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....

I'm going to have to read the uncut version of Oberland if it's on the onedrive. In the meantime, someone (I forget who - sorry) was looking for the best opening line to a Chalet School book. Can I please nominate the following:

"Well, call me Aunt Fanny on my tombstone"

(opening to Theodora. Now, why did Armada cut that?)

Haha! Is that Rosalie Dene, or do I misremember?

mornington - I am massively reassured that that was also your reading of the question of Elma being 'engaged' to Stuart. Part of me was like "really? Really? Is that possible?" - but I couldn't really make any alternative make sense. That's also what the threat of expulsion is about, I think - all of the "if that had come to pass, then I couldn't have kept you here" stuff - it's too big and too final to be simply in relation to sneaking off for illicit kaffee and kuchen with him, I think. And likewise I imagine the second letter had to be along those lines (visions of Stuart the badboy booking a hotel room in Interlaken - for the afternoon)? But it's all sufficiently vague that if the reader didn't grasp that meaning for themselves then it's not actually very enlightening.

I really do like Oberland. Partly for the refreshing subject matter (and I think more books set there could've breathed new life into the series at a point when it was definitely starting to flag) but also I think its newness and size necessarily makes it a bit more like the earlier Tyrol books - small friendly staffroom which isn't overflowing with ex pupils, a single cohort of students (if from a range of backgrounds), no adult Joey!

Although yes, "Hester! You're as fat as ever!" does leave me open-mouthed. (Based on other references e.g. to poor Nancy Wilmot, I suspect this means that Hester is, like, a hefty nine stone or something.)
Also I have unresolved pedantic questions:

• Why has Grace Nalder become Phyll. And what has she done with her husband?!
• Which Matron is it? She starts off as Gertrude Rider (which makes sense) but at some point she suddenly morphs into Gwynneth Lloyd (the real Matey).
• How is Karen at St Mildred's and also at the main CS? Are there in fact two Karens?
• What is the weird half-story about the Gretchen am Spinnraden singer?! Why is she one day never going to sing again?!

Going back to the Len thing... I suppose by the time of Prefects EBD was a very old woman yearning for the olden days, but it does feel a bit sad that the triplets excitedly heading off to university with the world as their oyster wasn't happy ending enough for her, and the Len storyline needed a definite marriage plan as a sort of reassuring cherry on top. Maybe she could at least have instead had Reg asking Jack's permission to speak to Len, and Jack saying "in principle, I'd be delighted (if she was delighted), but wait until she's finished her degree" or something. Although perhaps having that conversation only resolved between the two men would be equally icky in its own way. And perhaps the Len betrothal rejoiced most contemporary correctly-aged readers at the time and I should stop wishing it better suited my personal tastes!

I suppose by the time of Prefects EBD was a very old woman yearning for the olden days

Gawd, she'd have been in her mid-70s, which doesn't seem particularly old to me these days! But I take the point that she was pining for times gone by, when servants adored their mistresses, girls considered a day's hiking quite topping enough without unneccessary extras like motor boats, and would-be-beatniks could be dealt with by a capable nanny and a good tubbing.

What is the weird half-story about the Gretchen am Spinnraden singer?

I wondered that as well. Does she re-appear? I'm not quite at the end of the book yet, so I've 'met' her in the concert and I've been wondering where she fits in. Also whether there's a backstory somewhere - School by the River, maybe? Or perhaps EBD had another older girls' story idea which never saw the light of day.

I've been inspired by the Millies' panto to come up with a couple of extra festive touches for our interminable CP. I'm sure EmilyAlice's rampaging hordes could do with a panto horse or two. And I'm thinking we could press the Mushy Pea distillery into service and churn out some Special Custard Pies for a touching baby angel comedy sequence - it would be so charmingly pretty. Anyone think of anything else?

mormington bagsie doing the costumes for the panto. We had to source a horse last year which was a challenge as we couldn't find one we liked under £200 which was silly for 6 performances. We eventually got lent one.
I love particularly the fun of doing the dame costumes. particularly exclaiming delightedly in Primark "That's be brilliant for the bedroom scene for one of the Ugly sisters" and looking up to see a lady glaring at me having just put one in her basket. Accessing high heels in size 10 left me with ads for drag shoes for about 6 months though. As bad a penguin bollards.

