window of a toy library in the knowledge she would never be allowed to play with any of the toys within? She gave herself up to thinking about the day’s events…

Oh thought we all had to carry it on like Chalet School Literary Consequences for a minute there.
As you were...
Looking forward to next instalment.

Yay mornington! I have been checking intermittently all day and was almost afraid you were too busy doing real life and stuff and had forgotten us. And I love Alexandra Kollontai! More more more (please).

Please more!!
(although someone starting a story and us carrying on does sound like a very CS type game!!!)

Hahaha, yes, I did have a few real life things to attend to - and I also had a bit of an internet crisis yesterday. Here's the next bit, with lots of Christmas wishes. I can almost hear those sleigh bells as I type!

Today had begun like the first Monday of every month, with a visit to the Rest Home to see Great-Grandma. Josie was fond of the old lady, and loved to listen to her stories of the Olden Times, before the world changed. The twins had gone running in, full of excitement after their latest school trip.

‘Great-Gran’ma, I know what a money is! I do! I saw a money!’ shrieked six-year-old Elisa.

‘I saw it too! An’ I know what a doorbell is!’ Connie was not to be outdone by her obstreperous twin. ‘Captain Drummond showed me what it was for. Do you know what, Great-Gran’ma? She said people in the Olden Times had a house all to themselves, can you imagine that? Just one family in a whole house! Captain said that they filled it up with toys for grown-ups, and lots of things they didn’t need, and then they were so scared that someone would steal all their silly old things, that they locked their doors and if you wanted to go in, you had to press on this tiny button thing, and it made a horrible drilling kind of noise. Can you imagine that, Great-Gran’ma? You didn’t have one of those, did you?’

By now, Elisa was fairly dancing with impatience. ‘Great-Gran’ma, I saw a money! It was a little piece of paper with a funny picture of a man in a wig, and it said, ‘The Royal Bank of Scotland plc’, and some other words I couldn’t read. Captain said that men went to war and killed each other with bombs and guns, just to get more pieces of paper like that one. Weren’t they silly, Great-Gran’ma?’

Josie thought it was time she took a hand. It had been Great-Grandma’s birthday a month ago. The old lady had been 105 years old, and the twins were too young to remember that they’d been told not to tire their great-grandmother. Besides, there was something that had been puzzling her about the museum visit.

‘Be gentle, twins! Connie, you mustn’t bounce up and down on Great-Grandmama like that.’ Josie always used the Victorian pronunciation of the name so loved by her oldest relative. At the sound of her voice, the old lady looked up, a fond smile on her lips.

‘My Josie. Come here, my child, and let me look at you. So responsible, just like I was at your age.’ The blue-grey eyes sparkled with love.

Josie kissed the old lady, and knelt beside her. ‘Great-Grandmama, may I ask you something?’ Taking silence for assent, she continued. ‘Would you tell me about the fir-tree festival?

Bravo Mornington and Frohliche Weihnachten, my lambs!

Lovely mornington! Looking forward to more when you can.

Happy Christmas to all of you.

Merry Christmas! Hope everyone found that the little Christ Child had filled their shoes with bon bons this morning.

Am loving the Christmas story. Is Great-Grandmama Len?

Bonnes fêtes de fin d'année aux Chaletians partout!
The château is a little short of babies this year, but maybe a tall, dark stranger will pop round with some spares.
(I have got the new biography of Eleanor Marx to read though).

Merry Christmas all! I have just been given the new CS fill-in......going to see if I can persuade DD to make lego with Dh then I can read it now....while munching on after eights!!!

Happy Christmas. Waiting for dd2 to finish The CS headmistress. She's named her new doll "Mary Lou" and the toy cat "Joey"...

Hope everyone's having a good day. Hels, enjoy your new haul, and let us know if you recommend it. Congratulations on a DD of such impeccable taste, DeWee, and I hope her doll doesn't start bossing you all around and butting in where she's least expected. Maybe your DD can stage rescue scenes involving the cat?

Here's the penultimate instalment.

Taking silence for assent, she continued. ‘Would you tell me about the fir-tree festival? I mean, how it was in the Olden Times, when it was a Christian festival, before the Second Disturbance. Sergeant McDonald sang us an old carol, and it was so beautiful, it made me cry. She said there were things about Christianity that were beautiful, as well as things that were hateful. Is she right, Great-Grandmama? Mother won’t talk about religion. There were such lovely pictures of the old fir-tree festival in the museum, but when I asked Captain Drummond about them, she said to ask at home, because she’s not allowed to teach about religion to under-15s. It’s no use asking Mother, though. She just gets angry and says it’s evil and I’m too young to understand. But I want to know about the fir-tree festival so badly. Please won’t you tell me?’

‘Christmas, child. Your fir-tree festival was called Christmas. When I was a girl it was a time of loving and giving. But you mustn’t be hard on your mother. She can’t understand. By the time she was born, at the turn of the century, Christmas had lost most of its meaning. It was simply an excuse for big companies to make money. I watched my children’s generation sleepwalking into disaster, made greedy for things they didn’t need, and trained to think and act like toddlers, always wanting more. It was hard on your mother. She was born into the time of plenty, then saw the Displacement and the Second Disturbance tear the world apart. It’s no wonder she doesn’t trust religion. Ah, but it was so different when I was a girl. The best thing about Christmas was the nativity play.’

