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.

Ooh, I have goosebumps reading that! It's beautiful and very clever - such a gorgeous mix of sheer loveliness and little bits which make me grin (Len never marrying! The like-green cloth! The closing line!).
Thanks, mornington.

for the author. That was lovely thank you.

That was lovely!

grrrr kindle. I'm realising why I was resistant to ereaders... bloody thing.
prefer a real book.

Thank you Mornington!

Just finsished -pinching-- reading Chalet School headmistress.

Don't read on if you don't want spoilers.

I enjoyed it. Plainly not EBD writing in style, but I didn't mind that, I find it more trying when they're plainly trying to imitate and just missing.
The only bit that I really didn't like is when she snaps at the nurse and says "You're not even qualified..."
Because I can get she's angry at the time, but the nurse is right when she says "you say what you really feel when you're angry" and I don't think she would have lashed out like that. She might have got angry, or withdrawn from everyone, but I don't think she would have even thought that, so she wouldn't have said it.

i felt there could have been more hints that there was something wrong at the Chalet school. There were a couple of "she felt they weren't telling her everything" but I think there should have been more-perhaps when she was better she could be told a little without the full extent. That does mean it doesn't stand alone as well, you need to have read Gay to understand that.
I also wasn't sure with Bill saying that she needed to read all letters first whether Jo or someone else had written to Miss A to tell her or whether Bill was just afraid they would.

But I liked the gradual recovery. I think they'd got it very right when Miss A made a fuss about them telling Jem but not her.
Going to stay with her cousin was a nice touch, as was the will reading of her SIL. Perhaps her thoughts would have strayed more to Grizel when talking to her niece.
You got to see a lot of Miss A's thoughts and background, pretty much all of which made sense with what we know-although I had got the impression that her mum died while she was at boarding school not a day school, but i think that was impression not actual fact.

Definitely worth getting-even if dd2 did cry "copious tears" and have to be put to bed with a headache afterwards.

That's Hilda Annersley: Headmistress isn't it, DeWee?

I thought that too, about the bit where she snaps that the nurse isn't even qualified. It's like a mask-slipping moment, and I don't believe she would have thought it either. Also it kind of jars for me with how very very pro-Hilda the book is, in a way - if I held a character in such great esteem, I don't think id make her one flaw secret snobbery.

The business of her really not hearing what's going on at the school made perfect sense for me, though - I think it's v consistent with the bit where Miss Bubb turns up again in Excitements and Miss Annersley seems to really never have heard the full extent of the problems in Gay.

Plus remember how CS women have to be shielded from real life just because they're pregnant, so definitely I can see that someone (especially a female someone) would be v v shielded from the stresses of real life whilst off work recuperating.

That's right. I had to sneak the book back to Dd2's room before she missed it fat chance in the heap and couldn't remember the actual title.

I don't think Miss A would have heard the full extent, but the very small hints that there was something up, I would have found very frustrating if I hadn't read Gay. It comes across as a subplot which never quite gets explained-a bit like when an author says "and later on they were to be proved how wrong they were..." and you think how exciting that sounds, but at the end you go back scouring the book to find out where it was followed up to find there were no further mentions. It's a particular dislike of mine though, so maybe I'm being a bit oversensitive.

I think she could have snapped over the nurse chattering, or rearranging things, or "stop treating me as a baby", or even "just go away and leave me alone". Or if it had to be over that maybe it could have been while she was coaching her and she could have lost patience and said something along the lines of "you're never going to pass if...".

And talking of Gay... in a different way: I'm regretting letting Ds read "The Gay Dolphin Adventure" (Lone Pine series, Malcolm Saville).

Bearing in mind the only thing he knows about the word "gay" is that it was banned at school (thanks, headmaster. You would think a head would have more knowledge of 7yo boys' minds than to tell them certain words were banned. Ds had no intention of using any of the words he gave until he listed them )

He particularly liked the lines where they see a picture on a map of the "Gay Dolphin", and it says "you can tell he's gay by the wicked look in his eye..."
He's now going up to people and saying "Look I'm a dolphin", then stretched his face to a peculiar grin "Now I'm a gay dolphin". Hopefully he'll have run out of finding it amusing by the time he goes back into school. Doesn't help his sisters giving knowing smirks to each other when he says that.

But I am looking forward to writing the list of books he's read over the holidays. His teacher is young enough I doubt very much she's heard of any of them.

I want that for my epitaph! "You could tell she was gay by the wicked look in her eye."

And yes yes yes. Hundreds of better opportunities for snapping. It is a really odd choice - unless you were looking to make a point about pervasive (upper) middle class snobbery, which I really don't imagine the author was.

DeWee, your kids sound fab! And I'm with your dd2 in crying copious tears - the ending just about finished me off. It's been a while since I read it and now that my memory's going I can't remember enough details to join in with what I thought about the snapping moment, though I don't remember it jarring. Can't even remember the nurse's name. But I'd quite like to read a spin-off about what happened next to her if anyone feels like obliging.

