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....

Height is another strange one with EBD.
There's a number of six-footer girls - Tom Gay, Dickie Christy, Nancy Canton, but then Jo and Len and Margot at exactly five foot eight are also deemed hugely tall, unsuitable for playing women's parts, yet Nancy Wilmot is a couple inches taller than Len, plump, and no way could she be ten stone!

And meanwhile Emerence is supposed to be small for her age yet has huge muscles enabling her to pick up the discarded scarecrow. How on earth did her Australian childhood produce the biceps of a female infant Hercules?!

I'm guessing that usual games evenings and competitions on weekends didn't have prizes, so any object at all would be appreciated, if nothing else, to give as a present to someone else (such as those elderly relatives most of them came from in the first place...) and enable one to save one's pocket money. A bit like cigarettes becoming currency in prisons even among non-smokers.

Or, actually, my school. I supplemented my pocket money for a few years by buying cigarettes for people and keeping the change - I looked plausibly 16 in shops but way too innocent to smoke in school!

Nell - could I trouble you for the one drive login please? Despite being one of the founding contributers I can't get in any more .

Judi Dench lives near me, if I was EBD I'd have a screamingly funny tale about how I met her in the opticians once, and therefore she'd be delighted to open the Sale/foist some brevet nieces onto the school/keep appearing randomly around the globe whenever we moved (a la Maria and the Stuffer). I'm sure I'll bump into her soon, so shall I ask her? Actually I might very well, as she's on the same recall schedule at the opticians

A bit like cigarettes becoming currency in prisons even among non-smokers.

Oooh, a whole new meaning to OOAO's gang. There would surely have been enormous scope for a black market in kirby grips and hankies.

I've entirely repressed forgotten about the pink worm, though I do remember stuff about Jack and motor boats. I can't say I'm feeling inspired to re-read Althea on that basis, though. Last night when I was looking for Masha I came across New Beginnings so now I'm reading that. I think I might have bought it and not ever read it - at least, if I did, I don't remember a single blessed thing though I'm guessing from the cover that it includes Len's wedding.

Joan Collins for Lady Opener? Or Helena Bonham Carter dressed as Bellatrix Lestrange?

Judi Dench lives near me

We have showbiz royalty among us! Strangely, my sister also has an optician-related claim to fame: she used to go to the same optician as Lionel Blair and occasionally saw him there.

Whenever I think of Judi Dench now I think of Tracey Ullman's skit on her - anyone seen that?

I think Althea is either one of the couple I've not read and have particular wish to, or one that I've read and has faded into obscurity in my mind.

6 feet in a lady is unusual. Must be that special milk they drink.

But 5'8" is 170cm, which, according to my red book is closer to 91% then 75%. The equivalent weight is about 70kg which is just over 11 stone. So if anything she is slightly under normal weight.

"No particular wish to" that should have read.

I've had two girlfriends of six foot, which is probably representative of the CS if not the general population. I am not sure whether I am suggesting I validate the Chalet School or the Chalet School validates me!
Maybe three-quarters of characters (adult or schoolgirl) get 'tall' in their standard description. It is funny. You could far more easily name those who aren't tall. Also curly hair - much overrepresented among Chaletians.

I can definitely think of teenage girls especially who have been very small and also muscly, both aesthetically and powerfully. I can see Emerence as being like that.

OOAO's gang was clearly dealing in umbrellas. That's what all that kerfuffle about leaving them on coaches and so on is about.

I remember New Beginnings pleasantly surprising me (the cover had put me off for a very long time) but I can't remember anything from it now. Even (especially?) Len's wedding - obviously I know it must be in there but it has not made a lasting impression.

Soup, I'll PM you now.

Yes Nell. Also "lengthy" and "leggy" are common attributes. "Sonsy" sadly a lot more rare.

Ah, sonsy. There is a word I've never yet come across anywhere else. I can imagine EBD accidentally and repeatedly using it to offend 10st acquaintances of her own.

Room for another little one?

This thread has sent me on some delightful journeys into wonderful fanfic worlds where Giles Marlow marries Mary Lou (no idea why everyone seemed to actually like her, the version of her in CGGU felt pretty accurate). And then I discovered dear lord peter and Harriet vane also visited with Marlows and chaletians.

I have most of the Tyrol books in hardback, and my sister has a good chunk of the GGB reprints, I recently reread the Lorna books and I think that those are currently my favourite, though I do have a soft spot for Monica.

I can't knit, crochet, make buttonholes or even cut jigsaw puzzles, but I did like making doll house miniature stuff as a teenager, possibly inspired by Tom? I promise to make something for the next sale as long as I can dress up in some wonderful costume made from sheets and pillowcases.

Come along in, Emerence, we're a very friendly and welcoming bunch as per the unwritten rule unless you use the wrong stairs of course. It's a wine-themed Sale this year, but we're missing our distillery because it got burned down when we fled Outer Mongolia (it's a long story). If you happen to have brought a wine press with you in your trunk you'll be all the more welcome.

Maybe three-quarters of characters (adult or schoolgirl) get 'tall' in their standard description.

Although EBD does seem to have a bit of a soft spot for her short characters - thinking Kathy and Robin. Does she get muddled over Corney, or is it me? I remember having a picture in my head of Corney being short and square, but then somewhere else she's described as thin which doesn't accord with square for me. Unfortunately I can't remember where these descriptions are, but I do remember puzzling over it!