Oh now I reeeeeeeeallly want the final instalment. Please, Auntie Mornington?

Merry Christmas, everyone! I hope you are all having a truly Chaletian Christmas, filled with nativity plays and new dolls and Grossmutters and snow and not going into the salon until Frau Mensch says you may!

Is that Joey I spy, Mornington ? Extra special milk for you tonight, my lamb. I would offer my own CS writings to the thread, but as I wrote them when I was 12, they're really not up to the standard already set by our resident authoresses.

I'm halfway through reading my new 1st edition hardback Jo to the Rescue which the Christ Child DM left in my shoe under the tree this morning! It's a real one for CS bingo: competitive childbearing, unsolicited advice from Joey, six foot of manhood, everyone being mean to Sybil, a few others I've already forgotten, and the eternal EBD knows nothing about children: "I 'peak le F'ancais and En'lis' too," says Tessa. Who is 18 months. And bi-lingual.

Stifled a giggle at "the best thing about Christmas was the nativity play", which is so perfectly Chaletian/Maynardian but a sentiment I just cannot quite comprehend! This is lovely, mornington, really looking forward to reading the final part.

I have just spent some of my Christmas money on Champion, at last, cos I am now finished cheerfully slashing Peggy Burnett. But GGBP are closed til well into January so I won't get it for ages. :( I have a feeling there is some good reason to buy direct from ggbp when a title is still in print (this may be nonsense, or at any rate I can't expand on why this might be so), but I was v tempted to look around for someone posting sooner...

I have also ordered Streatfeild's Babbacombe's, and while I was perusing the Greyladies site I found this article (top one) - has anyone here read any of the (non-EBD, 'school stories for adult readers') books mentioned? I can't justify buying any more books this month but pretty much all of those are going straight to near-the-top of the list when I have more funds!

Happy christmas chaletians every where.

I have the fill in book " guides of the CS" awaiting me on the sofa, and DH has given me a kindle so my e-reading can get a little more comfy. off to eat more choccy biscuits and read a bit.

I have been in that shop! The Old Children's Bookshelf, in the Canongate in Edinburgh - I got a beautiful copy of Rose in Bloom by Louisa May Alcott in there, plus my first 2 Abbey Girls books. It's v near my work - I must wander that way when i'm back at work in April after payday and see if it's still there. I am hugely taken by the description of all those Greyladies books too, although slightly tickled by the assumption that only elderly virgins read such things. I am keeping that website open on my phone until the end of Jan when I can afford a book or two once more.

Mornington, I love your futuristic worldview with the fir-tree festival! More! More! Pretty please with a cherry on top?

As a child I loved the Nativity plays - to the point of re-reading them over and over. I'm now completely bemused as to what on earth I saw in them. I haven't read any of the books in the article, Nell - maybe a late Christmas present to self is called for.

As an end-of-Christmas present, here's the rest of The Fir-Tree Festival. Sleep tight and pleasant extra-special milk-induced dreams of your very favourite CS stories for Christmas night!

'The best thing about Christmas was the nativity play.’

‘What’s a – a – ’tivity play, Grand’ma?’ Elisa had been listening, though she'd barely understood anything the old lady had said.

‘The Nativity is the most wonderful and the truest story in the world, and the world needs it now, more than ever.’ And, in a quavering voice, Helena Maynard –she had never married – told the Christmas story. At the end of it, she lay back, exhausted. ‘Josie, my dearest, there’s something I’ve been meaning to give you, and now seems as good a time as any.’ She indicated the drawer under the bed, where her few personal possessions were stored. ‘You’ll find a bundle of paper wrapped in a lime-green cloth.’ Josie went over to the bed and found the package. ‘Bring it over here.’ Obedient as ever, the dark-eyed girl did as she was told. Her great-grandmother carefully unwrapped the cloth to reveal a typed manuscript.

‘A Wartime Christmas. This was the first Christmas play ever written by my mother. She loved it best of all her plays. You are named for her, child. She would have been so proud of you. I want you to have it now. Who knows, perhaps one day soon, the world will be ready for another Nativity play. I want you to keep it safe and sound until that day arrives. Will you do that for me, my little Josephine?’

Josie had stared in wonder at the old, old manuscript, and had nodded.

*

Now, several hours later, Josie felt she understood the fir-tree festival for the first time. Yes, it was about singing and dancing, and for once in the year, having lots of good things to eat and not having to worry about where the next meal was coming from. Yes, it was about laughing and joking, and telling stories and looking forward to better times. Yes, it was a time for enjoying the company of good friends, and remembering to tell them you loved them, and asking for forgiveness for the year’s many small hurts inflicted through minor acts of carelessness and remembered with pain. But it was about more than that. Josie understood that now. One day she’d see this play of her great-great-grandmother’s performed again. Yes, she’d do that before she was very much older, or her name wasn’t Josephine Mary Maynard.

That is really lovely Mornington, especially the ending. You are so clever. I offer you and cries of author author.
I love the handing down of things, stories and songs between generations of women. I often tell my grandchildren about things my granny told me (they know rather a lot of Victorian music hall songs I'm afraid) and I hope they will do the same.
The Eleanor Marx biography is going to be brilliant. What a life.