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.

You need a burly Austrian to carry you over his shoulder into the nearest goatherds' hut, my lamb.
And I v rudely forgot to also thank Rue for a fascinating link!

Patent lock gadget is obviously what my parents had-a "crook lock" is what they call it. It fits on the steering wheel and locks it in place so the wheel can't be turned.

It causes me no end of amusement when my parents arrive (in our nice area where car crime is pretty low) fit the crook lock and remove the radio.

The car is an ancient (20 yo) car that was written off at least once by a small bump on the bumper, and the radio is so old it has a cassette player in it.

I think it's rather sweet myself. but I do like pointing out that a new set of tuyres and a full tank of petrol is probably double the value of the car.

thegarageblog.co.uk/2012/02/22/whatever-happened-to-the-trusty-crook-lock/

My mum had one like that...

Actually, my ex had one too, but a much more substantial thing: it was like a big circle thing which went over the entire wheel. That ex did usually think the world was out to get her. I hadn't really thought about how few people used those by that point in time... Definitely a good fifteen years between seeing my mum use one and meeting my ex who used one.

I wonder whether they would have been v usual (because so obviously practical for old cars you can just jump into) or v unusual (because possibly newly invented?) when Jem had one? And I wonder whether Eigen would have nicked his car, without it?

My parents' one was brought when dm bought her first car (a mini!-black D reg, but not new) in about 1969 ish. I think they were fairly usual back then. Maybe I should offer to sell it as "vintage interest" along with the car

Eigen would have a hacksaw which would fairly quickly get through it.

DeWee
our parents sound very similar.

Thinking about it surely car thieves weren't prevalent in Tyrol before the war!

Made me laugh the other day,can't remember which book, when there's talk of taking public exams for the first time. This was I think the second year in Switzerland so quite late. Must be early 50s so how did those earlier pupils get to university without exam results? Suppose they just put their names down.

Can you imagine the response in Briesau and beyond, if someone had stolen the great Herr Doktor's car?

thebody my lamb they definitely do have public exams during the 'English' era. But then they merrily cancel them all for the first year in Switzerland, because they've got enough to do without adding exams in on top! I'm not sure what they expected the girls due to finish that year and quite possibly go to uni to do. Maybe it was a ploy to get their parents to cough up for another year?

You used to be able to go to University by sitting the relevant "Matriculation" exam for that Uni, as well as A'levels etc. It still existed on the book in the 1980s, although I don't know anyone who went that way. Doing at least part of a degree at a Redbrick University was another way of getting into Oxford and Cambridge.

Interesting - do you think that that's what EBD meant when she referred to girls "putting their name down" for a uni?

Well there is a bit in "Boy" (I think, or its the next bit of his Autobiography) in which Roald Dahl talks about his Mother asking if he wanted to go to Oxford. And he says that was it in those days, if he'd wanted to go he could have gone. He went to work for Shell instead.

The body car thieves don't usually want a 1984 reg estate Volvo, although my df is convinced they might. He used to dry it with a towel when it came in after it rained.

Roald Dahl is more Joey's generation, though? I've just had a quick google and the forerunner to UCAS seems to have been established in 1960 because "previous systems" couldn't cope with the volume of applications, but can't find much on what form those previous systems might have taken! And I don't doubt that the Oxbridge colleges clung on to bizarre and archaic systems for as long as they possibly could.

Would it have been as simple as "you went to a recognised public school, and you say you want to read archaeology? Well, of course, here is your place" right into the 1950s? The past is indeed another country!

Mind you, I went to t'Working Men's Institute as a mature student, so no UCAS or interest in my previous public exams in my case anyway. I just "put my name down" like a good Chalet girl.

Ah I see it. Yes that first year in Switzerland. Yes that did make me smile at the thought of that years ambitious girls. Mind you we all know what happened to Marylin. She our her career before head girl duties.
By the by does anyone know what actually hapoened there? Would love to know. Did she cancel the sale or snub joeys beautiful Christmas play? Or worse refuse to go to guides?

DeWee bless him

my dm worried about people stealing her valuable dolls she watched antiques road show and saw the china ones on there and is convinced her completely vile plastic ones are valuable. She was actually a bit pissed off when the burglars actually didn't take them.

I wish I had out my lads names down for Oxford.

But then we would have missed the beautiful surroundings of Stoke and Stafford for 3 years!

I suppose too if you were posh and rich you went to school for longer so accessed uni easily and if course it must have cost money to go there so was elite. Wow sounds familiar for no doesn't it!

If you were working class you left school at 14 and that was that.

You also are wolfed down shop brought cake, had cheap perms and didn't wash. Good grief of course you couldn't have the likes of that at oxford.

Doesn't jack put Rogers name down for uni?

Also doesn't EDB have a thing about cards? All the bad characters play cards. Diana Skelton and Stuart Raynnor who wanted to seduce Elma Conroy.

Was Bills comment about her allowing men to spend affection on her In a way that could ruin her whole life a hint at getting upduffed?

I quite like the older themes of that book because she was obviously dealing with older girls. Poor Peggy must have been well shocked. Her high light was an Easter at home.

Dm went to Oxford in the early 60s. It was highly contested-actually especially for girls as there were only (I think) about 6 girls' colleges to 20 boys.
In those days if you wanted to apply to Oxford you often applied after your A-levels if they were good enough and would have expected to have got good grades for the special papers as well. I think you also did exams when you applied as well as the interview.

