A fête worse than the Chalet School

[EmilyAlice]

Roll up, roll up!
Bid for a mortgage on the doll's house! Pin the tail on the St Bernard! Guess the weight of the handsome doctor! (Or pin the tail on the doctor and guess the weight of the St Bernard). Knit a lime green liberty bodice against the clock!
The Chalet School fête is open.....

I wish I had the prequel

I think I'm ready, mornington - tussore blouses, trim tunics with revers which someone will need to pull into shape with their French fingers, simple velveteen evening dresses. Plus handkerchiefs marked with my full name of course (as I am royal and furrin I have lots of elaborate names, so there's not a lot left to blow my nose on). Will we get much winter sports this term?

Ou est le computer pour le google translate.

Je ne parlais francais et je need ca pout le comprehension...

Ma francais et tres bon nes pas?

Respondez le plus lontement s'il vous plait.

Enough to make a true born Frenchman tear his hair out

at Witchend's rudeness. Oh my, I'm all of a flutter. I need a lie-down with some special milk and/or a nice doctor.

I've just finished reading the pre-prequel, The Bettanys on the Home Front. Are we safe to discuss it on this thread? Or should I start a separate thread with a spoiler alert? I'd hate to spoil things for anyone intending to read it who hasn't yet.

Apart from saying to EElisaveta - it's worth buying, I think. The first prequel sold out quickly and now commands silly prices, so if you're interested I'd recommend getting it while it's still in print. And of course we all have so much spare cash in January!

Are new Chalet girls welcome? Not a handsome doctor I'm afraid - but I'm remember a decent amount of my guiding first aid.

New girls are always welcome. Someone, probably OOAO, will doubtless soon be along to sheepdog you, but if you are quick someone else might show you where the special milk is kept.

Still very much the newbie here and think its probably not done for new girls to find everything quite so funny- especially when they have to wait for English days to talk.. Mornington! That's heresy - how can you not want to go and play paper games / bath strange babies at the house next door, while being tested for snobbishness?

I wouldn't mind bathing the babies, but now that they're 68 they tend to object and even lock the door if you don't get in there quick.

Welcome, ohdearlord. May I suggest you find a nice secret place to stash your hoard of light country wine before Matey gets a sniff of it? She's so on the spot.

"I wouldn't mind bathing the babies, but now that they're 68 they tend to object and even lock the door if you don't get in there quick. "

Happy new year my lambs! Somehow this thread fell off my 'threads I'm on' and I was tutting and sighing to myself about how you've all gone off to the Oberland/Canada/somewhere else with suitably crisp and health-giving air and abandoned me. But in fact we have new girls too, gasping over the trilingual system and eagerly awaiting tea with Aunty Joey - she's an authoress, you know - probably your favourite authoress, in fact.

I'd love to discuss the pre prequel! How long do we have to leave it before assuming silence is permission to proceed? My most pressing question is free from spoilers, anyway - 'Spider' Carthew, who I think also appears in the first prequel - is she May Carthew? Or some relation? Surely her surname isn't coincidence, but unless I skimmed over it I don't think this is ever actually explained?

I'm also v excited about the imminent publication of Eustacia next month - it's not a favourite, but it's one of only two Tyrolean gaps on the bookshelf so will be a satisfying acquisition. Also I'm geekily excited to see the illustrations - I love so many of the original NKB pictures and I don't think I've seen any of those from Eustacia before.

Welcome, Ohdearlord! You'd better check with Deney, but I'm sure you'll be in Inter V with the rest of us, you don't look like either an infant prodigy or a dud. Plus that's Ferry's form, and she is the only mistress with a distinguishable personality a perfect poppet but a tartar when roused.

merlinalison shrieks of laughter at pretty much anything is Authorised Chaletian Behaviour.

No cash for prequels right now . Go ahead and discuss it though, I will busy myself making nectar like coffee for all.

