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.

Could you also bring some of those lovely cakes you made for Madame's birthday, DeWee?

I'll get baking

DeWee that cover is the worst of the worst covers, I've always hated it! Emily I wish it was a real party the food and drink sounds scrummy

Going back to Margot I read the transcript of her throwing the bookend and Miss Annersley does threaten her with expulsion which makes it a bit better than the PB version.

My virtual hospitality knows no bounds
Turn right in Paris and left in Caen and you will find it with no problem at all.
If the weather is like today it will be damp, dark and misty. The most likely hazard will be acres of Norman mud mixed with cow poo, which may mean that you end up a bit smelly after humping the kapok vigorously for half an hour.
There will be roaring wood-burning stoves in the sitting-room and library. I thought we could put Joey in the library (where she can bitch about the fact that there is no open fire), you can make your curtseys, present your gifts and top up her calva bottle which she will drink through a straw.
The party will be elsewhere.

Yes good point DeWee was Margot so good at sport anyway?

Ruey is actually going to be a games teacher but maybe she was kept down just for that reason.

I will come to the shed. Been hanging around with Vic and Joan and have some shop cake and dodgy ciggies.

Won't we all gather around first so Joey can comment on how haggard we look and how fat we are?

Also Emily she may need a tour of your chateau to advise you now to decorate it better.

Lots of stands with flowering plants, and Dutch still life portraits and a huge playpen.

You have no open fire? Good grief you will be telling us next you have no radio parties!

Ooh, I don't know, I think there are some other covers that run Triplets close... The one of Problem always makes me wince in sympathy for Joan link or the one of And Jo in which Jo looks frankly menacing link

I am always really confused (if also charmed) by the weather signs. I have never seen the moon tipping, or the hills looking like they are cut out of cardboard. I would be happy to disregard it all as some quirk of the scenery in Tirol, but I'm sure these signs persist into the Armishire books... Definite recollections of weather wisdom predicting the rain in Rosalie...

I am a member of the Sybil fan club. Even if EBD was set on portraying her unsympathetically, she could at least have been far more interesting than she ends up being after she gets all muted by that accident. EBD is bloody weird about blame though, and there is no real consistency in what people are to blame for and what should and shouldn't be forgotten or explained as being six of one, half dozen of the other: Sybil, Margot, Eustacia, Jack Lambert, Mrs Pertwee, Jacynth's aunt...

I think Sybil is one of the worst treated characters in the series. As a toddler she's made to feel pushed out by all her mother's wards. As a young child her father stops speaking to her for several weeks after the accident with Josette and Matron has to step in and tell him he's causing emotional damage to an already upset and guiltstricken little girl with his attitude. A few years later her parents decamp to Canada without her; her mother doesn't even bother to write to her but just sends messages in her letter to Hilda; and then casually announces that they'll be staying on for another few months.
Then, after being promised an opportunity to go to a college of needlework in London to pursue her artistic talent, Madge suddenly changes her mind and insists that Sybil come to Australia to keep her company, as if that's some kind of fulfilling way for a young adult to live her life.
I normally really like Madge, but her treatment of Sybil was ill judged to put it mildly.

Oh my god, that Problem cover! Joan looks as if she's wearing a mouth guard and is about to take a swipe at Rosamund with the hockey stick! That is dire.

Margot is mentioned at being the best of the triplets at tennis, in the context of the fact that she is currently playing terribly and then cheeks Hilary Bennet and fails to report herself to Miss Burn. (Theodora?) That's the only evidence I can think of for her being good at games. She never seems to stand out at sport, unlike for example Katherine Gordon and Blossom Willoughby, or Grizel, or Tom Gay, Elfie, Bride, even. Con seems distinctly on the unsporty side, what with deciding she can't really be fagged with lacrosse. Not sure about Len either.

Ah, my lambs, humping the kapok may not come off. Haven't you seen those strange yellowish clouds? Snow, my children, for a ducat!

