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....

PM'd you Grain.

So... Seven Scamps. This is probably going to sound spectacularly immature, and you'd never know I was a married lady and proud mamma of eleven, but... glory-hole? It's safe to say I have never heard a school-room called that before.

Also Sir Piers is a bit funny about children's hair. We hear repeatedly that he is precious about his own daughters' hair, and wouldn't stand to see it cut short, which is pretty much par for the course (and I sympathise to some extent, I will secretly feel v sad if DS ever decides to chop his lovely curls off). But then it turns out that what first attracted him to his new wife was her daughter's long fair plaits. It's one of those glorious EBD moments where she just says something completely fucking weird and then carries on as if it were a perfectly normal sort of throwaway comment.

I am sure I have read Glory hole in more than one book...but don't know if they were all EBD..

Doesn't Plas Gwyn have lots of glory holes? I seem to remember a conversation along the lines of PG having lots of kitchen cupboards thus described, and how Joey will miss them. Or have I made that up?

I'm glad to see the thread is back and progressing as merrily as a round of impertinent questions on a rainy afternoon. I was seriously wondering what we'd done to piss off annoy MNHQ Miss Annersley, and whether we were going to have to emerge as sadder and wiser girls. I don't know what I did to make the entire thread disappear off a precipice, but it seems to have clambered out of its own accord so all's well.

NorthernLurker, I'll swing by the station later this evening when I'm training my polocrosse horse, and pick you up if you like. We can keep our eyes peeled for handsome doctors on the way.

NC as I outed myself but happy to see the interest in polocrosse and thank you for the link to the shared drive.
Hope you've all brought your winter sports kit and nailed boots as I'm sure it can get rather cold in Mongolia.
If you haven't no doubt Jo can find some in one of the many trunks she hasn't unpacked since leaving Austria. When she's slept off the special milk that is.

monington was just going to say isn't the Mongolian equivalent of light country wine fermented yaks milk but then see notcitrus already mentioned it.
Perhaps we could have an expedition to China while we are here and track down the back story of Gay.

Phew. Glad the thread hasn't disappeared. Maybe we were in quarantine for measles / scarlet fever / chickenpox but it turned out that someone had just eaten too many strawberries?

Still reading Ruey here (baby taking up reading time - really need a Coadjutor and a Rosli but probably don't deserve one as not a 'real family' - just a singleton). Still amazed at how much was cut for the Armada edition.

I have decided I have arrived and will now wash the coal dust from my delicate features whilst exchanging my sturdy travelling shoes for the delicate embroidered slippers so characteristic of me. If somebody could get me some bread and butter that would ambrosial.

Whilst I wait I will mention I've just been re-reading the wrong chalet school and poor Jennifer Penrose! She didn't want to do some gardening and she had a naughty book and she ends up in isolation and they wonder why she locks up the annoying (and pretty natch) Blossom? Then she basic!ly has a breakdown and nobody says 'hmm. Maybe we should ease off with the isolation for these vulnerable adolescents'........

Bread, butter and coffee with positive featherbeds of whipped cream coming your way Northernlurker. Did you manage to spot any handsome doctors on the way up here? Are you engaged yet?

Gosh, isn't this soft European coal awful? says every single post Platz CS girl ever

When the ILs dragged me on a steam train for the first time, my reaction was "so that's why the Chaletians were so obsessed with washing after a long train journey!" They reek! Apparently they use soft European coal nowadays...

I now see the merit of corner seats, too.

Noooo, don't say that! I have booked DS and me a steam train trip for christmastime (through the Highlands - still in desperate search of mountains - rather pathetically missing Tiernsee!) - it is supposed to be lovely and enjoyable, not smelly.

Totally blanked out any memory of glory holes at Plas Gwyn. Also really not thrilled at prospect of fermented yaks milk - no wonder people keep sneaking into our dormyurt and messing about with the juniper fermenting setup.

I've never been on a steam train, I feel perhaps I should seek one out, to complete my authentic Chalet School persona.

Much more the thing than fucking Southern those modern trains. Simply It, in fact .

Rue, sounds like you're in the same(ish) area as me- try the www.bluebell-railway.co.uk/ for a proper train unlike bloody Southern and their interminable strikes. We went once all dressed up in Victorian clothes - DD went to a school with a mildly bonkers Head who thought it would be fun - and ended up chatting to a lady on a 90th birthday day out who said how lovely it was to be reminded of her childhood. Did also have to face being photographed by loads of Japanese tourists, or maybe they were actually film directors wanting to make a motion picture of us in our fresh outfits?

