Some Fretwork and the Interminable Christmas Play at the Chalet School

[EmilyAlice]

Now girls, line up and listen because this term is a busy one. Firstly we are combining our hobbies club and the Christmas play, so we will need our fretworkers to get busy on the scenery, some beautiful découpage for decorations, our nimble-fingered needlewomen on costume duty and some scrapbooks for - er...
Now one other thing girls. As you know the Chalet School has moved from the Tyrol, to Guernsey, to Armishire, to some island or other and thence to Switzerland.
This term we have moved again and the first thing I want you to do is to find out where the bloody hell we are....

Little did they know it was just Miss Wilson disguised.

That is properly scary. I'd be hiding on top of a cupboard too!

Little did they know it was just Miss Wilson disguised.

I saw a discussion on Al Jazeera last year about a major stooshie in the Netherlands over the Dutch version, Black Pete - there were concerns that in name and imagery the character is racist, and it's time he was abandoned or re-invented. I can see from that horrible greeting card what they were getting at - if you look at images of black people towards the end of the C19, they're quite often shown as having animalistic features, connoting the idea of the savage, in ways that are quite similar to the card. I didn't follow whether there was actually a ban or anything in the Netherlands, but it was certainly being talked about.

Not, in any case, a tradition I'd have wanted in my home when my children were little! Apart from anything else, DD2 was far too ready to climb on top of/inside any available structure without any further encouragement.

Ugh - yes indeed, I thought that too, although I didn't realise that image or its equivalents were still a Thing. (I can also totally imagine the inevitable uproar in response to any suggestion of banning - bit like the predictable threads on here where a disconcerting number of people defend golliwogs on the basis of nostalgia.)

That (repeated!) St Nicholas thing in the CS books is one of my favourite moments of charmingly-bonkers, though. Perhaps I shouldn't get so at some of the 'side-splitting hilarity' which seems lost in translation... Maybe some people really were as amused by the story of Corney's jazz band as I am by St Nicholas...

That's in Mary Lou isn't it - one of the ones that's not on the shared drive anyway. I think the mistresses dress up in black leotards as imps and beat the girls with sticks 😮😮😮

Gloriously trippy. It's also in CS in the Oberland which is on the onedrive.
I re-read Oberland quite recently - it has a number of peculiar moments, including the bit when Peggy tells Edna its unkind of her not to powder her nose because they all have to look at her. EBD had some passionate and, erm, contradictory views on beauty...

Maybe some people really were as amused by the story of Corney's jazz band as I am by St Nicholas...

Now you mention it, I've always found Corney's jazz band rather funny.

For some reason the only thing I can ever remember about Oberland is that they talk about food a lot - or is that just me? Aren't there several scenes where our fine English young ladies turn their noses up at wholesome Continental fare? And they want a proper breakfast, none of this fancy twists rubbish that wouldn't sustain anyone.

Hope everyone got nice things left in their shoes by St Nick. That includes those of you with young children.

Now you mention it, I've always found Corney's jazz band rather funny.
Which is, objectively, no less reasonable than finding St Nick and his demons funny. And Mrs Jarley, that makes me smile too. I don't dislike Corney's band, or the tableaux at Die Rosen in Exploits, but they don't much tickle me. 'Irrepressible Jo the eternal schoolgirl' hilarity, however...

ALL the books talk about food a lot - no? Eustacia is another major offender. But yes, it's true that Elma and the other uncultured English girls turn up their nose at rolls and jam. They want bacon.

It's the risqué book, though! With sex and smoking! This should be more memorable than eating soup from bowls like peasants.

It's the risqué book, though! With sex and smoking! This should be more memorable than eating soup from bowls like peasants.

Whatever turns you on, I suppose - for some of us, rolls and jam win out

Talking of smoking, I'm sure some among us will be thrilled to know that Gaudenz is busy building a wooden erectionyurt on the driest part of the Steppe to keep all the costumes and props safe. It's out of sight of the School, so I propose anyone who fancies trying their hand at smoking gathers there after kaffee und kuchen. What could possibly go wrong?

Erectionyurt!

Which book has sex in it?

Oh look, everyone! A new book all about those pesky kids in Le Petit Yurt! It's by Katherine Bruce who also wrote Muller twins which I liked, so it's definitely going on my Christmas list.

