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....

The usual rules apply so no under 14s will be allowed to play. Except the trips, who naturally will be able to because they've entered the seniors aged 6years and 2 months except Margot who is terribly behind because she's only 2 years above where she should be. But she'd be upset at being left out so she can play too.

Of course Witchend.
Naturally they and Joey will be there as the SAN is moving to Mongolia because of Brexit.
That means there will soon be lots of handsome doctors to pick up people who fall of horses.Also Joey will be speaking the local language fluently two days after she arrives.

Oh good. So glad Joey's found out where we are. Do you think all us new girls will be invited to her Freudesyurt to drink real English tea and bath the babies? Please say she'll sing too.

Freudesyurt.

Out of my way, everyone, I'm sheepdogging all the new girls just to make sure of my invitation to Freudesyurt next weekend. Mind you, won't dear Jo have to stay in bed for at least a month after she gets here? She's had all the fuss and worry of bringing the children across two continents with only the faithful Anna and five former Chaletians now in their 20s to help her. I know the children were all semi-comatose on special milk most of the way, but it's still a lot to cope with and you know how highly-strung Jo is, bless the girl. Looks like none of us will get to see Freudesyurt for a while, worse luck.

I'm off to catch and tame a horse so that I can play polocrosse with the trips. Tally-ho!

I'd love the shared drive details as well please. The only file I have is Three Go, which I will contribute if you don't have it but I imagine it's already on there

I've PM'd you lola.

My father and evil stepmother have dragged me to Mongolia on a top-secret diplomatic mission and now tell me I have to come to your poxy school I'm sure I'll hate it as I've been expelled from every school I've attended for disobedience and attempts to corrupt younger girls with my Lady Chatterley's Lover reading group.

Who is this Joey woman everyone keeps talking about, I'm sure she's ghastly.

The shared drive is amazing! Enjoyed the two La Rochelle ones on there (though not a lot actually seems to happen beyond weddings and babies). However, anyway else read 'A Thrilling Term at Janeways'? Does it get better? What I've read so far seems totally bonkers (and I am v. tolerant of plots that others deem bonkers normally).

Now started on Ruey as that's where I'm up to in my re-read of the whole series. I hadn't realised the cuts were quite so frequent. I feel my knowledge of the dorms is complete now I know there's a wide shelf for their Sunday hats (only read first couple of chapters so far - so may find even more dramatic cuts later on).

Disappointed to hear that Joey is still being dosed with special milk. Are we sure she's not busy?

A Thrilling Term at Janeways - yes, I've read it. It is, um, peculiar. I love it for the names - twins Melody and Harmony, and a family of Phils - dad Philip, mum Phyllis, daughters Philippa, Phyllida, Philomena, Philomela and Philadelphia. Utterly bonkers! I can't remember much about the actual plot, though. I think someone finds treasure near the end. It is preferable to Caroline the Second, the sequel, which has even less in the way of a coherent plot.

Did you read Heather Leaves School, Primrose? If you haven't, do! It's my favourite La Rochelle.

My favourite LR is Maids, but I think that's missing from the onedrive. I really liked Janie of, too. I haven't read Janeways but now v much want to!

I just popped in to share my amusement at an autocorrect my phone just tried to help with: I was typing 'sins'. Phone thought we'd do much better with 'sonsy'.

What else even happens in Ruey, apart from a lacrosse match and a whole chapter devoted to pondering the design of the new school uniform? And details of wide shelves for Sunday hats, obv.

Ooh - hadn't realised that the Heather one was a La Rochelle...will download that next. Ruey is one of my favourites (I think because it's one I had as a child). There's a lot about Francie Wilford who's a bit more interesting than many characters, and the whole space flight thing. And - another Armada edit I've just come across - Francie narrowly escapes being dosed with special milk (matron doesn't hear her awake as she's fallen down the stairs earlier, but if she was there she'd have 'given her a dose'). Made me smile!

I found the CS / La Rochelle crossover aspect interesting. There's a bit where baby Vi is described as having a red nose, and I found myself thinking 'well she won't thank you for telling everyone about that' struggling to remember it isn't real

The thing I always wonder about is whether Janie Steps In was actually written years before it was published... I think it was published around about 1953 which is obviously long after she'd integrated it with the Chalet School. I think Nan Blakeney's wedding happens around at the time of Gay from China - but Nan doesn't seem relevant to anything at all until you read Janie Steps In. Am I mistaken somewhere?
I didn't read any of the LR titles at all until I'd read the entire CS series much of it several times over and I think I was expecting it to be more neatly tied together as a single series than it really is. That's not a complaint btw... it just wasn't quite what I expected.

Welcome to the School, Irene. Luckily for you it's Nativity Play term, so after a few misadventures when you try to bump off the Virgin Mary so that you can have her part, you'll soon shake down and become a Real Chalet School girl who sobs her way through the baby angel chorus of Adeste Fidelis.

Ah, Joey is the spirit of the school, my lamb. She may be over 90, but she's just a girl at heart. Surely you've read her books - she's the well-known authoress Josephine M. Bettany and if you put your copy of Lady Chatterley's Lover between the gaily-jacketed cover of Nancy Meets a Nazi none of the staff will enquire further.

