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.....

Do you already have access to the onedrive account with all the transcripts in it, papergirl?

I am reading The Attic Term. I am probably just griping because Kingscote isn't the CS, but gosh, it's all a bit modern, isn't it? Coveted tartan "trews" and phoning boyfriends and drug dealers and whatnot. I had high hopes for it as had really rather liked Ginty in the other two books, but I suspect all this boyfriend business is rather wasted on me. (As indeed are tartan trousers.)

No, I've not got access to the onedrive account, Nell, although I've seen it mentioned on here. What do I do or who do I ask to get access?
I collected The New Chalet School from the library today. Ancient copy, looks like it belongs in a museum. I thought the librarian was going to put white gloves on to hand it to me!

Ah, I love New CS! I think once again I'm in a relative minority on that one. It's another summer term one - so many of my favourites are summer term ones. And not only because they lack plays and Sales although it definitely does help.

I'm going to PM you about the transcripts!

Thanks, Nell

Does anyone know if ebooks are available? I want to read those elusive few I missed when I was younger, but the prices are astronomical. Thanks

Off to see the library prefect I guess.

Feel a bit silly now I've seen the end of the thread! Could someone point me in the right direction please?

BTW does anyone else wonder what the Chalet School is doing about Brexit? Can the girls stay where they are? What about visas for the Mistresses? Is there a post-Brexit peace pledge to be hidden in a cave somewhere?
Will we keep our Health Cover or can one handsome TB specialist do everything anyway?

Is Switzerland in the EU?

EEA. But we will need to ask a handsome doctor what to do next.

Brexit would never have come to pass if Jem Russell were around to anticipate and fix things with his impressive connections!

I can totally see EBD being outraged by it and putting one of her impassioned speeches into a favourite character's mouth, though! A peace pledge sounds highly probable and most charming.

I've PMed you Alachia.

Will we need to escape do you think?
Climb out of the dormy window and down Joey's plaits to cross the mountains into Nonbrexitania or something?
Where is the Princess? She must have a plan.....

Captain Humphries, that dashing spy, would have prevented it, along with his cohort, Jem of mystery, and for some reason I want to add Plato as a third. Not sure why

I think a pageant of friendship between European nations is called for. It would be so pretty. Bruno/Rufus could have a starring role, and do something hysterically funny like rolling over when he's supposed to be sitting, and all the audience can clutch each other and fall off their chairs with mirth. Then whichever person with the most Bettany DNA to hand can make the impassioned speech, after which we make our daring escape to Nonbrexitania. And it's while we're camped out in a cave in the mountains that news reaches us of Captain Humphries' mission...

I'm another fan of New. It was one of the first I read as a child and it didn't make a whole lot of sense as I don't think I'd read any others of the Tyrolean period by then, but that didn't stop me loving it. My very first was Shocks and I can remember being puzzled by:

1. What a cable was (in the telegram sense)
2. Why Australians weren't foreigners but Europeans were
3. Why it should be such a shock that a random woman in Canada has twins

And that, of course, was the start of me combing every bookshop I came across for the rest of my childhood and adolescence for the rest of the series - this was the frustrating 70s when Armada brought out the p/backs one at a time and in a very random order.

The pageant sounds topping! And definitely yes, I can see Plato having some key role in the salvation of Europe.

My very first was Trials / Theodora (the Armada 2-in-1, with the 1990s cover which I've only learned as an adult was randomly recycled from Head Girl I think. It confused me for years. Looking bad, I'm mildly confused as to why I went on to read as many other CS books as I could get my hands on, on the strength of those two - they're remarkably poor!

Other early ones included New House (which I still have a huge soft spot for) and Camp (definitely a favourite). They were very often hardbacks of my great aunt, who would have been born in the late 1920s I think, so there were a lot of the later Tyrol and wartime ones. I wish she was still around to chat about them with - I don't think we ever did talk about them; I'd visit with my grandma, we'd eat chocolate digestives and talk about school and the sorts of things elderly relatives always seemed to inquire after, and she'd slip me another book as I left.

I also read complete sets of Malory Towers and St Clare's at my grandma's, which had belonged to my mother I think. I remember enjoying them, but I always liked the Chalet School best and I'm not in the least bit motivated to re-read the Blyton books now.

My first one was Rivals. I still love it. Nell, I had the same 2-in-1 of Trials & Theodora, but what I realised many years later when some kind soul published the uncut versions online was just how badly cut they had been. Therefore I like reading the proper ones because all the cut bits keep jumping out at me.