Lovely to see you back again, Nell - I was wondering what had happened to you. My best guess was that you'd fallen off a precipice into a lake, and in the absence of any doctors arriving to rescue you, you'd caught pleuro-pneumonia in the water and ricked your ankle getting out, and were slowly but surely making your way home in a blizzard while being chased by Nazis. Anyway, glad to see you safely made it through.

To The Bettanys on the Home Front. Yes, I was thinking I needed to go back to Taverton High to check on Spider Carthew, as I can't remember much about her in that. Also, are the Van der Windts any relation to the ones who later pitch up at the Chalet School? Given that there haven't been any howls of protest, I'm going to share a few first impressions - if anyone is concerned about spoilers, stop reading now!

I loved the period feel of it, and the little details of life at the time. Like Dick putting on his stockings - who knew? Although I did at first think that glass cloth (which I hadn't heard of) must be another period thing, but when I googled it, turned out it wasn't invented until 1916 in Nebraska, so slightly off there. But pedantry aside, it felt authentic to me, e.g. the way Dick talks with all the references to 'chaps'. I also liked seeing a very young Grizel, and I liked the way it wasn't overdone, but enough to make me think, 'oh yes, that's how it could have been'. I think Grizel is one of EBD's best characters, so anything about her is a winner for me! And I thought the teenage Madge was very believable - her strength and courage in getting on with things after her parents' death rings true. I thought the domestic set-up was also very convincing. I've always wondered about the mother-child dynamic, and why there weren't other parent figures in Joey's life, and I thought Helen Barber managed that very well. I was less impressed with the Nanny /Proffered Hand backstory, and I think we could have done without that. And I'd have liked a bit more school-based story, with more development of Spider and Phyl as characters in their own right, but maybe that's asking a bit much.

You know what struck me most about the Carthew/van der Windts (unless this is already covered in Taverton High and I've forgotten it ) - it looks a lot like setting up for another prequel/early fill-in! That was the thing I liked best about it, in a way - very similar to the earlier CS books, there's a real sense that there's loads more story spilling out all over the place, as if the characters and events are real. I think there could definitely be some scope for early 'fill-ins' which don't necessarily deal with missing terms, only with missing events/other perspectives - a bit like Helen Barber's Headmistress does - that's not a missing term, it's the same term as Mystery, but still a whole new story. Definitely we could hear the story of how Spider (if it is she) ends up coming to teach in Madge's school, I think there would be GGBP interest in publishing that, and it sounds as though the author maybe has all of that already mentally planned out. There's obviously also still space to write another prequel fitting in between Home Front and Taverton High, more of Madge's school days, which would be brilliant to read.

I really liked the early meeting of Joey and Grizel - that was well done, I thought. And yes, I agree on how well she put together Madge's role in caring for baby Joey in a way which made sense of their relationship by the time School at opens.

I have to confess there were bits that I skimmed - the Proffered Hand thing and also the letters from Dick - but that might speak more about how busy/tired I was at the time.

(It wasn't a lake, btw, mornington - the ground opened up and I fell right down into the bowels of the earth. Luckily old Uncle Giant/Journey had warned me that some of the secret passageways within really do lead to the centre of the earth (this fact helpfully confirmed by a geography/science mistress) so I patiently waited for a burly bearded peasant-man to haul me out in return for a kiss. Not to worry, Matey put me straight to bed with some hot milk and after 72 hours' enforced bed rest I am right as rain.)

I hope his whiskers didn't scratch, Nell. Are you going to play some mad tricks to celebrate your return from the brink of death?

Yes, I hope, hope, hope think you're right about the scene being set for more fill-ins. The obvious one would cover Joey's illness and the development of her subsequent delicacy, and I do hope we get to see the new Mrs Cochrane's reaction to the fact that her new husband forgot to mention his five-year-old daughter until after their wedding day. I recommend going back and reading Dick's letters when you have time - I enjoyed them a lot. In fact I wouldn't be averse to a fill-in-prequel set mainly in Dick's boarding school if anyone feels up to writing that. But most of all I'd love to have more about Taverton High and Miss Harding who seems like a role model for the headmistress Madge later becomes.

