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.....

Eee, just seen that GGBP are due to publish Rosalie in July! 🎉

(I think I might be the only person who really likes that one. But still. I shall be putting in my order on payday!)

I like Rosalie too, Nell. She's sort of an antithesis to the jolly, early rising, hearty, games playing Blyton bored, but she isn't wrong for being girly, just as Tom is OK being boyish. There is room for much more diversity in EBD's world, and I like that.

Gah. bores.

I quite like Rosalie too. But I did feel there is in that book an element of disapproval from ebd about her.

I think I have the Armada p/back of Rosalie - I'm not at home so I can't check, but if it's the one that they published with the godawful Mystery then I have it. Can't remember a thing about it though, apart from everyone thinking it was screamingly funny to have Primrose Day (cue more gales of laughter) and Rosalie Way in the same school. Were there a lot of cuts in the Armada edition? I never know whether to splash out on GGBP versions when I've already got the p/back.

Hmm, I think Rosalie is accepted as she is, but never held up as an example of someone younger girls (or readers) might aspire to be like. She's very sympathetically drawn though - EBD knows and describes exactly what she's thinking and all of its reasonable, like when she's inconsolably upset because she wants to play cricket with Tom but she's put with the tennis girls instead. Whereas in Blyton, girls like Gwendolene Mary (have I got the right name there??) don't need to be explained or understood, they are just Wrong and to be scorned.

I do like Rosalie because it's wonderfully slashy. But also they're a very likeable form, it has relatively low levels of Jo, there's a bit of weather-wisdom, there's no nativity. I've ordered my copy. Apparently the Armada is uncut though mornington, plus it's not one of the ones with lovely Brisley illustrations. So maybe hard to justify if you already have the pb.

In other news, I've just finished Noel Streatfeild's It Pays To Be Good. Not quite my favourite of hers, in fact I found the whole of part one rather challenging to stay with, but after that I really enjoyed it. Plus it has some gratuitous gays in it 😃 which always pleases me. And makes me feel much more certain that the marvellous lesbian couple in Ballet Shoes really were a marvellous lesbian couple, and by extension that lesbian readings of some CS characters are perfectly well founded. I realise that there are a few leaps in my chain of logic there but today I feel fairly comfortable making them.

I have just finished Autumn Term - as far as I can recall, my first taste of Antonia Forest!

I really liked it. And yet I frequently found myself deliberately comparing it unfavourably with CS books. Perhaps almost defensively? - because in many many ways, it was obviously much better crafted than EBD's work. There's heaps more nuance.

Also, does anyone have any helpful insights into the apparent offensiveness of describing teachers as "teachers" at that time? At Kingscote, people are corrected in scandalised whispers for saying "teachers" when they ought to say "staff", and for saying "mistresses" when they ought to say "staff". I definitely remember a CS episode where someone is corrected for saying "teachers" - they're told to say "mistresses" instead. (Possibly this is at the beginning of Rosalie? I may be wrong. All the more curious if I'm right, though, because that puts it at much the same date as Autumn Term so it's funny to think of "mistresses" being the right thing in one book and an unacceptable error in the other...)

At my posh gels school in the 50s and 60s you always said Mistresses.
Teachers were at Council Schools, don't you know....
Disclaimer: I grew up to be a teacher in a council school.

I see! I bet Joan Baker calls them teachers then... (I can't remember. I may or may not get around to checking!)

Doesn't Rosamund address her teacher as 'Teacher' and have to be gently told when she arrives at the CS that they are mistresses? I think it was pretty standard in ordinary schools to talk of 'teachers' rather than staff, or mistresses/masters. However, I'm not sure how usual it was to use Teacher as a term of address, or if EBD was making it up. At my primary school we referred to teachers as teachers and addressed them as 'Miss' and 'Sir' which I think was fairly standard at the time (late 60s, early 70s). My direct grant girls' school (rest of the 70s) had mistreses and masters, and the collective term was 'staff', but I was forewarned by the CS so I don't think I found it strange Don't think we ever referred to a teacher (singular) as 'a staff', but neither would we have called them teachers.

I like AF's books but I prefer the Chalet School. There's something a bit sneery about the Marlows, and I commit the ultimate sin of not liking Nicola one bit, and finding the whole family a snooty, entitled bunch. But mostly I think I love the CS as escapism, with everything coming right in the end, and that doesn't happen with the more realistic AF. Are you going to read them all, Nell?

