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?

Not strictly a children's book but I Capture the Castle has a similar theme - they float about the castle being poor and not affording clothes and wanting to marry rich men, but don't seem able to change that situation (apart from totally exploiting Steven, but that's another thread).

The way they treat Stephen is appalling, even by the standards of the 'devoted servant' trope. Even if Rose is too dim to think of anything other than looking after children and going on the streets, Cassandra is a clever, capable school-leaver in the 1930s - surely, even in the face of 'nice upper-middle-class girls don't get jobs,' it must have been possible for her to find some form of office/clerking/secretarial job, even if it didn't pay much? Many of her schoolmates must have done.

The bit that gets me most is when Stephen tells Cassandra he's managed to get a job at Four Stones farm - and, incredibly, is going to donate his entire salary to the feckless Mortmains, even though he already works for them for nothing! - and Cassandra's immediate response is to shriek 'But who will look after the GARDEN?'

'Why you, at a guess, you feckless besom!'

And Mortmain should have been putting to work roadsweeping or something, rather than wafting about having writer's block for a decade while his family live on bread and margarine.

Ooh, didn't know JPW wrote with Imogen Quy.. more to look up.

LRD, I've held my own on the wool trade and mediaeval banking thanks to guess who..

Owl service more humorous, less scary, more teen, difficult divorced extended family..

Can I put in a plug for a former college friend if mine, now sadly dead, The London Eye Mystery, by Siobahn Dowd. V good. And her ones for older kids, esp Bog Child, good too.

Should we ask for this thread to be moved so it doesn't get lost?

I've got the London Eye Mystery. I think the main character is on the autism spectrum and it seemed to be a fairly careful and thoughtful portrayal, if I remember rightly.

Orlanda, sorry, I meant the main character is called Imogen Quy, sorry!

Stephen in I Capture the Castle ended up alright. Having successfully fought off the attentions of - shock horror - an older woman, he seems to end up as film star.

Cassandra was teaching herself speedwriting, and ended up getting her father working again.

It was Rose who was the really useless one.

Do'h . Stupid me. Of course.

What a lovely thread.
I still have most of the NS books from my childhood and loved reading them again with DD.
I will, like PP's, sneak take one in a nice hot bath if i am feeling stressed and need to escape.
I loved Ballet Shoes-threatened to call my dd Posy when I was a child-much to my parents horror.
My other favourite was Dancing Shoes-which I adored.
If I tell dd she is being Dulsie Pulsie is speaks volumes....
Also loved Diary of a Provincial Lady and all the the Nancy Mitford books and the letters of the Mitford sisters.
They all, in their own way, paint such a fascinating picture of a bygone era...

The Woolpack is definitely worth a re-read.

Oh dear, turns out the thread had moved on a bit...

Sadly, the Woolpack did not teach me to tap 'refresh' before I posted.

Stephen in I Capture the Castle ended up alright. Having successfully fought off the attentions of - shock horror - an older woman, he seems to end up as film star.

Cassandra was teaching herself speedwriting, and ended up getting her father working again.

It was Rose who was the really useless one

I agree Rose is spectacularly useless, but Cassandra who is 'tolerably bright' is equally happy to rely on Stephen's unpaid labour while pootling about teaching herself speedwriting and not really even considering job possibilities that must have existed, however ill-paid, for a clever school-leaver. If there were no Stephen, and they'd run out of furniture to sell, would they all have sat about genteelly starving until the Cottons showed up?

I know Stephen ends up doing very nicely (and I've always thought he probably went to bed with Leda Fox-Cotton at some point and had a lovely time) but I think what bothers me is that there's no acknowledgement at all in the novel that there's anything ridiculous or wrong in the unpaid semi-servant son of their dead former maid supporting the entire household, while four healthy adults sat about pining for men/writing diaries in the kitchen sink/wandering about naked/ reading mystery novels in the gatehouse .

Amazing thread!

