Any Noel Streatfeild fans here?

[JFDIYOLO]

I love her books about children on stage, at Madame Fidolia's Academy - have done since I was very young and Mum first handed me Ballet Shoes and The Painted Garden.

💓💓💓💓💓

Yep me! Read pretty much all her books as a teenager, totally loved them!

I've not read all of them, or anywhere near, but The Circus is Coming (reissued, I think, as Circus Shoes to capitalise on the success of Ballet Shoes) is an excellent novel, though quite a realist one for a children's novel of the period. The two main characters run away to find an uncle who works in a circus when they're facing being sent to separate children's home, and they're insufferable cosseted snobs at first, but the arc is just that they learn to be normal, and have a fairly low-key future with the circus as a low-grade acrobat, and a rider. They don't have enormous, earth-shattering talents, and their uncle doesn't come to love them, just tolerates them and is prepared to house them until they can earn their keep.

Yes me 😀 my eight month old was nearly called Posy as I adored Post Fossil in Ballet Shoes. I think my favourite was White Boots though

Yes! Could you guess?

Did you read Curtain Up too? Another one which the Fossils appear albeit as side characters.

I love how her books begin in the 20s with the Fossils as little girls then they reappear after the war as young women with history, who the new young girls can look up to.

And how the area had been bombed and the academy was battered but still standing.

Noel wrote until the 1970s and so many of her books were set contemporarily so you get a sense of time passing.

One thing I only learned ages later was that she was gay - and on re reading the books it's striking how often they feature strong mothers and weak father figures - either completely absent like GUM, physical or mental illness, or general wet blanketness - and another strong female companion. An old nurse, a servant, a friend - it was so often two women running a home. And then the two Doctors who came to board at the Fossils.

I also loved how like E Nesbitt her children were argumentative, sulky, sad, scared, embarrassed, excited, joyful. I felt she understood adolescent girl life.

Here she is - trying to find whk the artist was.

Have you read her autobiographies?
The first one A Vicarage Family gives a lot of insight into how she wrote characters, the later ones are quite sad because she's desperate for the approval of her mother, but knows she'll never really get it.
Interestingly the original illustrations for Ballet Shoes were done by her sister (Ruth Gervis-"Isabel" in the autobiographies), not planned by them, but the publisher suggested it, not knowing they were sisters.

The sulky middle child, typical of her stories, was really her. The weak father figure was really her dad. I don't think he was really weak, just weak with his family, and she felt didn't stick up for her when he'd have liked to. He became a bishop, but died relatively young, running for a train if I remember rightly.
She did have a love, an older cousin, "John", who died in WWI. I don't know whether it would have gone further if he hadn't died.

@MargaretThursday I don’t think her father was exactly weak, just very very holy. The awful bit in Vicarage Family where he reluctantly allows his daughters to go to a birthday party in Lent, but they’re not allowed to wear party dresses or eat anything except plain bread and butter!

Have you read The Wicharts, OP - the unsuccessful adult novel which was recycled to become Ballet Shoes? It's a really interesting read from the Ballet Shoes perspective.

Me!!!!

I love them. A Vicarage Family , Theatre Shoes, The Growing Summer, Caldicott Place are amongst my favourite.

Enjoyed Ballet Shoes a lot, I think my favourite ballet books as a child were the Drina series and Ballet Twins by Jean Estoril, and also the Sadler's Wells series.

I adored Noel Streatfield and still remember how I felt 40 years ago when I read in The Vicarage Family that John had died. @pollyhemlock I remember that bread and butter story too and that some dangerous person had wanted them to wear purple, green and white to some event or other and of course they weren't allowed to. @MargaretThursday I didn't know she had written further autobiographies, I'll definitely look for those.

I was also fascinated as a 1970s dungarees wearing child by what they wore, they seemed to be always having to let out an old fawn frock to go to a birthday party.