I've just started reading It Pays to be Good. I bought it ages ago and it's languished in my to-read pile. Will comment on it in due course!

Any ideas on what makes the Marlows correct "mistresses" with "staff", then? Maybe it's to imply that there exist some masters too? Otherwise most curious!

I don't know whether I'm going to read any more AFs, mornington. I'm not in a rush to do so and I don't want to spend big money to do so, which probably limits my options at some point in the series. I wasn't hugely taken with Nicola but I bet I'd have liked her as a child, so I'm trying to be fair. I did like Lawrie, who has a bit more depth to her (reminds me a bit of Con Maynard).
I think most of all, yes, CS is lovely escapism and AF naturally doesn't do that for me. I also think there's a bit of a difference somehow in AF basically writing a story (a very good, engaging, well executed story) vs EBD throwing herself completely into a whole imaginary world. As though AF has worked the whole thing out while EBD just believes in it and therefore scribbles it off the top of her head. That may be an unfair impression because it's based on only one Kingscote; and it also certainly overlooks plenty of effort on EBD's part. But in perhaps a more subtle way than that, I do feel that difference.

Let me know what you think of It Pays To Be Good! I've recently finished Streatfeild's biography too. Not sure what to read next. I might try Triffeny...

NellWilson do read some more Antonia Forest if you can get hold of them. I would argue that she does create a world. I've only read a few CS titles, although this thread makes me think I should immerse myself in them - but the multiple births and disabling illnesses put me off. If you enjoy lesbian readings, AF provides a rich seam!

Ooh, really? OK, I suspect it has to be done!
How badly does it matter if I read them out of sequence? In the interests of ease and cost considerations.

Btw Bridget I (unsurprisingly!) think the CS books are worth a further look. The first 20 titles are much the best. Possibly the wartime ones (between Exile and Gay from China) are also quite low on illness, although possibly I've overlooked loads of offending incidents!

I wonder whether 'staff' instead of 'mistress' was supposed to be a Kingscote-specific piece of vernacular, given that all British public schools have their own nomenclature for certain things?

I think it's like all series, you can read them out of order without it mattering too much, but it's fun to read them the right way round. There are some very significant happenings in the non-school books so if you can get hold of those it's worth doing. But not essential. The next of the school stories, End of Term, is in my view the best. And it has plenty of alternative lesbian readings very close to the surface. You'll notice as you go through the series that they're set at the time they were written, with the last two school stories written and set in the 1970s which might feel a bit strange if you're reading out of order.

The thing for me is that AF is quite possibly too good a writer. If I want good writing I'll go to adult authors. School stories are for escaping into another world, and one which I'd rather wasn't very believable.

Reading AF in chronological order would make most sense, obviously, but I certainly didn't and it's not essential. I love the holiday titles as much as the school settings, there are different issues brought up and AF's arcane passions are interesting - falconry, pigeon racing. . .

Oh and NellWilson sure, I'm quite willing to explore the CS!

If you want to see how good a writer AF is, then I highly recommend her two historical ones: "The Player's Boy" and "The Player and the Rebels"

Autumn term is good, but I don't think as good as the early Chalet Schools.

However I think they improve, Cricket Term is brilliant at handling the teenage girl anxiety between friends and school events.

Laurie is well drawn throughout. I think in Autumn term AF wasn't totally sure whether to have identical twins being fairly identical, or whether contrast them. In the end she contrasts them, which works very well.
You have Nicola the capable hardworking girl. Like Len, but with a lot more character. However, although the Mistresses generally seem to like Nicola, the head really is quite anti her, which she realises and is quite philosophic about.
Then Laurie who is spoilt, considers herself to be a genius (and is generally considered to be good by others as well) and generally more emotional and expects people to do as she want.
Not totally dissimilar to Len and Margot I'd say, but with Nicola having much more character, although she does give way to Laurie too much (reading it as an adult I often wonder why their mum doesn't step in and say "no that's unfair, Nicola, you're not going to". Nicola seems pretty put upon at times-the mum stops Ann from doing things because "she always does and it's not fair on her" but it then almost always falls on Nicola because Laurie will moan too much and Ginty will find an excuse)
Laurie doesn't have Margot's temper but instead she has the tears and drama.