Ooh, me too. (Well, not so much me too on Muller Twins - it didn't really engage me as much as I'd hoped. But I was mostly v keen on Peace Comes to the CS which was also one of hers.)
Between that and the fourth volume of the encyclopaedia, I'm finding it hard to stay away from the ggbp website. But I am trying to teach das engelkind that we don't buy ourselves presents just before Christmas, so I can't be a hypocrite.

marcopront, I was referring to CS in the Oberland - and being a bit flippant, because I'm not sure what exactly EBD was alluding to with the Elma Conroy storyline. Was Elma just going to ruin her reputation by taking tea with Stuart, unchaperoned? Or did "are you - engaged?" mean "are you sleeping with him?"

You'll just have to put it on your list for Santa, Nell, and hope that you've been good.

A bit off-topic, but was anyone listening to drivetime on Radio 2 this afternoon? For anyone who doesn't know, it's Simon Mayo's programme, and on Fridays he gets people to phone him from their cars with music requests, and he chats to them about their weekend plans. Today a child came on air. Simon did his usual, asked where the family were going - the answer, to our house in Devon. And what were they doing for the weekend? Well, tomorrow it's the staff house party. How many staff are employed in the Devon house? 10. I'm imagining the jolly retainers in the Round House, all the outdoor staff as well as whichever faithful Pfeiffens are still around, watching enraptured while the children of the house sing carols, and maybe if they're lucky, getting half a glass of Liebfraumilch.

Heh. It's a kind of paternalism that sits awkwardly today, but of course the Russells would throw a party for the staff, and expect them to be delighted by their children's singing as the entertainment etc. OTOH, the Maynards - who employ only faithful Anna for the first six(?) children and all other housework - totally wouldn't...

Do re-read Oberland. Partly because I want to know the answer to the question above re: the extent of Elma's illicit plans which run out of her control, partly because I wonder why EBD never wrote another book about the finishing school - I'm surprised there wasn't a book covering Mary-Lou's term there, for example, and the triplets could have had a year there rather than staying at school forever and ever and ever, but they don't.

Time. Not term.

OK, Oberland is next. I've had a short break from Chalet School and friends, having recently rediscovered my Virago collection, but now that I'm nearing the end of Surfacing it's time for some light relief.

So, what is it about chins that so fascinated EBD? I've made a start on Oberland and a couple of pages in there's the obligatory description of Peggy Bettany's fairytale loveliness, but those looking at her agree she has to be much more than a fairy princess with a chin like that. A chin like what? And even if the qualities of a 'firm chin' could be pinned down, I wonder which way EBD thought the causality went - are people born with firm chins and that turns them into firm characters, or does the development of a firm character have a knock-on effect on chin development?

I can't tell you how excited I am to find that the school is still accepting new pupils. May I join, please? Of course, my French is rusty and my German non-existent, but I have been reading lots of J. M. Bettany books in preparation for coming to the school...

Welcome! I expect OOAO will be along soon to greet you properly, but if you hurry towards Mushy Pea you may avoid her and find someone with special milk to welcome you instead!

Welcome Northerner! You'll pick up the languages in no time, just by being surrounded with them and learning ten words a day, nicht wahr? (After a lifetime of CS books I still don't actually know what 'nicht wahr' means. )

mornington I actually had a girlfriend once who recognised her own chin to be lacking in CS (prob also wider girls' own / light literature of the early C20th) terms and had, in her salad days, been troubled by the implications of this. Is it a bit the legacy of Lombroso etc? Reading people's personality traits through their facial features? (Is it Lombroso I mean? That Victorian criminologist, anyway.)

Isn't it phrenology? I don't know if Lombroso was a phrenologist though

... He was a physiognomist, according to Wikipedia. I think this is perhaps more what EBD is employing (isn't phrenology just about skulls? Although it says that in late C19th physiognomy kind of got tagged onto phrenology and thus discredited by association). Rich history of C19th literature using it - Dickens, Balzac etc.

I'm not really persuaded that your average schoolgirl consciously contemplated the determined nature implied by a firm chin upon first meeting Peggy, though.

I'm not really persuaded that your average schoolgirl consciously contemplated the determined nature implied by a firm chin upon first meeting Peggy, though.

What you are forgetting is that Chalet girls are not your average schoolgirl are they??!!

True! But the ones usually making this sort of observation are usually not-yet-Chaletians, upon seeing Peggy Bettany or Mary-Lou for the first time...