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.....

See also: sonsy, revers, brevet relatives and issuing a ukase.

I knew I'd heard someone use 'stentorian' in real life and it came to me when I was getting up this morning. It was the head of my DDs' first school (a lovely little village primary in Sussex where we used to live) who used it to describe the shouty but heart-of-gold cleaner/dinner lady/lollipop lady. His words were, 'She can be rather - erm - stentorian, but the children quickly get used to her and they all love her'. This was at the new parents' meeting the summer before DD1 started in reception. I suspect I was the only parent there who had a clue what he was talking about, and I was dying to suggest that she be asked to write out 100 times what Shakespeare says is an excellent thing in woman but I didn't quite dare.

It's a great word though isn't it? I really must try and get it into DD's vocab!!

My children spent most of yesterday being stentorian. Is there a masculine version of what Shakespeare says is an excellent thing in women, that I can make DS learn? in a few years when he can a) speak and b) write

See also: sonsy, revers, brevet relatives and issuing a ukase.

Ooh, shall we do a word a week?!

DS's key person at nursery commented on his stentorian tones the other day. Obviously she didn't actually use the word stentorian, and I'm now disappointed to realise I've missed a golden opportunity to use it. And the opportunity to suggest he writes out suitable Shakespearean wisdom in an effort to remedy his poor volume control. Literary references are wasted on me. :(

I need to finally read the La Rochelle books quite soon, for the first ever time. I'd been a bit meh at the idea til now - none of the LR characters who cross over into CS world are among my absolute favourites, and the brief CS sojourn on Guernsey didn't much grab me setting-wise (whereas Tyrol, Armishire and even St Briavel's all do), but now I'm looking forward to it.

I ma re-reading the La Rochelles at the moment! I always enjoy them! Janie of La Rochelle is most entertaining!!

I read the La Rochelles not that long ago, and I'm afraid they didn't make much impression. I think some La Rochelle characters appeared in Margaret Bettany: Headmistress, and I dimly recognised them by name, but not much more than that - I couldn't have told you anything about them. The only episode I can remember properly was the Beth Chester backstory which was illuminating but possibly only because I 'know' her from the CS. I liked the scenery, though, and it's made me want to visit.

My favourite is Heather Leaves School. My granny had a copy and it was among my favourites, ranking up there with Rivals, Eustacia and Gay From China, as a kid. It was the only one I'd read back then, but coming to the others in the last few years as they were published by GGBP, I also rate Seven Scamps and Janie Steps In. Janie of La Rochelle is also decent but it was billed as EBD's attempt at a book for older girls, and is very much about Janie and Julian's honeymoon and early married life, so it doesn't have the usual pranks and dramatic incidents that the others abound in. I quite like Gerry Goes To School too - as EBD's first attempt it's certainly worth reading, and Gerry herself features in Rivals. You can play Spot The Common Themes with that with a vengeance! Read the way that the headmistress/prefects think to themselves about Gerry and you'll see what I mean in the prequel-prequel about not having a clue what the other characters think of Madge - it's very over the top and I doubt that any headmistress/head girl (can't remember which off the top of my head) ever thought to herself that "that girl would make a fine martyr", but it does very much show you how Gerry is received by her community. A Head Girl's Difficulties and Maids of La Rochelle made less impact on me - particularly Maids, for some reason. It was the last one I got and I was so excited about finally reading the one where Janie Temple/Lucy is introduced that it fell a bit flat, for me. I do think EBD struggles with books that are not set in a school - she does really well with multiple girls and staff to describe and characterise, but in a domestic setting she never does quite as well. I think that's why Heather Leaves School works so well - it's not set in a school, as the title suggests, but EBD introduces first a bunch of friends for Heather and secondly, a little home-school including some neighbours, and it's the interaction between the eldest girl, Cressie, and Heather, that really makes the book live. Plus it has a v dramatic ending!

Although I never did understand quite why all the Maynards (is it the Russells and Bettanys as well, or just the Maynards?) adopted brevet rank for the Chesters/Lucys/Ozannes, because it seemed like a fairly tenuous friendship between Jo and Janie - friendly enough, but not really all that close, and although Sybil is close friends with Betsy at one point, later on that seems to have gone by the wayside. Bride is friends with Julie Lucy and Nancy Chester, but I still don't think the families seem all that close.

I must stop buying books this month. I have a huge number on my Kindle to be read, plus Lady of Letters arrived yesterday. I have just gone onto Amazon, just wondering, vaguely, how much Stepsisters for Lorna is currently going for...it said £16.50 plus £2.80 p&p for the GGBP edition. I went onto Ebay and discovered a first edition of it for £18.99, hardback, 1948...so I bought it. Hooray!

Cheddar, you're going to have to go on a reading retreat to tackle your backlog. I suggest a summer spent in a remote mountain hut. Faithful Anna will no doubt be overjoyed to take care of your children, with occasional forays to the hut to bring you some delicious baked goodies and deliver clean laundry. You can sleep on a paliasse, and go fishing for mannequins if you need a break from reading.

I always imagined a fairly close relationship between Jo and Janie. Based, now I come to think of it, on the scene in Highland Twins when the train's delayed, and Jo goes round to Janie's house for breakfast - which seemed to me to be something only close friends would do because I would kill anyone who turned up uninvited for breakfast at my house. And it used to be very much the done thing for children to call all friends of their parents Aunt (or Auntie) and Uncle. I can certainly remember doing it in the late 60s and 70s, even with my dad's colleagues - you just didn't use adults' first names so it was the only option apart from Mr & Mrs X.