Oh gosh ME
I Loved Ballet Shoes but my ultimate favourite was Dancing Shoes. I so wanted an atache case and embroidered coat, it was one of my favourite books as a child. Rachel, Hilary and Dulcie felt so real

As a child I recall some of my happiest times were when I was off school, mildly unwell in bed. My parents would rush off to work in the morning, leaving me with some responsible adult, and then one of them would return at lunchtime, bearing a package from the bookshop in town.

Aside from ‘The Magician’s Nephew’, my all time favourite sick at home book was ‘White Boots’. Such an utterly miraculously brilliant story. So full of revelations about human motivation and determination. Fifty years later it’s still in my head …

(All the others too!)

Funnily enough I stumbled across Apple Bough and The Painted Garden earlier today in a charity shop. I'd not read either, so obviously, I had to buy them.

No one has mentioned the Gemma Books. I was so surprised when I clicked they were written by the same person who wrote Ballet Shoes - such a different style.

Yes! Ballet Shoes, Curtain Up and Thursday’s Child are my favourites. DD loved them too, and White Boots. Also loved Jean Estoril’s The Ballet Twins and The Ballet Family.

Reading this thread has really brought back corduroy-wearing days, loping around with second-hand books that cost 5p from jumble sales.

@pollyhemlock and when they went to the party the bread and butter had hundreds and thousands sprinkled on, and they had to confess they'd eaten them to their Father afterwards. Louise had eaten some cake too and got the same punishment, which felt very unfair.

I think he was weak in that he didn't stand up for Noel (Vicky) when her Mother was treating her as less important than the others, even though there were definitely times when he seemed to see it. She seemed to feel that he loved her, but just had no idea how to treat her-or any of his daughters really. I think he'd been brought up in a family of boys (hadn't his only sister died?) and hadn't really much idea about any parenting that deviated from his own. And her Mother had an unsympathetic stepmother upbringing. Neither of them was really a good parent.
Perhaps he was almost like an absent parent, but still there iyswim.

@Almahart There's three, I can't remember what the third one's called but one of them is "Beyond the Vicarage". I found the other two sad reading, as though she still felt the "plain talentless one" even after growing up and being so successful.
some dangerous person had wanted them to wear purple, green and white to some event or other That was the Suffragette movement and they wanted Louise to present flowers to someone important. I wonder whether it was someone we'd have heard of nowadays.

The Painted Garden was my absolute favourite. 11 year old me tried to write a musical about it 😄.
I still re read when I need some escapism.

Rumer Godden wrote a wonderful book about a young male ballet dancer called Thursday's Children. It is brilliant if you love books about ballet.

Another Streatfeild fan here. One of my favourites is When The Siren Wailed about a family of evacuees.

I’ve also read a few of her adult novels including The Wicharts which a pp mentioned - I agree that it’s a really interesting read if you’re a Ballet Shoes fan. A few of her adult books are available through kindle unlimited if anyone’s got that.

Another fan here! I adored The Growing Summer especially.

@MargaretThursday Yes, I think he generally regarded the girl’s’ upbringing as their mother’s domain, and didn’t interfere unless it was forced on him , as when Vicky/ Noel is expelled from school. When his own parents suggest that Vicky is unhappy he is horrified. ‘ But ours is such a happy home!’

HER?!?! My 8 year old brain obviously thought along the lines of Noel Edmunds = man, so this book was written by a man 😆

I love Ballet Shoes. When I went to London last, we walked past the V&A and I was thinking about the Fossil girls walking up and down there with Nana on their walks. I was delighted to be tracing their footsteps!

Me too! I re-read it recently and thought how good it was for one of her lesser known books. I also love The Painted Garden (especially the bit where Rachel dresses up to meet the Fossils) and the Gemma books - Gemma’s beautiful (but very 60s/70s wardrobe) and the extravagant gifts she gives the family, and Robin’s ‘swirling’ and the description of Lydia’s little ballet studio.

@Puddlelane123 me too was meant to agree with you about The Growing Summer but the thread moved too fast!