Ah, it was celebratory apple pie beds and bubble baths all round mornington until Miss Annersley pitched up with a certain something in those blue/grey/brown eyes which have never yet needed glasses. She's just so frightfully on the spot.

I think you're completely right, btw, about the important prequel events which still need writing - and am I right in thinking that these things actually all happen close enough in sequence to put together in a single book? (Thinking of Jo's illness and the arrival of Grizel's step-mother - both of which would happen with Madge still at school, right?)

What I've liked best with all of Helen Barber's books (inc also the book of short stories), as well as the fact that they're obviously well-written, is that her readings of key characters are so in line with my own - Grizel, Madge, Nell, Sybil especially spring to mind. In a weird way I almost feel like her treatment of some characters is 'more authentic' than EBD herself sometimes was - like when EBD has Madge randomly pull her nearly-finished daughters out of school to keep her company whilst travelling, or the whole Sybil and Josette/vanity thing.

Forgot to add. I'm currently reading Josephine Elder's The Encircled Heart - anyone else read this one? It's about a woman GP in the interwar years, apparently with some stuff on balancing work/marriage/motherhood (I'm only just getting to the marriage bit). I bought it quite enthusiastically because I so much loved her Lady of Letters, but this one hasn't yet captivated me in quite the same way.

I am amused to spot her obviously archetypal Desirable Man though: he's one of these fortunate types who coast merrily through life never having to work for anything and consequently never understanding things as thoroughly or as seriously as her heroines do. Many comparisons to a 'cheeky little boy' especially when he is flirting. I find him extremely annoying but am trying to remind myself he is preferable to EBD's preferred option, the dictatorial tranquillising doctor!

Yes, I've read The Encircled Heart though quite a while ago so I don't remember it that well. I think it might be the one with the - erm - interesting politics towards the end, all very 'reds under the beds' but I won't say any more because I'm pretty sure it's after the bit you're reading now. Did you get the Greyladies edition? I've got several of them - I think the ones I like best are some of the Susan Scarlett (aka Noel Streatfeild) ones which aren't brilliant plot- or character-wise, but are crammed with really intriguing period detail, especially about the theatre.

Meant to say, one of the episodes I liked in Home Front was where Madge has gone to bed worn out and upset, and Joey soothes her to sleep by 'reading' to her - I could imagine this was where Jo developed her taste for bringing the sick back to life! I kind of wished Helen Barber had had her singing in her baby voice, but I suppose that would have been too obvious.

Mm, I'm not sure whether it is that one, unless I've merrily skimmed over that bit? There is a brief (not wholly necessary) bit in the middle where the protagonist happens across an embittered paper boy, but quickly explains to him that the reason she is a GP and he is a paper-boy is because her father worked harder than his father. Then she introduces him to her academic husband who duly inspires him into getting a scholarship to the university. Initially he just becomes a better-educated Marxist, but when he turns up during WW2 he appears to be delighted with having got out of fighting. It's annoying, but very small and self contained (almost more annoying for that reason though - all the more bloody gratuitous!).

On the whole, a lot of it disappointed me, but maybe that's partly just the comparison to Lady of Letters (which actually also disappoints me in the end). Really the point that annoys me in both is that the central character marries a self-absorbed arse - the main difference being that Marion in The Encircled Heart does so much earlier on in the story than Hilary in Lady of Letters.