It was one of the greatest days of my life when I realised I had an abridged version of Curtain Up and there was MORE! Ladies with the version with the yellow cover with the mirror, you have a treat in store when you get hold of the red cover plus stage curtain version

mumsie "P.S. Her name is Posy. Unfortunate but true"

Shudder...just watched Planet Earth ll , the episode with snakes following the nestling iguanas... gave me the creeps as they are just like the illustrations in An Enemy at Green Knowe, one if the scariest books ever...

I think all the main characters in I Capture The Castle are fairly useless in terms of economic productivity. Neil Cotton is rumoured to have a ranch, to which he disappears at the end with Rose.

The only one with a proper job is Leda Fox-Cotton who is a Bad Woman.

The stepmother Topaz did modelling but got pestered by Bad Men.

It's a sort of nostalgic, idealised escapist romance written in America in wartime. A real life Cassandra would have been harvesting mangold wurzels in the Land Army. Or making guns. And/or having it off with American GIs rather than the wet and weedy Simon.

LOVE these books. Thank you for this thread.

I now have an intense desire to read an alternative universe I Capture the Castle fan fic in which Cassandra and Rose are the world's most inept land girls, Stephen is the farmer's hunky son, and the Cotton boys are wise-cracking GIs.

Yes, Simon is a total weed.

thank you JosephineMaynard and BratFarrarsPony - I wish there was an 'impressed face' smiley!

Stonebees
The book you are looking for is:
The Mystery in Foundry Lane by Robert Bateman

Story ends with discovery of secret plans for a bypass - really enjoyed it as a child...

Tallulah, I know the thread has moved on but I also remember the Drina books. As a ballet-mad little girl I read the early ones til they fell apart! I found the ones where she was grown-up (Italy etc) less interesting, though.

Does anyone else remember a book called Ballet Twins?

OP needs to request the thread be moved, MNHQ won't do it for anyone else

Finally finished reading the thread properly :p
The Ruth Jervis illustrations are wonderful.
I look forward to combing this thread and making a lovely long list of books :D

Thank you hollyf. Just read up on the Curtain Up abridged version and there is a whole bloody chapter missing!

One of my pet hates as a Chalet School fan...off to buy a PROPER copy!

I Capture The Castle with its portrayal of Stephen supporting the entire family and being the only on working, isn't intended to be taken entirely seriously or as a moral comment on the right way to treat people (although there are serious aspects of it)

The whole thing is intended to be a bit daft, with lots of slightly daft and eccentric characters, who have normal but also extraordinary things happen to them. So yes, Stephen is exploited and let's himself be, but also becomes a film star. I wouldn't get worried about a message that it's okay to treat someone so badly and just sit in the kitchen sink writing.

It always reminds me of Cold Comfort Farm - again, there's a sense of the girl coming of age and starting to see things from an adult perspective, but also has the same element of farce about it, with ridiculous characters doing ridiculous things - Seth in the hayloft, Old Mrs Starkadder etc......but wonderful because of the eccentricities. Both books are memorable for the sense of coming of age and the wonderful,mid unrealistic characters.

Of Elizabeth Gouge's adult books, A City of Bells is my favourite. We read it as a class during my first year at Grammar school in the '50s, but that was not enough to stop me reading it as an adult. However I am not keen on the sequel, Henrietta's House , magical realism tends to put me off.

I mentioned upthread that I was reading a biography of Jessica Mitford's first husband, Esmond Romilly. Though the author's style is not appealng, very clunky, the detailed account of the Mitford sisters' prewar activities is fascinating and the discrepancies between Decca's Hons and Rebels and surviving letters of the sisters and their parents are sometimes quite startling.

It is available on Kindle, £2.99, and is called Jessica Mitford, Churchill's Rebel, by Meredith Whitford, but the focus in the early part if the book is on the Romilly brothers. I am only on 41%, so plenty more reading to look forward to.