I'm finding New Beginnings a bit dire to be honest. I think probably the standard of fillers/sequels/prequels has improved through the years - this one reads as if the writer's trying a bit too hard to be EBD. Difficult new girl - tick. Joey appearing at the school and interfering - tick. Life-threatening accident - tick. Slightly squirmy conversation about God and praying - tick. Spineless jellyfish caution - tick. Hilarious Middles trick - tick. And so on. I think as time's gone on, GGB have realised you can be faithful to the original without being utterly formulaic. It hasn't stopped me reading to the end, though

No wine press. But bags Australian wines for interV. We can dress up in tissue paper that matches the colours of all the different wines. And then test people on which colour goes with which of the many wines I'll persuade my adoring father to send for us.

No one was ever of average height at the chalet school. EBD only liked the very tall ones who could play the men's parts in the plays (and also for dance evenings I think) and the slight small ones. Only a very few were allowed to be normally sized or chunky.

Also, have not read new beginnings, but am maybe tempted to try hunt it down.

I think new beginnings is a reasonable EBD imitation in a term where nothing much happens. The only thing of real note is Len's wedding, which isn't as big a thing as you'd think. In atypical EBD it's rather overshadowed by Joey.

I like it as a reasonable idea of finishing the series off, but wouldn't go back to read it. There wasn't anything that I found irritating, except the front cover not matching the description, which the author apologises for, but equally well it isn't really memorable.

Yeah - even with that helpful list of content from mornington, I still can't remember any of it! I sold it on almost immediately after reading it, so I must have been very confident I'd never want to read it again, but I could count on one hand the number of Swiss books I can imagine wanting to read again, so that's not necessarily as damning as it might sound coming from someone who can reread the Tyrol books almost endlessly.

I agree that the standard for the fill-ins has risen hugely through time, probably partly through a less anxious approach from GGBP. I think for me though the biggest predictor of how much I'll enjoy a fill-in is how I feel about the era and the characters. For me, Helen Barber's three full-length ones (both prequels plus CS Headmistress) stand head and shoulders above the rest, but most of her collection of short stories didn't interest me. And I was willing to be very tolerant of the Gillian fill-in even though some fundamentals of the story failed to convince me, because it's one of the gaps in the original series I most wanted to read.

I probably liked CGGU better than New Beginnings, although I suppose they're scarcely comparable!

Corney in my mind is definitely short and stocky, although can't remember specifically reading anything which supports or contradicts this. She definitely looks all sorts of wrong on the cover of Reunion, but then so does almost everyone except for Simone and the triplets...

Right, as it is the summer term, I assume we are planning a regatta as well as the sale? I suspect it must be time for those motorboat races I am currently reading about in prefects...

Is that the one where Kathie Ferrars starts leaping from motorboat to motorboat, something like James Bond?

(Totes up for a regatta. Eager to catch the eye of an eligible local baron.)

Kathie' s exploits are in althea, the half term before prefects.

Isn't prefects the ones where you get one of the kids stopped by the prefects in a plan (racing motor boats if I remember rightly) and saying "if they think they're going to stop me" and commentary along the lines of "the prefects were going to wish she'd never thought of it" and never a mention of it again for the rest of the book?

It's irrigating in a "I wonder if there was a better plot to this plotless book" type way.

It's irrigating in a "I wonder if there was a better plot to this plotless book" type way.

Ha! Aren't there so many occasions where that happens, though? Even in the books which do already have plenty of plot, I mean.
The one which really irks me is a variant on this - it's in Oberland where a woman in the audience starts telling them about the singer and how "one day she will no longer sing in concerts". And then disappears before she can say any more. It has exactly the effect of those random EBD dropped threads - but it's deliberate! Why would you do that?!

Hurrah! A regatta, how topping! Splendid of you to remember, hels71 old thing. Is anyone prepared to take on dear Jo at the front crawl championships? Just because she's won it for the last 87 years doesn't mean she always will, bless the girl.

The one which really irks me is a variant on this - it's in Oberland where a woman in the audience starts telling them about the singer and how "one day she will no longer sing in concerts". And then disappears before she can say any more.

Yup, I noticed that on my recent Oberland re-read. I did some research to find out if it was in a connector somewhere, but it doesn't seem to be. Perhaps it was in a book that never saw the light of day? Or perhaps EBD was trying her hand at an EJO crossover!!

I've realised I celebrate an anniversary of sorts this year. I read my first CS book in 1971 - I know the date because I remember which class I was in at school (3rd year juniors as we called it back in the day). Anyway, I've worked out that makes it 46 years ago, and the first CS book was published 46 years before that. So I've been reading and re-reading Chalet School for exactly half the time that the series has been around. It makes me feel old to think there's as much time between my childhood and now, as there was between Joey's childhood and mine.

I don't think I will try for the swimming races, but I thought could do a tub race but using the wine casks we will have helpfully emptied at the sale. Then e could also have a comp. to design, build and race a raft made from wine corks

I did some research to find out if it was in a connector somewhere, but it doesn't seem to be. Perhaps it was in a book that never saw the light of day?

Oh, that's not an impossible idea, now you mention it. I don't think it would have been her original plan to write only one book about St Mildred's. Maybe the mystery of the great contralto even interconnects with the mystery of why musical appreciation is taught by a former PT mistress who has changed her name and mislaid her husband. (Do you think GGBP have relaxed the rules on fill-ins enough yet that I can pitch that one to them?)

I can't help thinking your 46/midpoint thing could be an excellent starting point for some kind of comparative study of childhood in 1925, 1971 and 2017, told through the prism of girls' school stories, or something. At the very least it would make a more interesting contribution to FOCS / NCC journals than some I've seen.

Golly Mornington old bean, I was "very busy" with my first in 1971. 😮
Anyway, a regatta sounds topping. I sat by Mount Etna with a bottle of limoncello and a rusty can of sardines for several weeks, but nobody turned up for that party. 😰