Oh my goodness, can you just imagine a boycott of Joey's touching Christmas play, or the sale of work? Chalet Girls Fight Back? The Chalet School on Strike? I know the recent fill-in deals with the aftermath of the Marilyn Evans affair, so I suppose that's the closest we can get to the details of what exactly went wrong.
(Btw, to me, prioritising one's own schoolwork over Head Girl duties seems totally reasonable. But the school I went to was miles apart from the CS and had no such thing as prefects etc. Would it really be normal to expect a schoolgirl to put those duties over her own educational achievement? ISTR something somewhere - poss also post-Marilyn, or poss wrt having Mary-Lou 'fix' Ted when that's Joey's big idea but the heads are reluctant? - about not lumping too much responsibility on people who have exams that term, or something?)

The staff also play cards, and I think some of the other girls do too. It's only bad if you're putting money on it (like Diana) or if it's Sunday (like Elma), I think. Doesn't one of the staff get mildly bankrupted by the others, on some occasion? I'm inclined to think it's Ruth Derwent in one of the first Swiss books.

I think the bit about Elma is deliberately vague. I tend to read it as the "you're going to end up barefoot and pregnant, and worse, EXPELLED" scene, and I don't think EBD would have been unaware of that reading - but I think it's deliberate that you could also more innocently take it as a fear that Elma would permanently ruin her reputation simply by having unchaperoned coffee with a man. She also doesn't ever say what exactly the letters say, do they? There seems to be some arrangement to meet, but whether that's for a sedate cup of coffee in Zurich or for a dirty weekend in Paris is never made clear. It has to just sound like The Worst Thing Possible, doesn't it?
Then there's the bit where they go to the opera and hear Gretchen am Spinnraden and Casanova(??) too, in case you missed the moral first time round.

I really quite like Oberland. But I suppose it must be tricky to juggle writing books about 18yos with having an audience of mainly much younger girls.

My DGM also watches those antiques programmes and believes her bits of beloved tat ornaments and oddments are worth lots of money too. Again, often comparing hand-crafted china with mass-produced plastic stuff. I just nod - it's not like she's got any intention of selling - but my DM can't resist arguing the point...

I might put 2yo DS's name down for the LSE now. I only had a child to live out my thwarted ambitions, after all. And if I decide it for him now, he'll never know any different and might not think it worth arguing about later.

DeWee yes am guessing the 60s were the change decade and the shifting of values but still your dm must have been bloody clever to overcome the prejudices then.

Nell my lamb I hope you have ingrained instant obedience in him. Just think as soon as he's able to your dh can insist on him waiting on you. What a spoilt woman you will be

By all means put his name down but ensure he's amongst boys as soon as possible.

Yes the cards thing was regarding money as Stuart Raynor plays cards for money, reminds me of Rhett Butler.

And of course Diana Skelton steals to pay back her debts. Scandalous.

The responsibility thing is MaryLou isn't it over Naomi??? Or Ted!?? Joey breezes in to tell them about baby number 10/11 and tells them to let MaryLou sort her out. Can't remember which one.

Oops *DeWee wasn't implying your dm wasn't posh or rich either as well as clever.

Bugger you know what I mean.

Oh, Naomi, of course it is. I always confuse Trials and Theodora cos I had them as a 2-in-1 as a child.

Of course DS is with boys now my lamb, learning to play clock golf and whatnot. I dropped him at Winnie Embury's about six months ago. I have so much more time to throw feathers around the garden now!

My FIL was pretty poor, left school at 14. But got a job with ICI who got him his qualifications part time, and he got both a degree and a doctorate that way. DH's mum (I never met because she died young) also left school pretty young, worked in a Florist for a while, then got a job in Science and met FIL when she was studying for her degree part time.
My Mum got expelled. But then got herself jobs in London, working at a technical publishers until I was born. (Which I found mildly amusing in the 80s when so many posh graduates wanted to work in publishing.)

Of course DS is with boys now my lamb, learning to play clock golf and whatnot. I dropped him at Winnie Embury's about six months ago. I have so much more time to throw feathers around the garden now!

Didn't Bill go to the LSE?

My school had a special class called Upper Sixth Remove which was for people taking Oxford and Cambridge entrance the year after A levels. It took me years to work out who they were and why they hadn't left school!

That's interesting about your inlaws, mummytime. I wonder whether any employer would invest so significantly in employees these days? To degree level is one thing, but a doctorate is amazing. My dad left school at 14 too, having just missed by a year or two the introduction of compulsory secondary education and the raising of the school leaving age to 15. He tried to get more qualifications at night school in his 20s but I think he went in at too advanced a level so he got discouraged, dropped out of the course, and spent the rest of his life thinking he was stupid and not up to it. I feel sad about that, because he was a bright guy who obviously wanted to have more education but got made to feel an outsider by the education establishment.

That is sad; it must have been a similar story for so many other people, and certainly no less sad for it. Actually it makes me feel cross, too, as well as sad.

Of course Bill went to the LSE (although, what does this mean, Geography rather than Science? I don't think pure Science was ever taught there, was it?) - Bill is practically perfect in every way. Until she starts waxing lyrical about women's natural domesticity, Eustacia's secret wish to be Joey's friend, or inwardly griping about Gwladys' lack of parlour-maid manners, which is why I resent these transgressions so deeply.

mornington your school had a Special Sixth! I wonder if some people thought they were a special remedial class who weren't yet deemed clever enough to be released into the real world?

So so funny was just thinking mornington had a special sixth!

Nell good good amongst boys. None of that sales of work female brain nonsense.

So if you were a chalet girl who would you be?
Joan Baker is barred

I would be Nancy Chester, brunette and ok but not a leader.

Would anyone claim to ooaoml?

mummy your mother was expelled? Betty or Thekla my lamb. Think shop cake or raw bacon.