Yes, it is a Greyladies one, and I also have quite a few! I think my favourites have been Noel Streatfeild (under her own name) - The Winter is Past and most especially Parson's Nine, although that's another where the last few chapters reduced my overall enjoyment. I like the gentle humour - they're very well observed I think. I did read and quite enjoy Babbacombe's with the gloriously Joan Baker like Dulcie, but it's not an absolute favourite. I also really liked Gladys Mitchell's Convent on Styx (which was the first Mitchell I read) and I've just acquired her On Your Marks which is apparently a career novel (another first for me) rather than a detective one. I like Greyladies very much, conceptually - they mostly tick the same boxes for me as the CS, whereas I'm somehow less inclined to try new (to me) actual children's books along the same lines, so I've almost no interest in non-CS GGBP. I do have DFB's Triffeny waiting to be read, on the basis of Rosemary Auchmuty's enthusiasm about a spinster character in it, and also a Josephine Elder that I picked up cheaply on Charing Cross Road again on the strength of Letters. But that's pretty much it.

Oh, I loved On Your Marks - it's kind-of a career novel, but a lot of it is set in a women's PE college. I like imagining Grizel there, if only she'd been allowed to go. I think I might not have read the Noel Streatfeild ones you mentioned.

I liked one whose name I can't quite remember, possibly Poppies for England but I might have got that wrong. It's set in a theatre, and there's an episode in a holiday camp which reminds me of the holiday camps I went to as a child in the 1970s - I don't think a lot had changed. The thing that really stood out for me was how well she'd portrayed the lives of working women during and just after the war, having to make everything work and then deal with traumatised strangers returning from the fighting - and what a relief it must have been to have a week in a holiday camp with someone else responsible for all the chores.

Did we all have fun sledging over the weekend? I hope everyone remembered their coloured glasses and no-one's beginning their working week with a bad case of hangover snowblindness.

I was in a local charity shop this weekend and I saw a copy of Queechy! there were no illustrations in it though, so i could not get a clue as to why Jo tore Molly Bettany's out!!

whispers (partly as I'm sure the prees would NOT approve and partly because we are all rather unwell at the moment). Does anyone know if the transcripts Gmail is still up? If so what the password is? Could some kind soul please send me a PM? We can't even order them from libraries here so it's abridged Amazon versions or the kids' inheritance!

I have PM'd you ohdear. I trust you will not read lying down, and always wear a pretty lime green bed jacket to read them?

I couldn't really take On your Marks seriously once I got to the bit about lifesaving all those very big young policemen in their swimming trunks! The ones I've enjoyed most I think were the Susan Pleydell ones, despite the snobbishness, although Susan Scarlett / Noel Streatfield came a very close second.

Oh, I snorted in a most unladylike fashion when I got to the policemen in their swimming trunks! (For the uninitiated, they are said to be "even bigger out of their clothes", or something similarly snort-inducing. They "peel big", apparently. ) I really enjoyed it - lovely undemanding feel-good stuff. I haven't read any Susan Pleydell - I shall plan on doing so, I think.

hels my lamb maybe it was Mollie Bettany's poor damaged copy of Queechy that you happened across.

There is an almost-throwaway remark in On Your Marks which I wondered about in relation to the CS. One of the other teachers has taken against Our Heroine, and so she isn't much interested in ensuring her students behave well in Our Heroine's lesson. She doesn't go as far as explicitly suggesting to her pupils that she dislikes the colleague, but they realise that, if they behave poorly for Our Heroine, their form mistress won't come down particularly heavily on them.

Now, I know that in EBD's world, fairness and Playing The Game and tempering justice with mercy completely characterises the staff (and the students), but I did think this was an interesting angle to ponder. I could well imagine similar dynamics playing out at the CS, especially early on when the staff actually have a wide range of characters. Eg Ivy Norman - she can't control her class (Lintons), and when she complains about having to be housemistress to Middles as well as Juniors, Nell Wilson is decidedly unsympathetic (New CS). Or there's Herr Laubach - somehow it's legitimate for Joey to wind him up almost for fun, and the 'punishment' of being taken out of his lesson doesn't really punish her. I can't imagine that the same behaviour in another of her weaker subjects (maths, science) would have been met with such levity.

I had the log in details of the one drive account which had the book transcripts but when I try to use them now they do not work - does anyone know if they have been changed and if so what are the new details?

Many thanks