Has anyone read EJO's Swiss books? I read Patience and her Problems which connects with them recently. Shock, horror, EJO appears to think that some of the patients in the San might have sons as well as daughters perish the thought so there are twin schools for boys and girls. Doesn't she realise that TB was a disease only communicable to parents of daughters? Tsk.

Oh, I rather loved Lady of Letters - although I think it'll be some time before I can read it again - there is a central character/storyline which reminds me an awful lot of my most recent ex.

Re the MBR clans and the LR families. I actually find that all quite interesting now as an adult (and as a mother) in a way that would have totally passed me by as a child because that's so much what it reminds me of - "mummy friends"! apols for awful term but ykwim right? I can rather imagine the Lucys and the Maynards and everyone being in and out of each others' homes all day, and the mothers being friendly with each other largely because they're there and available and willing to listen to each other bore on about potty training or weaning methods or whatever. It's a while since I've read them, but I can especially imagine Jo putting loads of effort into befriending Janie when they first arrive on Guernsey and she's imagining raising her family there at least until she can go back to Austria etc.

Meanwhile, I would like to claim some points for teaching my 3yo to say 'stentorian'. I shall keep up the practice so that he remembers to use it when he goes back to nursery next week. (He shouted through the flat for me, then grinned and said "did you hear my stentorian tones, mummy?" Part of me wonders whether it wouldn't be more correct to say 'stentorious' in this sentence, but given he still does that thing of adding extra 'ed' to the end of past tense verbs, and also given I'm no Miss Annersley myself, I can live with that.)

Ha! I was slowly typing at the same time as you mornington and think similar things about Jo and Janie.

I am only halfway through a (one week!) Easter holiday, and already I have been fantasising about Penny Rest and/or a Faithful Anna. I am a bad mother. Neither of us are entirely well though, that's my excuse for fecklessness. I could use a week of bed rest, possibly with permission to sit up and read whilst wearing a lime green bedjacket.

I may need to take a break from reading slash fanfic on the Sally Denny and have a re-read of the La Rochelle books, it's been a while since I read them and I just remember all the family links getting confusing. It might feel a bit less tangled now I am more familiar with the CS younger generations. I need an escape from my new job, in which I am having to find my inner Abbess and be stentorian on a regular basis.

Oh :( I think we only have some of the LR titles on the onedrive. I've just downloaded Gerry, Heather Janie of and Janie Steps In, but can't see the other three. Boo! Will I be missing much? I was sure I'd spotted Seven Scamps in there ages ago but perhaps I imagined it.

Unless things have changed since I was last in there, I don't think we did have those three. That's why I had to buy them all as real books. Please will someone pm me the log in and password again?

I read them all out of order, so I don't think it will matter! Read the ones there and see what you think.

It will be like when you first read CS in bits and pieces, jumping back and forward between Tyrol and Armishire and Switzerland and St Briavels. It'll give you the right nostalgic feeling!

Ha! Yes, indeed. And I can get that thing where there's footnotes and mentions of other hilarious past escapades so I can yearn dreadfully for [insert missing book here] and then eventually I'll read it and I'll be like 'wow, that was it? That was the hilarious thing?' The complete authentic CS experience!

Have PMed you the login. :)

Also, has anyone read Streatfeild's It Pays To Be Good? Just been browsing the Greyladies website and am tempted. Have so far only read her Parson's Nine and The Winter Is Past and really enjoyed both.

No, I haven't read any of those, Nell - in fact, I'd no idea they'd published any that Noel Streatfeild wrote under her own name. I read some of the Susan Scarlett ones, and I loved them, especially Clothes Pegs and Poppies for England for their wonderful 30s/40s period detail. I sometimes think no-one quite evokes those decades like NS. I'm now tempted by all three of the ones you mentioned. Thanks so much, I was needing a few extra books to read .

I need an escape from my new job, in which I am having to find my inner Abbess and be stentorian on a regular basis.

Oh, but Hilda would never be stentorian, princess. She would never need to be. You know what you have to do. One steely look from those eyes that have never yet needed glasses, and your colleagues/clients/boss/whoever else will be instantly reduced to a weeping wreck in front of you. And of course there'll be no need to tell anyone what went on in your office. I don't recommend putting them to bed afterwards with special milk, though, as you might end up on a rather different sort of disciplinary.

Don't forget the melodious voice which carries effortlessly to every corner of the room. Actually maybe that is the ladylike version of stentorian. Is that what you're doing, EElisaveta, or will you need to write out how Shakespeare liked his women?

I have been wondering where I have been going wrong teaching all these years...It's my glasses isn't it? If I had never needed them all children would be angels! I use stentorian tones regularly...but 30 children in a small room with drums, glockenspiels etc tends to need it!!

Thank you for the login details, Nell! Btw, I realise I never finished transcribing Jo To The Rescue. I got to about chapter 4 and gave up . Do people want me to keep going? Or would you rather implement a lending library where I will post the book to you and you can pass it amongst yourselves, so long as it comes back to me eventually? Am willing to do the same with the other La Rochelle books and Monica Turns Up Trumps (once I have retrieved it from my sister).

I'm beginning to emerge after a nasty throat/cold/flu thing for about a week and the thought just occurred to me:
You know, half the neighbourhood has had/is having this bug and the local boarding school has not yet set aside a couple of dormitories and provided a nurse to nurse all the local schools. Do you think I should send them a note telling them how remiss they're being?