I must be a very old girl, one of the foundation stones probably as I contributed many legends to the annals of the OneDrive, but as my name has mysteriously changed over the years, only Dear Joey can remember me, and I've arrived to help out with the yurts, as I have lots of experience (see ref to DDs bonkers Head who installed a genuine from Mongolia yurt as an additional classroom/drama space. It smelled and the DC hated it), and can advise as to the best placements, even though i'm not a man.

Oh the steam trains are quite fun too, but after a dozen or so they all look the same to my female eyes. FIL loves them and gets all misty-eyed and MIL is quite happy with her family round and whispers about her beautiful Engelkinder... Though as she can't walk up steps, getting her on and off trains and across tracks can lead to traffic jams of people, reminiscent of scenes involving Frau Berlin.

Ooh, Visions, you've reminded me that my university had a genuine smelly yurt for a while. (V in keeping with the earnest lefty hippy ethos of the place. Quite possibly there would have been a department of Mongoliology or similar.) I am not quite sure what it was there for as I wasn't yet a student at the time - I was still at my previous uni next door, from where we spotted it and crept in one evening in a state of merriment. It was empty, and smelly. No pretty cretonnes bespattered with mushy peas or broccoli. Nor even any wide shelves to keep Sunday hats on.

My Nana had a glory hole AKA cupboard crammed with stuff! She was distinctly non-chalet school type so it must have been a fairly common term.

Gosh. I am still rather about it all. I mean, all the marvelling at erections and stuff - I can see the pun, but plenty of times I've just skimmed straight over it, knowing the intended meaning, not even noticing the puerile interpretation until someone else has mentioned it. Glory-hole is a step too far for me though! I genuinely can't quite fathom exactly what it means in this context - it's a place filled with excellent stuff, like the cupboard? Or it's a place where you have fun, like the school-room?

In theory I am willing to accept the abundant evidence (on this thread) that it had a different meaning. In my heart, it is still as jarring as Michael Gove's hilarious application of "slut-shaming" and I can't help thinking of it as a weird and wonderful misuse of a very wrong word!

Glory hole was a common term in my childhood (1950s/60s), just meaning a messy storage space.

The Bluebell Railway also does a WWII day, which I did with ds when he was in his WWII obsessed phase. He looked very cute with his braces and jumper and gas mask case. He was filthy by the end of it, but he would be filthy if he'd spent the day sitting still in a bad of roses. Dd1 otoh used to come out of playing in mud in a white dress with a slight mark at the top of one sock... I obviously haven't trained ds right.

Yes to glory hole as a messy cupboard - often the cupboard under the stairs.
Steam trains - we had those on our line from London until I was about fourteen. I remember black snot up my nose, my mother scrubbing the collars of my father's white London shirts to get the smuts off and my grandmother letting five diesel trains go past as she sat on East Croydon station waiting for a steam train on the day that they changed over.
Now Northernlurker how are you feeling this morning? Did you have time to appreciate the charming cretonne curtains and matching bedspread in a beetroot print? Is the sweet morning air of the steppes restoring your weary spirit? A pretty young mistress will be along shortly to take you to the fruhstuckyurt for milky coffee and reindeer sausages.

I'm fine and perky thanks. Adjusting my well cut skirt and looking trig in my jumper-blouse.
Did have a disturbed night as one of the Middles was frightened by some smoked bacon and sleep walked in on a burglar who then climbed out on to the roof to save the school cat and was revealed to be the henchman of the princess's uncle. Still it all got sorted in twenty minutes and some special milk sent me straight off.
Bit concerned am not engaged yet but I'll take the Seniors out for an expedition to the EDGE OF A GLACIER this afternoon. What could possibly go wrong?

(Everything)

Ah, you'll be fine Northern, as long as you've got your trusty Guide cord!

Not strictly school story related, but somehow I think there's enough overlap for people on this thread to be able to answer it.
I want to try Dorothy Sayers: Do I want to start with Whose Body (ie. the first Lord Peter Wimsey one) or do I want to skip straight to Strong Poison (ie. the first Harriet Vane one)?

(Or should I just not bother at all, given there are still Gladys Mitchells and Josephine Teys I've not read yet?)

Help! On expedition with Northerlurker and the seniors and an avalanche has triggered a glacier to slip and collapse on top of the hut we managed to shelter in. We are currently surviving on melted chocolate, snow and the pounds of dried fruit we'd all forgotten we had until a moment ago. Please send handsome doctors asap and prepare the special milk.

May I also have the drive details please?