Just re-read Ballet Shoes as an adult

[heron98]

Someone answer me this - if they are so poor they can't even afford new clothes, why don't they get rid of the flipping cook and the maid? Why doesn't Garnie get a job instead of staying up all night stressing about money?

Has anyone else read Tea BY The Nursery Fire by NS? It's about a children's nanny who was the nanny to NS's father. You can definitely see where she got a lot of her ideas about the nana type characters.

greyladiesbooks.co.uk/pages/authors.html Greyladies have republished a lot of Noel Streatfield/Susan Scarlett and O Douglas. Only NS's adult books as far as I can see though.

ellicam it is very readable and very much in the NS style. I think later she was asked by her publishers to just write childrens books as her adult books didn't sell well. Not surprising if readers were expecting another happy ending.

sorrel I haven't....off to google!

NS's publisher's premises were hit during the blitz and a lot of NS's manuscripts etc. were lost.

And it does remind that NS's grandparents were upper if not upper middle so she would have been brought up in the same way - but without the income to do it 'properly'

i can't think of any of the stories where the family isn't middle class and poor, or impoverished by circumstances?

Saplings is a good book but it was the first of her adult ones I read and I think I was expecting a happier ending more in line with the children's books. I wonder if her adult books were darker in part because she had to be cheerful in her romances and the children's books. I read Parson's Nine recently and it was a darker version of her other vicarage books. Tea by the nursery fire sounds good.

I've just been googling, and while I understand the drive to rebrand everything 'shoes' to link with ballet shoes it makes it bloody annoying.

I have an old copy of 'The Bell Family' which apparently was renamed 'Family Shoes'

WTF?

I think it was for the US market?

Curtain Up - Theatre Shoes
Apple Bough - Travelling Shoes

Yes, a lot of the titles don't fit easily into the 'shoes' brand. White boots sounds a lot better than Skating Shoes. Has anyone read the rebranded books? Is it just the titles that have changed? I've just ordered Caldicott Place and the Bell Family for £1.74 :)

This thread drew me in as DD (8) came back with it as her school reading book yesterday. I haven't yet RTFT but are we thining it's appropriate reading matter? Hope so!

I seem to remember reading that the change to the 'shoe' titles was done for the original US publications. AFAIK there is no change to the stories and the UK versions kept the original titles.

I have nursery tea and the two Thursday books as I think my sister has nicked mine in my basket so far.

I've not seen anything which suggests they were edited as well...I hope not. I have a copy of Party Shoes which was originally called 'the party dress'.

I was also looking at a full list of books, there are some children's ones I've not read 'the house in cornwall' or 'the children on th top floor'. Has anyone? They don't appear to have been reprinted.

Mercedes519 Yes, I've got copies of THIC and TCOTTF. I think I've got copies of everything

Does anybody else have or read The Children Of Primrose Lane. Set during the second world war, not a middle class family in sight.

I remember all those ones from the library, but I never had copies of my own and haven't read them for years.

What I do have a copy of is the one where the six children were chosen to go on a time travel adventure back to different periods of British history, to see what their families/ancestors were doing then, and it wasn't always what the children might have expected. The title escapes me at the moment, but it's upstairs so I could always go and look! I remember it because it was so different to her usual topics.

Yes

Anyone besides me like Dancing Shoes? Where one of them is good ar ballet but would rather dance in pantos and things? It might also have been called Mrs Wintle's Little Wonders?

I remember Mrs Wintle's Little Wonders, it really inspired me to do flic-flacks. It was a story about children going to stage school.

the time travel one was The Fearless Treasure.

I also remember When the Siren Wailed, but it's another one that was just a library book and I never had the chance to read it again.

The later Vicarage books are a bit disappointing. There are a few tales of failed heterosexual relationships, which Angela Bull's excellent biography suggests were made up to conceal NS's lesbian inclinations.

However, the wartime section is fascinating - NS ran a mobile canteen in Deptford at the height of the bombing, and her stories of that are v moving (and reflect massive personal bravery).

Sarah Walters book about the unwanted/paying guests? has great detail about the sheer hard work of running a house.

The Paying Guests is set in the post WW1 period and have no servants (but lodgers), and The Little Stranger is post WW2 and is about the decline of the upper class. The book is written from the POV of a doctor whose mother was a servant at the big house and how he then befriends the family as an adult. They do have a servant though.

No servants at all only really happened for my parents generation of the middle class. My grandparents (farmer on one side and a bank manager on the other) always had maids as did DH's grandparents (judge and journalist). Nether my Mum or MIL did. But we have a cleaner and childcare. The 1970/80s were the point at which there was the greatest equality in wages in this country, now the gap is widening servants are reappearing, although the way it works now is different and people don't talk about servants, it's mainly people who live out of the house who provide a service (unless you're talking about an au pair or live-in nanny).

Apple Bough! Thank you. Have been trying to remember the title of that one - Wolfie, the precocious violinist, wasn't it?!

OnlyLivingBoy I think Wolfie was the cocky younger brother and Sebastian was the precious violinist? Ethel was the boring little sister (there are a few of those in NS!) and Myra the "top sister".

Sorrel that is my exact edition of the Growing Summer and maddie I had that Ballet Shoes too, "with Sarah Prince as Posy". I absolutely loved the Ruth Gervis illustrations particularly after seeing her as "Isabel" in A Vicarage Family. Agree Sorrel they are worth framing!

sorry - precocious violinist, not precious! He was a lot less precious than many of NS's talented kids!

Yes thanks Sarah, the uninvited is Sadie Jones.

I thought the paying guests was relevant as the main character (daughter) has to do the chores as they cannot afford a cleaner (they may have a cook?) and dm is horrified and hopeless as it is beneath their class to do this but her late dh did not leave any money and the sons have died.

There is a lot of interesting description.

What struck me was that the DM was not old by today's standards but she behaved like an invalid as she was so unused to doing anything for herself