What was your favourite Noel Streatfeild book?

[Deminism]

Have been reading some to DD and we’re loving them. I realise however she wrote loads and I had only read a few as a kid. Ballet shoes, White Boots and Thursday’s Child.

Of the others which did you love the most?

Ballet shoes is my ultimate favourite, one of 2 books that I've had to replace because I wore them out (the other one was Tracy beaker). Also loved Thursday's child, white boots, dancing shoes and circus shoes.

@Storminamu

There is a more recent tv version of Ballet Shoes, which has Emma Watson as Pauline. It's okay, though there's the usual problem of the actors remaining the same age throughout, whereas in the book they age by about 5 years I think.

And they're far too old to begin with. If they'd all been aged about 10-12yo then it would have worked better.

Love Noel Streatfeild. Although I totally agree she has her set of characters that get rehashed. It's the story of the awkward middle one with supremely talented siblings. As a middle child I appreciated that :D
Even Fearless Treasure which is probably her most different one I've read has the awkward one coming through in the end.

I'd find it hard to pick a favourite, but one description I love is from Curtain Up.
Sorrel described her two cousins, both of whom are very talented on stage, something along the lines of:
Miranda was like someone crashing through the forest determined to get to the other side and not minding what damage she did getting there.
The other cousin (can't remember the name off hand) was like someone following a path through the forest and it didn't matter what tempting things were either side they didn't take their eyes off the path and would follow it until they got out the other side.

I love that description, and it's very true. I know people who are like both descriptions.

I loved Noel Streatfield as a child , favourites were Ballet shoes ( obviously ) and White Boots but I also liked Thursdays Child and the Gemma books. The Vicarage books were autobiographical I think. One of my sons bought me The Persephone Books edition of Saplings for Christmas but it’s so beautiful I am scared to read it.

Did you know that The Painted Garden was cut for paperback? At least one chapter is completely missing, and a couple of others are several pages longer in the HB version.

@DelphiniumBlue Caldecott Place also has a father who had a breakdown after an accident, but I think it was an elderly woman involved. I am sure there is something similar in another book too!

@pastypirate

I had a story tape of ballet shoes I must have known it word for word.

Dd2 wants to start doing auditions and the first thing I though was she needs a velvet dress and a matching ribbon!!

I loved when they did The Bluebird which is a play thats virtually disappeared altogether.

Oh the bluebird! I loved reading that section. It was def the first time I’d seen a script laid out like that. I wanted to know what happened next, so went to try and get it out of our primary school library. They said they didn’t have it and I got my mum to check too. I was sure they would. But no. And I couldn’t pronounce “Maeterlinck” either. I was utterly thrilled when the internet showed up ~15 years later and I googled it and found the whole play! They’d tried to persuade me (in the school library) that it was probably made up for the story but I KNEW it hadn’t been.

@Latenightreader

Did you know that The Painted Garden was cut for paperback? At least one chapter is completely missing, and a couple of others are several pages longer in the HB version.

@DelphiniumBlue Caldecott Place also has a father who had a breakdown after an accident, but I think it was an elderly woman involved. I am sure there is something similar in another book too!

No, I didn’t!

I had this edition www.abebooks.co.uk/Painted-Garden-Story-Holiday-Hollywood-Puffin/30944970359/bd?cm_mmc=ggl--UK_Shopp_Tradestandard--product_id=UK9780140301571USED-_-keyword=&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIvbDClYbO9QIVk77tCh3DQwJeEAQYAiABEgK1pPD_BwE

Can you remember what happened in the missing chapter?

I had got Wintle’s Wonders in a charity shop a few years ago but haven’t saw that one discussed is it known by any other names ? I really disliked it for some reason . My favourite Noel Streatfeild is the Vicarage Family but the ending made me howl the first time I read it . When I was younger I used to have some second hand ballet annuals she edited which were really nicely illustrated but I was too young to enjoy the stories properly .

I loved The Painted Garden! And the Gemma books. They fostered a live of theatre and drama for me. (Along with Lorna Hill's Sadlers Wells books!)

My favourite was Ballet Shoes, I read it dozens of times and still have my copy. I also have a lovely copy of Apple Bough that my mum won at school. The rest I borrowed from the library so only read once each. I didn't realise Noel was a woman until reading this thread

^I had got Wintle’s Wonders in a charity shop a few years ago but haven’t saw that one discussed is it known by any other names ?&

Yes, it's also published as Dancing Shoes.

It is extraordinary how everyone rallies round for the characters. In one of the Gemmas, the council orchestra sends off the father with a new car !!!!!!

I was discussing this thread with dd and how the characters are flawed, and she said sometimes they are too flawed such that we can’t stand them. An example being the father in The Painted Garden who has killed a child in a car accident but it’s all about him . Actually the fathers are all a bit useless, aren’t they?!

I do like the lack of saccharineness (if that’s a word!) though. The fact that Gran in Gemma is an acerbic old bird who favours her own grandchildren, or that people can be spoilt, entitled or have black moods.