In Nonbrexitania they are busy salting the land and burning oil fields or summat, so that the Brexiteers can't get their filthy mitts on them. The Princess is busily torching fields of rippling grain while her shadowy husband fights in the Polish Foreign Legion for the ECHR.

Would EBD have been a Remainer? She might well have been very concerned for the poor rosy-cheeked peasants of the UK and wanted to secure their future, in much the same way as looking after Rufus and, um, his mother (what was her name?) secured the future of the Pfeiffens. I could see her being very taken in by social media professing to know The Truth and being very agin the government, as it were.

Rufus's mother was Zita, wasn't she Cheddar? Sad that I know that!
Much enjoying New, by the way, Nell. A little shocked by Dr Jem beating Mario, and horror or horrors, one of the middles sneaking a cigarette on the roof in the night!
Pupils and staff, plus Jo, of course, have just gone on an excursion and everyone is congratulating themselves on there being no trouble, so I just know disaster is going to strike on the way back to school!

Oooh, I love New! Happy disastrous bus tripping! Is it a charabanc or an omnibus, btw? I forget.

Charabanc!
I forgot to say, I especially liked the bit where Madge fainted quietly away, as is her habit, when Sybil was kidnapped, and Dr Jem made her take a sleeping draught. And he would have drugged Jo too but he needed her to hold the fort! There is something about masterful doctors rushing in to put their womenfolk to sleep while they go off and rescue damsels in distress and generally save the day...

I'm reading Eustacia at the moment. Coming back to it as an "adult" it strikes me at what uncomfortable reading it is. There are few allowances made for a recently orphaned girl in a totally new environment. Maybe it's because I'm a bookworm, but the whole banning from the library and then later on the school meeting can only be described as bullying.

Jo is really quite horrible to Eustacia, isn't she? Then there's the but in And Jo where the Robin is ill and Jo blames Stacie for the worry Robin suffered during the glacier incident. All Eustacia does is step back sharply and accidentally trip Bill up. It's not like she really did try to push Bill into a crevasse laughing vengefully, or whatever Amy Stevens thinks she did. She was 14 and it was an accident. And even Miss Stewart blames Eustacia. but I adore the sheer unrelieved melodrama of Bill's faint

I had that 2 in 1 too- still have it!

I think my first was 3 go- is that the first Mary Lou one? I may have got the title wrong, maybe the 3 that go aren't ML, Clem and Verity?

Would anyone pm me the onedrive thing?

Eustacia was the first I can remember owning, maybe that's why it's shocked me so much. I'm thinking of skipping it and going on to the next one as it's making me cross (although that could be the heat :) )

Three Go is the first Mary-Lou one - the 3 are indeed Mary-Lou, Verity-Anne and Clem. It is the last one I read - a GGBP copy.

I'll look up the onedrive details and PM you, Tanaqui.

I think Eustacia was among my earliest reads. I definitely remember particularly wanting to read it, because I thought it was a lovely name. But yes, reading it now it's actually the only Tyrol book I don't really like, because the treatment of Eustacia is so unkind. I know EBD likes conformity (understatement), but that sort of meanness towards the girl who doesn't fit in seems so much more Blytonesque. :( (I do get that it's of its time; perhaps this is more of a mark of how some of EBD's philosophy actually hasn't dated as much as her contemporaries?)

I think I'm repeating myself, apologies, but I think Eustacia is quite an interesting one now because the staff seem to screw up quite a lot, which isn't very CS! Mlle is conspicuously weak in her leadership, IMO (I think it's clear from this book that Hilda is the future); Con Stewart, who I rather love, manages to inflame the situation quite badly. Where is Madge, is she Busy? I can't remember her being much use either, in contrast with how she helps Juliet in earlier books. I do however like the bit when Stacie apologies to Bill, years and years later in Reunion - probably just because it's a trip down memory lane, and it's also nice to see that laid to rest and having someone finally tell her there was no need to apologise.

It's an interesting question, re EBD and Brexit. I think her passion for Europe would sway her as well as the logistic difficulties it would pose for a school run on British lines in Austria or Switzerland, and I also think she's never too fond of English peasants, preferring the simpler, more pious continental version! I think she'd have definitely had opinions on it, though.

I like the bus trip bit in New at least in part because I like Nell going to sleep in Con's blanket or something.