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.....

This shall be my bedtime reading tonight, I think. I shall report back tomorrow!

I've just been catching up on "A New Dream" over on SDL. It's taken quite large chunks of my day, and I've skimmed a lot of the religious quotes, but if anyone wants something Miss Annersley focuses and very long indeed, it's definitely one to look at.

There's definitely two complete Marlows crossovers - the Marlows go to St Mildred's, and one where they went to the Armishire Chalet pre-Kingcote. Former is nice and Chaletian, latter is Forestian...

And here's the one about the union activist: Raise the Scarlet Standard High

And a third Marlows crossover: Giles Marlow's One and Only where Giles gets engaged to a Chaletian. The clue is in the title .

Thanks for the Marlow crossovers - all of which I'm going to read before I'm much older - but none of them is the one I was trying to remember. I'm thinking of one where the teenage Marlows go to the Swiss Chalet School for reasons I can't recall (I think Rowan doesn't go to the school, but is definitely with them) and Miranda also goes with them, I think because her parents have gone off to Israel in the midst of the run-up to the 1967 war and they didn't think it safe for her. Two scenes that have stayed in my mind. One, Miranda wears her tartan trews to the new girls' tea party at Freudesheim and is roundly told off for insulting her hostess and has to write a letter of apology. Two, Nicola cries in Rowan's arms about something Joey has said, and Rowan goes round and tears Joey off a strip about it. Ringing any bells for anyone?

And yes, it was Raise the Scarlet Standard High about the union activist. I recommend it.

Mornington, is this it? The Chalet School and the Marlows

Yes, this has to be it & it's great stuff:

www.the-cbb.co.uk/board/middle_archive/CD_cs_and_the_marlows_part_2_251104.html

www.the-cbb.co.uk/board/middle_archive/CD_cs_and_the_marlows_part_3_251104.html and from here it all seems to be on one page if you keep scrolling. So far anyway.

I am loving the Scarlet Standard! I haven't read any Marlow books, sadly, so think some of the others might be wasted on me.

If you like the Scarlet Standard, Cheddar, I'd read some more of Alison H after that. Particularly Shaking off the Chains.

I enjoyed the Marlows at St Mildred's.

I am halfway through Raise the Scarlet Standard (work has interrupted, grump grump) and really enjoying that too. I have remembered why I stopped at the first chapter last time I read - sometimes when I am just too tired I don't want to have to cope with inconvenient realities like the nice, kind Chaletians having utterly unreasonable and thoughtless expectations of their domestic staff - but now that I am not too tired, it's brilliant.

Definitely want to look at the Marlows one mornington was looking for shortly, too. Thanks all for the links!

You're not going to believe the latest one I've found: Five Have Fun With The Marlows. It's a bit fiddly because the table of contents upside down so you need to scroll to the bottom of the page for Chapter 1 but you get used to it fairly quickly.

Know this has been done before but it's fun.

So cast for the chalet school film:

Joey,,, Gina McKee
Anna.. Dawn French
Matron.. Zoe Wanamaker
Nell... Penelope Keith
Madge .. Hermionie??? (karen out of cold feet)
Mary Lou.. Keira knightly.

Any ideas anyone for any more or other choices?

Noooo! Gina McKee for Joey is a good shout and I can see Keira Knightley as Mary-Lou, but I don't get any of the others at all. I love Hermione Norris and I definitely want to cast her in it somehow but no way is she Madge. That lovely one who died in Downton Abbey (Sybil?), she'd be a good young Madge.

Jenny Agutter as Hilda Annersley.

Oh yes see Jenny as Hilda that's good.

I see dawn as Anna as she could mumble rude remarks under her breath to Joey as faithful handmaidens do like 'yes moddom thankyou for letting me live in a chamber off the kitchen, pull lettuces at 4am for your sodding picnics and do the washing for 2 adults and 11 kids, cook, clean and bake, wash the Windows, make a bloody shampoo tisane, bath the babies and put them to bed.'

How about pam ferris for Nell Wilson?

Penelope Keith.. Sally Denney?

'yes moddom thankyou for letting me live in a chamber off the kitchen, pull lettuces at 4am for your sodding picnics and do the washing for 2 adults and 11 kids, cook, clean and bake, wash the Windows, make a bloody shampoo tisane, bath the babies and put them to bed.'

Oh no! I was just getting into The Chalet School and the Marlows and remembering why I liked it so much before (thanks Empress for the links), when I got to the bottom of the third page and it's irretreivably scrambled.

Jenny Agutter as Hilda Annersley.

Perfect casting.

Oh no :( I'm just at the start of pt3. Not sure whether better or worse to give up now, then.

I found it was incomplete but how do you mean scrambled? Just wondering if there's any I can see but you can't, in which case copy & paste job?

Nancy Wilmott... Miranda heart?

Could Julie Walters be the doyenne of the staff room with delicious coffee and a French accent?

It's OK until part XVI, Empress, but from then on it goes into one long stretch of continuous writing with all the comments and all the story appearing in one enormous (hundreds of lines) paragraphs with no breaks anywhere, so it's impossible for me to read. Doesn't it look like that for you?

Oh. Yes it does, I just sort of got used to it although it definitely takes more concentration.

Because it's all old & archived, I suppose.

Ooh, so it is legible and has a proper end, I just have to work harder to read it? Hurrah! (I am getting through it in dribs and drabs and loving it - up to about chapter 10 now I think.)

Oh, just reread properly - so it's still incomplete even after the scrambled bit? :(