@Doubleraspberry

My main memory of the Gemma books was Robin 'swirling' his music, and having no idea at all what that might be. My mother suggested it might be skiffle.

I interpreted it as sort of "jazzing it up" changing the tempo and putting breaks in odd places. I've been trying to think of a real life example of what I think it is and think Mike Flowers Pops version of "Wonderwall" is pretty close to my idea of "swirling"

@DottyHarmer

It is extraordinary how everyone rallies round for the characters. In one of the Gemmas, the council orchestra sends off the father with a new car !!!!!!

I was discussing this thread with dd and how the characters are flawed, and she said sometimes they are too flawed such that we can’t stand them. An example being the father in The Painted Garden who has killed a child in a car accident but it’s all about him . Actually the fathers are all a bit useless, aren’t they?!

I do like the lack of saccharineness (if that’s a word!) though. The fact that Gran in Gemma is an acerbic old bird who favours her own grandchildren, or that people can be spoilt, entitled or have black moods.

Yes, the lack of saccharine-ness is what I like too. The show-business stuff is more about working children grafting in often unglamorous ways than anything wish-fulfilment-y like instant stardom. Parents are often weak, useless or absent, but there’s often a doughty nanny-type picking up the slack.

But yes, lots of people rallying round in frequently mildly mad ways.

@Mochudubh yeah, now I can imagine the sort of thing it might be, but at the time I was totally mystified!

I like the sense of community that the rallying around produces.

TrashyPanda - that's the version I have too and I'm sure it's not abridged.

When reading aloud to dd, my interpretation of swirling was a dooobedoobeeeedooooodooodooo Cleo Laine-type thing (not for public consumption with my dreadful voice!).

Hmmmm… sense of community…. More like entitled so-and-sos meet enablers in many of the cases (probably quite like real life then).

I was thinking about the household in Ballet Shoes more than the poor women who end up being taken advantage of (I feel there should be a Peaseblossom statue somewhere).

Also in Ballet Shoes when Garnie had the bright idea of lodgers…. Whatever must the maids have thought? I bet they didn’t get any extra wages commensurate with the increase in work

Ballet Shoes. The idea of the book is good, but it fails in its motivational function. Much of this has to do with the completely passive-amoebic behaviour of the girl protagonist. Personally, at the very least, I find it strange that Anna herself has done nothing for her dream; has not taken any decisive steps to somehow bring her dream closer. Yes, Anna says practically directly that she is a gifted ballerina and it is not her concern to find money for her own dance training. All means are good in the pursuit of dreams, and it's great when there are people close to you, ready to do a lot for the sake of your "desires". For any athlete or dancer who wants to make a name for herself to the world, achieving success and her goal is a personal challenge, not shifting the responsibility for its implementation to others.

@rogerponny that's not Ballet Shoes. It's Ballet Shoes for Anna. Quite why NS wrote 2 books with such similar titles is any ones guess

Pardon

Oh what a great thread! I loved Ballet Shoes, especially all the descriptions of clothes!

Also like Painted Garden, although sometimes even as a child you feel you're being shown how Decent People Behave and Parent, in all of them, and especially that one. And why the hell did Peaseblossom get to hang around forever and be foul to Jane? Also a similar parenting style to that endorsed by Antonia Forest, where you must never ever make a fuss of a child's achievement - poor Jane got to do one thing her whole bloody miserable life, and they're all like 'well that was a decent show old girl, but we mustn't forget it's your turn to make the beds. Don't let it go to your head'.

Just properly read the post about Peaseblossom on the last page - fair point, sorry Peaseblossom. "Oh! An aunt I never knew has died and left me everything! We can all go to California!"

She was still rotten to Jane though. And also, what a weird doctor that family had, to prescribe winter in California to get you over the fact you ran over a child.

@Doubleraspberry

I was thinking about the household in Ballet Shoes more than the poor women who end up being taken advantage of (I feel there should be a Peaseblossom statue somewhere).

There should totally be a Peaseblossom statue.

Though if she came on here to ask 'AIBU to have given up my career to act as an unpaid mother's help to my wet former schoolfriend and to spend my entire inheritance on giving her, her three children and her moody writer husband an extended holiday in California during which I will continue do lessons with the children while also doing housework to pay for my keep?' she would be told she had No Boundaries and lectured about being an Enabler and Learned Helplessness.

Aren't we told in Ballet Shoes that the cook and parlourmaid haven't been paid in ages? Does Nana even get paid at all? Or is this one of those situations where Nana, as an older impecunious spinster, would have nowhere to go after Garnie aged out of her care and was too older to find another situation as a nanny, so in fact Garnie/GUM are kind of doing her a favour by giving her a home?

it's a very specific form of privilege isn't it, to be so poor you can't pay your staff, but you do have a house that's big enough to take in three sets of lodgers each of whom can contribute meaningfully to the careers or education of your three children. What are the chances!