Do we think EBD ever wrote Gay's backstory? I remember thinking it must be there someone in one of her non-Chalets that I hadn't read - but I've never seen it mentioned anywhere. Is it lurking in a lost manuscript somewhere? Or did she mean to write it but never get around to it?

I always wonder that. It's clear that she at least knew it very well in her head (and writes almost as if everyone ought to know it), but at what point between being in her head and being published it vanished is hard to guess... planned but not written? Written but not finished? Finished but not liked by the publisher? Earmarked for publication (either as a book or in an annual) and then lost somehow? I wonder whether maybe she had it planned / half-written but never completed, while she was v busy as a headmistress and writing quite prolifically - and then when she had more time, she no longer wanted to write about the war... The war does disappear quite suddenly, I think (which is v understandable given the author and her contemporary readers were probably sick of living through it) - Goes To It and Highland Twins are both rich in specific wartime drama, Lavender leaves it more as a background issue but it's still definitely there, and then suddenly it's gone. There's no VE/VJ Day as far as I can remember, it just fades away.

I'm currently skimming through someone's PhD thesis on Clemence Dane, which might be of interest to mornington (it was you, yes, with the spirited defence of Regiment of Women? I still can't quite decide what I feel about it, on balance - only that the feelings are strong, not quite coherent, and certainly too demanding) and possibly others on this thread, since there are many obvious interfaces with CS stuff - interwar feminism/women stuff; girls' education in the early decades of the C20th; middlebrow fiction and the writers of it...

Ooh, Irene my local bookshop does actually have a Lady Chatterley's Lover reading group. There will be talks from academics and stuff.

I'm saving the La Rochelle ones for maternity leave next week. Joey has already told me that I'm slacking as it is only one (not twins or triplets or even quads) and there is a 5 year age gap between DD and this one. She has also dispensed lots of "advice" on childcare.

Ah, well - I suppose we can't all be "steaming ahead with real families", Iona. (Did she also dispense any advice on interior decor for newly-acquired chateaux?)

I think the most inexplicably bitchy competitive comment Joey makes might be the one in Reunion, quite possibly on the very morning that Hilary Burn's latest baby is born: the proud father (Phil Graves ) tells everyone how big the baby is, and Jo immediately points out that one of hers was bigger. Who does that?!

😆 I have never before grasped the comedy of a doctor called Fill Graves. It wouldn't inspire confidence...
I always assumed there was a book somewhere which told the back stories of Gay From China, and Gillian who had adventures with a brother called Hawk and a doughty great aunt. It's rather disappointing that there isn't - though there is always the chance of an undiscovered manuscript out there I suppose.

Do you mean Gillian Culver, Princess? I know that her backstory is in fact covered in Chudleigh Hold, in which she has a different name (Arminel Chudleigh?). I haven't read it before though - I should, because at the moment Gillian seems likeable but vague, but presumably from reading that she'd become a bit clearer, like the various LR families did from reading LR in addition to CS.

(Can EBD really not have realised the name she gave Phil Graves, btw? Is it a deliberate joke? She usually seems extremely attuned to the names of her own characters.)

Drat you, Nell, I've just purchased Regiment of Women on Kindle!

at Fill Graves - I've never noticed that before!

Chudleigh Hold is great - it features a German spy pretending to be Gillian/Arminel's cousin, plus the magnificent mad great-aunt, who does things like, shock horror, travel on a lorry with her furniture when moving house, with the workmen! Also secret tunnels, people falling into pits and a marvellous spooky booming cavern. It is one of the few non-CS/LR titles that I really enjoyed. I've got a GGBP copy - happy to lend it out so long as it makes it way back eventually.

I always assumed there was a book featuring Gay too - it needn't be a war one, because didn't the events in it all take place pre-war? I thought Gay and Mike left China to come home for boarding school, and then the war broke out and prevented them from going back. Or did they have to leave China because of the war? Iirc, there was a dog called Scallywag, and bandits who kidnap Ruth. It was so detailed, in much the same way as Gillian's story and The Lost Staircase featuring Jesanne Gellibrand (who may have the best name in the entire series) and Lois. Oh, and Monica Marillier/Vicky McNab's backgrounds as fully described in Monica Turns Up Trumps. It's a very interesting period, that - I think all the tie-in titles are referenced within Lavender Laughs and Gay From China. I'm not aware of any others, but EBD must have written the three published spin-offs and possibly the Gay one that doesn't seem to have made it to publication in very quick succession.

There are a few titles that I haven't read - The Little Marie-Jose or The Little Missus, which sounds like a rip-off of A Little Princess to me, but none of them exactly sound like they might contain Gay's story.

I have now also purchased the first 3 Trebizon books and Autumn Term by Antonia Forest. Happy days!

Ooh Nell would you be a dear and pm me the one drive details too please?

I have never before grasped the comedy of a doctor called Fill Graves. It wouldn't inspire confidence...

Yikes, that's never occurred to me before. Has everyone except me been smirking along all the time?

Thank you for the link to the PhD thesis, Nell. Some of the chapter titles look very intriguing, though whether I've quite got the stamina to plough through a thesis I'm not sure. Should we start a Regiment of Women thread when Cheddar's finished reading it? I love that book and there's loads to discuss.