Penguin bollards?! Dare I ask?

mornington - oops! I actually hadn't thought about how old she would have been really - more that she was repeatedly asserting how displeased she was with all aspects of modern life (as you point out - grubby beatniks and all) and also I suppose the way that she was definitely past her prime writing-wise (although quite possibly that was boredom with the CS specifically, rather than a real decline in her abilities, or the increasing distance between her life and those of her readers, compared to when she was still teaching or had friends with children of school age etc).
I shall blame my lapse on my current focus on Regiment of Women, where Clare is definitely bordering on Past It at the ripe old age of 35... (There is something interesting I'm toying with ATM about the prospective outcomes for the spinsters in there - thinking about how Elsbeth guarantees her own future via Alwynne's match with Roger, vs Henrietta Vigers who leaves Utterbridge unemployable, friendless and poor.)

You are more generous than me, re: Gretchen am Spinnrade, and quite probably right. I'd assumed EBD just forgot. She doesn't reappear, anyway. Clearly the theme is supposed to echo the Elma thing, but it would be interesting to know what her story was - I'm quite sure she was supposed to have one!

Accessing high heels in size 10 left me with ads for drag shoes for about 6 months though. As bad as penguin bollards.

Oh no they're not!!

I sometimes fantasise that while EBD was churning out writing the Swiss CS books for income, she was enjoying herself writing some other completely different series considered unpublishable at the time. Maybe a next generation of La Rochelles, or the complete tales of the Republic of Belsornia, or perhaps some 'grown-up' school stories mostly located in staffrooms, a bit like War Among Ladies. One day soon they're going to be found, I just know it...

Re nicht wahr, I always took it to be the German equivalent of n'est-ce pas - which when I did French at university we found over 200 translations for. I suppose the English equivalent would be innit, but I couldn't afford the fines :o

Yoo-hoo everyone, just back from RL dancing show (GD1) in dear old England. Had to laugh on the ferry as two women were speaking French to each other in fine British accents while all the real French sniggered. I felt like asking them if it was French day and whether they had learnt their three new words.
I have been practising steps on the steppes in between being trampled on by over-excited children in the wings, so could we have the show sometime soon?
And then can we move the school somewhere a bit more agreeable? "Climate is and weather maybe" but both seem to be uniformly unpleasant here.

Re Len/Reg - do we know whether EBD knew she was dying? Perhaps Prefects wasn't intended to be the final book at all. What did she actually die of? (Vile construction! Never end a sentence with a preposition! If 'of' is a preposition - I wouldn't know!)

I read the uncut version of Oberland aged about 8 and any euphemistic meanings for 'engaged' went right over my head! I didn't like it much as a kid - must re-read it! Is the uncut version on OneDrive? I thought from reading it that Peggy must be this major character in the series and she's just not, really! You get more about the Bride/Tom/Elfie/Primrose set (with additions of Lavender Leigh, the Ozanne twins and Rosalie Way/Browne) than we ever do about Peggy and her little chums. As far as I recall, Peggy features as a minor character in Lavender Laughs before Peggy and that's about it, bar appearances in the Die Rosen nursery previously (by the way, I am sure that Peggy is another character like Cornelia whose age must go a bit screw-whiff over the years!). And even in Peggy, Polly Winterton takes up a lot of the book. I don't recall much Peggy in Carola or Wrong. But here she is at the beginning of Oberland being feted by all and sundry (apart from Evil Elma, natch).

I think EBD did know she was dying.
There's also a general consideration that she didn't write most of Prefects and possibly the one before.

There's also a general consideration that she didn't write most of Prefects and possibly the one before.

Really? I didn't know that. The one before is Althea, nicht wahr? Which I haven't read in ages because I tend to lose interest after the wonderful bonkers-ness of Redheads and I can't remember much about it other than the beatniks on the train.

Much as I enjoyed Oberland I have to say that the panto chapter is one of EBD's most tedious production scenes and I wasn't sure what to make of the 'knowing' names of the characters, especially the tipsy butler Mynsabeer. Presumably EBD wouldn't have written that into her usual schoolgirl books, so she did think she was writing for an older audience.

at the line about Aunt Fanny. I think that might have to be the winner.

Where do you fancy going next, EmilyAlice? The world's our oyster, so long as there's room for the San and for Joey's tribe.

Have the drains gone bad again? Or is it subsidence in the yurt?