I wonder whether 'staff' instead of 'mistress' was supposed to be a Kingscote-specific piece of vernacular, given that all British public schools have their own nomenclature for certain things?
Oh, of course - I bet that's it.

Thanks all for helpful thoughts on AF! I have caved and ordered End of Term, which seems to be the next cheapest after Autumn Term - so I'm glad to see that one particularly recommended! After that, I may have to stop unless I come across any unexpected bargains - I think I draw the line at £10+ a book, when I have too many unread books glowering at me from their shelves already. Very much looking forward to it arriving.

My favourite AF is Falconer's Lure.

Well, I've just finished It Pays to be Good. Once I stopped looking for a plot line I enjoyed it a lot! I think Flossie is in many ways the archetype (or maybe foil) for all the Dulcies and Queenies that appear in Streatfeild's children's books. She really didn't have a very good opinion of showbusiness mothers (especially working class ones), did she? Is it worth reading her autobiography, Nell? I can't help wondering whether NS's own stage career was scuppered by one of these wondergirlies, and she spent the rest of her writing career getting her own back.

I've started a re-read of The Wicharts which was the original Ballet Shoes, written for adults - instead of being implausibly 'found' by an explorer great-uncle, the three girls are daughters of a philandering brigadier by three different mistresses. Definitely worth reading for anyone who likes NS, I think its one of her best (though Poppies for England is still my most favourite). Has anyone seen the Ealing comedy Aunt Clara which is based on the NS book of the same name? I'd love to see what they made of it.

Have we planned what we're doing for Madame's birthday this year? An expedition? Pageant? Hilariously funny high-jinks in the dorm? Or should we just leave a 'World's Best Teacher' mug on her place at the breakfast table and have done with it?

Aunt Clara isn't a comedy. Or not the book I've got!

I should read The Whicharts sometime soon, I think. It sounds really good. I think my favourite Streatfeild is Parson's Nine, closely followed by The Winter Is Past - or perhaps the other way round.
I did enjoy the bio (happy to lend btw if you'd like to borrow it). It sounds like she made a rather fabulous life for herself. Amusingly there are a couple of places where Noel sounds not a million miles away from Flossie - there's a particular passage about her using her charms to receive gifts of lovely new clothes which rather put me in mind of It Pays To Be Good! Part of me wonders whether Mouse has shades of self-portrait about her - but actually, I'm not sure NS was very much into slipping herself into her books really. (I liked Mouse very much.)

I have just finished End of Term. I really enjoyed it. I still like Lawrie better than Nicola, but really I like Rowan and Ginty best. And Miranda, Miranda's great. Isn't AF's treatment of religion light years away from EBD's? I don't know that I've known such frank and detailed discussion of it in a children's book before. Also fascinating/amusing to compare the differences and similarities with CS nativities! For all AF navigates a whole load of varied, nuanced, often irreverent responses to it along the way, she does still end up in the same 'moved in a specifically spiritual way by the play' place as EBD does.

One difference though, is that I read the play in End of Term every time I read the book, and I feel a shiver up my spine at the end every time. whereas I regularly skim through EDBs nativities..(shocking I know..)

I agree about the plays.

I think one difference is that the AF play is taken quite seriously and in a funny way is very religious.
Ebd likes to have a "hilarious" scene that probably was very funny in her head, but doesn't work on paper. You then have the meant to be funny error, either someone speaking low, falling over something, or pulling a silly face at the baby angels so they laugh... Which is the sort of thing that does get uncontrollable giggles out of nervous school girls, but no one, even the gigglers can explain why it's funny afterwards.
And then the terror new girl wondering in front of Joey (so she can spout some drivel about religion) why it nearly made her cry.
It's a mixture of coming across as a slightly chaotic performance which isn't taken very seriously followed by trying to ramp it up by the religious talk to make it seem above criticism.

I've just spent a bedtime discussing Nazism, the role of doctors as rescuers and why 'ejaculation' isn't a word to use nowadays with my 7yo - she is reading 'Exile' and was just at the 'solid lump of comfort' bit so I got her to read it out loud and we talked about it.

I thought you might be the only people who would understand quite how lovely it was .