Radio (wireless) parties would be lovely, but the walls are too thick for the signal. My SLOC failed to get a big enough antenna.
Actually it is funny because we have UK telly and radio by satellite and the Guardian delivered to our ipads, but people still turn up and tell us what is happening in the UK as if we were in the foothills of the Himalayas with The Times delivered three weeks late by special messenger.
Yes I feel angry about Sibyl too. Shall we invite her to the party?

If we invite Sybil do we have to invite Peggy and Len as well? They are such drips I don't think they will add to the festive atmosphere.
Bride would be fun though and I am hoping Felicity and Cecil rebelled a little when they became teenagers.

Those covers are brilliant! What's going on with the hairstyles in Triplets? I can remember having a mauve dress just like those, though, I think they were all the rage c.1985 (or perhaps a year or two earlier, high fashion never quite being my thing). Great box-pleat gymner in the And Jo cover, though.

I stayed up all night with needle and thread, putting the final touches to my Baby Pict costume. Has the fight with the Baby Angles been worked into the choreography of Humping the Kapok? Or shall I just improvise?

Let's invite Margot, she sounds much more partyish than Len and Peggy put together. And Ailie.

More favourite bizarre covers: Lavender (poor, poor Bride!) and Camp ...

Margot is also good at lacrosse, in Ruey, in a typically Margot-ish way - shows great promise but plays wildly and will probably decapitate someone at any moment.
In fairness, I don't think there's much evidence of Hilary Burn or Peggy Burnett being very sporty until they reappear as PT mistresses...

Or Changes ...Lintons ... I could happily look these up all day...

The later Armada artist really couldn't do tight curls could they. They all look like a rather bad swimming hat.

If we're inviting Margot, can we request she goes for a check up at the dentist the night before?
Flying bookends are not part of humping the kapok.

Talking of Con (which we weren't) in The Island there's another pupil -Rosalie I think - who has 'decided' that she's going to be a writer when she leaves school, in the same way that her classmates have decided to be a nurse, a teacher, or whatever. Surely, as a writer herself, EBD would have realised that it's not some kind of career choice with a defined pathway. It's something you might, eventually, if you're very very lucky, and very talented be able to make a living out of, but not something you can just fall into after leaving school.

Ah, but maybe that's exactly how it was for EBD, falling? Or maybe she just wanted to bring hope to impressionable young girls...
Actually, if it was Rosalie (and I think it is - ISTR Tom describing it as 'not too shabby' or something, as if they shared the same reading tastes...) then maybe she could 'just write' and never mind if it's publishable or not? She's a rich gel, isn't she, due a Season when she leaves. Did they have such a thing as self-publishing in those days?

One last Armada delight - Bride (again!), in the approximate style of Radclyffe Hall: Bride

See Joan's mouth is what happens to girls who eat shop brought cake.

Look we don't want bloody Peggy or Len to the party for goodness sake let's ask good old Tom instead.

Let's face it she could hump the kapok with the best of them and then she's a bit manly so she could keep the fire stoked and fetch wood etc.

Of course we could always ask MaryLou and push her over a cliff. That would be fun.

Loving the covers. Jo does look menacing doesn't she!

Was brides hair that short?

Matron looks like she's rubbing it in!

But do any of the Chalet school girls ever not achieve their aims? Whether it's which university, or career, they seem to assume they will do it, the only stoppages are usually being needed at home to look after mummy/younger siblings or mummy dying so they need to be housekeepers-although in the latter as long as they're an okay character some distant aunt usually steps into the breech.

They do all achieve DeWee it's the arguing from cause to effect that does it.

The cover for camplooks like a carry on film or God forbid a Benny Hill sketch.

I've never seen the moon tip either. If I did I would assume it was Armageddon not a bit of rain.

Sometimes they seem to change their mind randomly for no particular reason (perhaps this is a v discreet way of hinting they got knocked back from plan A?) - Beth Chester wanted to be a gardener, didn't she? But ends up as Joey's mother's help. There are a couple of others which have slipped my mind for now...

I love how they just 'put their name down' for a university place though.