I've just been reading through the "growing up in a big family" thread. And there's one person who talks about her large family of around 10 children. Now going to quote as I don't think that's fair: But does this remind anyone of anybody?

"I was one of the older ones of 11. when I was little dm was great fun and really involved with all we did, but when it got down to the younger ones she didn't do the fun things she did with us, and seemed to have little interest in them. The older ones ended up with a lot of repsonsibility.
I think she just enjoyed the attention she got with babies..." (paraphrased and slightly changed, I think if you've read it you'll recognise the post I've taken if from, but it won't be searchable)

I read the Miss Annersley snapping bit as the result of an editorial request to make her less perfect. Otherwise it's a bit like the humongous fan fiction epic (which I love and eagerly await the next instalment of on SDL) which has Miss Annersley on an unbelievably high pedestal. It does jar a little after a while - she's just too thoughtful, giving, religious, devoted etc... And I like all that stuff normally.

Yes, and possibly it's unfair to respond "don't make her too perfect! - but don't make her imperfections so imperfect" - but I do completely agree with what DeWee says, that there are other ways she could have lost her temper and hurt the nurse's (Jan? Is that right? Possibly Jan Wetherall or v similar?) feelings without seeming to betray such an un-Miss-Annersley deep-seated belief.

I definitely must qualify that by adding that I really enjoyed the book, and in many ways the things I enjoyed most are exactly the things that automatically disqualify it from being an 'official' fill-in - not especially targeted at the nice young girl of the 1940s etc, jumping about chronologically, focusing primarily on the staff, even away from the school etc. That said, there are some points which would have been picked up in the GGB editing process and which could have improved the book, so it's a shame that that opportunity would never have been on the cards.

What do we all think of Miss Annersley in canon, btw? Is she an interesting and nuanced character, or is she more the 'perfect headmistress' stereotype? I think - and I am sure I am plagiarising this thought from elsewhere but not sure where - that EBD does a nice line in (accidentally?) making 'real' characters out of recognisable stereotypes, notably Elisaveta and Biddy, but I can never quite decide whether I think this is true in the case of Miss A...

I didn't see that thread DeWee but it is a startling likeness! And again, poses the same question I often come back to - did EBD realise that Jo might not be to everyone's taste irl, even if all the other characters adore her? Is she sometimes deliberately made less perfect, and EBD isn't really condoning every aspect of her parenting, her tactlessness, her attention-seeking?

I enjoyed that Hilda Annersley book too! Has anyone read "To all appearance dead"? A sort of murder/mystery set at a girls school book conference??

That book sounds fun, hels, but I haven't read it - have you? Do you recommend it? I googled the author, and I see she's written two modern school stories (for adults? not sure), one of them just published. Anyone know anything about them?

I was thinking about the audience for the 'official' GGBP fill-ins. Nell said they read as if they're targeted at the nice 1940s schoolgirl which I agree with to a point - but it's more a case of aimed at the 21st-century adult woman thinking herself into the vantage point of the nice 1940s schoolgirl (or what we imagine that vantage point to be). And where EBD was writing for real schoolgirls who didn't know what was coming next either in real life or in Chalet-land and who may be coming new to the stories, the fill-in authors write for readers who already know and love the books and the characters, and have a reasonably intimate knowledge of how their lives will pan out and society around them change. I sometimes wonder how EBD would write for such an audience - would she be more explicit about the foibles of her most cherished characters? E.g. would she be able to round out Hilda as a character when writing for adults, in a way she felt she couldn't for juveniles? Or if Nell's right about Jo sometimes being deliberately made less than perfect, might that have been explored in more depth?

I haven't read the thread, DeWee, but it does sound eerily as though Joey is watching us! Hey, we could start a new game of posting as CS characters on random MN threads and see if we can spot each other

I have just got it for my kindle, but have not read it yet. Saving it for when I have finished next terms plans....

Hehehehe, next term's plans makes you sound like a very naughty Middle, hels. The prefects had better watch out for squalls!

If only!!!!! (grin)

how do you do those face things then???

With square brackets instead of round ones, hels.

mornington that is a brilliant plan and would be v amusing, apart from that MNHQ seem to be v hot on funny trolling ATM. :(

With fill-ins, I'm fairly certain that 'aimed at the girl reader of the time' is stated GGBP policy, though you're absolutely right to point out that that's v subjective as the actual audience is (I imagine) predominantly adult women. Conversely, I can't help thinking that Reunion was written for adult women, though I remember at least one person on this thread who loved it as a child so I may be miles off!

ah!!!!

Thinking more about this, I think there's a tangible difference with Oberland which I imagine was aimed at slightly older readers.

But then there's all the quite dark stuff that's vaguely hinted at throughout - the Venables' marriage, Madge's obstetric history, Herr Marani's v sad death - it's definitely not a children's world of untainted lightness, even though it feels very cosy and comforting to read.

I agree. There are bits that are just so very sad. Herr Marani and Luigia being just two of those bits.