Re BendingSpoons' question about girls moving up forms based on ability - the issue of there being areas of maths etc that girls had missed does come up a few times. Is it Bride in Lavender Laughs who has been moved up but has missed some stuff by doing it? And then you get Inter V, which is created entirely because EBD had been merrily moving the Triplets up the school before realising that they're only 12 and about to go into a Fifth Form. I just do not believe that any girls ought to have been able to advance so quickly through the forms, nor that not only Len, the born student, but Con (crap at maths) and Margot (brilliant but liked to go bust and rest on her oars) who wound up in Inter V instead of one of the Fourths or even Thirds.

Oh, but I was just beginning to get the hang of the local dialect.

Are the triplets ever in separate forms? I seem to vaguely recall that there is some debate about whether Margot can be allowed to move up with the rest of them (is this possibly around the time of Barbara and whether/when they can move to Switzerland, or have I totally invented that?)

I sort of like the idea of Inter V in principle (as a peculiar set of variously-awkward pupils - too-young too-clever children like the triplets, barely-educated older girls like Yseult) although I suppose that such a cohort could just as easily exist in one of the fourths. In practice it is ridiculous because it is so obviously an attempt to restrain the rising-too-rapidly triplets, plus there's the extra nonsense of giving this experimental form to the new graduate rather than someone who has actual teaching/CS experience. (I can't remember, has Kathie even done something resembling teacher training or is it just a maths degree? I know that some of the younger ones have gone to teacher training college - including Sharlie wossname - and from quite early on her games mistresses are trained as such, but I'm not sure that Kathie is.)

I think I skipped straight over the Oberland panto - as I invariably do all productions. I can imagine EBD having great fun writing them - I'm sure almost every one is based on an actual school performance she'd worked on or witnessed - but I have never ever ever found them anything but boring!

Well I could do with the CS gardening club at the chateau (the Garden Director had a new chainsaw for his 70th birthday). Hmm....
No, actually, I am watching Montelbano. Could we go to Sicily? Boats, wild seas, lots of steps to fall down?

Garden Director is a typo for Gaudenz, no?

And aren't Sicilians wild, romantic and love having feuds? Sounds great!

Margot was generally in a lower form than the other two until about New Mistress.

Apparently sometimes EBD's own school did the pantomimes she describes in the Chalet School.

Am now reading Oberland - why is Miss Nalder suddenly teaching Musical Appreciation? I thought she was a gym mistress!

And then you get Inter V, which is created entirely because EBD had been merrily moving the Triplets up the school before realising that they're only 12

This had actually never occurred to me, but it's so obviously true! Haha.

My mum is arriving today to stay for Christmas - she's also a big CS fan. She's going to love this. Perhaps she could come and look round during the Christmas play

Cheddar - not to mention that she has changed her first name and mysteriously lost her husband!

She always appreciated the music they did gym to

I love the way they don't have lessons at St M's, they have lectures - no more reasoning from cause to effect, then, except perhaps in essays . Re Matey apparently cloning herself, I wonder whether EBD intended to move her over to the finishing branch because she thought she was going to set more books there and wanted some of her favourite characters in situ. Hence moving Bill, who of course is one of the best characters in the entire series. I'm sure she wouldn't have done that if she hadn't intended to write more. Once she realised/was directed not to develop St M's it would have been rather obvious to move Bill back again, but maybe she thought she could get away with it with Matey and no-one would notice. OK, OK, she probably forgot. But stay with me here.

Apparently sometimes EBD's own school did the pantomimes she describes in the Chalet School.

This conjures up wonderful images of EBD writhing around on the floor shrieking 'hold me up, someone' and mopping her eyes, while girls, parents and other staff gaze on in bemusement.

This conjures up wonderful images of EBD writhing around on the floor shrieking 'hold me up, someone' and mopping her eyes, while girls, parents and other staff gaze on in bemusement.

I was thinking exactly the same thing

Speaking of the pantomime, are we giving the interminable Christmas play this year or is it dragging on for a few more years? I think I'm ready (I walk on from the left, stop, listen to 6 solos from Bettany rellies, watch the reindeer do the reindeer thing, watch Ghengis and then walk off). It makes me feel like crying.

I'm waiting in the wings and the troupe / troops have pointe shoes and cutlasses at the ready. And it is freezing on the steppes.

Oooh! I'll get into my costume then. Don't want to miss my first play.

How are the angels? Anyone want any help getting their halo glued properly to their head? Anyone become entangled with another angel with hilarious results? Anyone seen anyone loitering nearby with a cigarette?