Any Antonia Forest fans out there?

[seeker]

My dd likes Lawrie better than Nicky! Where did I go wrong?

Chas was my favourite of the step children, Rose too wet and dreary, Fob just a bit strange really (although from an adult perspective now, quite understandably strange)

see my link three posts down Caprica
they've all been reprinted and boy are you in for a treat

What is your favourite book?

I love Run Away Home, Cricket Term and End of Term the most, but the others are great too. If I had to chose just one....End of Term. I love the descriptions of the Christmas concert.

oh so hard
I do like The Ready Made family as I was just so shocked to find out how Kay ended up married with 3 step children

the school books are so fab though, it would probably be one of those
Attic Term is v exciting

Oh yes - Ready Made family is fab too - and Kay so devious over the farm house. I liked the interaction between Kay and Rowan too. They are all so fab.

As a child I assumed Antonia Forest was dead, but she only passed away very recently - I wish I had written to her to say how much I loved her books.

so what is it about Run Away Home that appeals to you? I think that is my least favourite

the voyage to France - I enjoyed reading more about Peter and Giles - Giles especially as he wasn't in the other books much (apart from Autumn Term) and I was intrigued as to why he was Nicola's favourite. But then Nicola is my favourite... As a Lawrie-liker (!) did you enjoy The Thuggery Affair? I found the language very confusing as a child - and not much easier when I re-read it recently.

Child and adult, prefer Nicola by a million miles. Lawrie is so self-absorbed and childish. As a child it always bothered me that Lawrie was written about as Lawrie while Nicola was never referred to (only addressed) as Nicky. As if we were meant to prefer Lawrie even though the books were really from N. point of view.

I'd love to read the Ready Made Family.

We have a Lois Sanger character at work.

Someone on another thread said they had sung like Nicola?

I am still interested in marrying Giles btw.

Fab thread.

Lois is a great character, so unusual for a children's book. Rowan is fab, Giles too if you leave aside the inevitable 'golden boy junior officer following in daddy's footsteps' arrogance that was probably knocked out of him by the trip to France. He reminds me of Stephen, the eldest son in the Dark Is Rising series (not just cos they are both in the navy!)

Lawrie is quite clearly demented, but as Gina McKee (?) said in Notting Hill "all actresses are mad as snakes" so quite fitting I think! I've always liked Nicola, she obviously appeals to my inner geek (well, outer geek, let's face it, I work in IT, the jig is up).

Tim's another great character, in fact let's face it, they're all fantastic characterisations, even Bunty bloody Penfold. (Thus demonstrating I read the one with the falcons in just recently).

My favourite line has to be when Nicola is off getting her uber-bollocking from Miss Keith and returns to the common room. Everyone's watching Star Trek and some of them manage to drag themselves away to hear what happened, but for the others, "Star Trek, once lost, was gone forever" and so they go back to the telly.

Ms Forrest clearly did not allow for the concepts of:

• re-runs
• videos
• DVDs
• telly on demand
• downloads

God, if only she was still writing, I would love to see the Marlows modernised into the eighties, for example. In the falcon book the Marlow's mum had siblings lost in the first World War. Miranda was evacuated during the second to Wade Abbas. Her ability to make the characters contemporary over such a long period of time is brilliant.

I heard she had started a book before her death to follow the story on from Run Away Home. Alas, never found.

What would a noughties-child Nicola be like?!?

I think my favourite is The Ready Made Family, because I like the way Edwin starts as a totally unsympathetic character & by the end you're beginning to see he might have his points

I think Lawrie is definitely the most interesting character, but I don't think I'd be that keen on her in RL.

I think if she ever became a mum, she'd be posting AIBU threads all the time....

VintageG it was me who sang Once in Royal David's City in "Wade Minster" like Nicola [proud] I have been sitting on my hands trying not to mention it again but since you INSIST

I didn't much like the Thuggery Affair but I LOVE the Lawrie bit
where she pretends to be a beatnik chick and gets carried away and in trouble with the police LOLOL
the ending is moving also, but there are so many parts of it that don't quite work

A Forest thought Lawrie was a twit, too
silly woman

Of course Rowan was the best character. I so badly wanted DD to be called Rowan but DH put his foot down quite firmly. She so is a Rowan as well.

I always felt slightly sorry for Ann - because she (occasionally) realised how dull and limited she was.

Tim annoyed me. Liked Miranda. Think Esther may actually have had hidden depths.

The strict Catholicism of my childhood was nowhere near as exciting as Patrick's version.

another all time favourite part is the whole Marie Dobson affair
all of it, everything she does, is so fascinatingly gruesome, and then her DEATH the reactions to it Forest is so ruddy straight about what human nature is really like
could you not admire Lawrie a little bit for saying no she wasn't going to sign the card with the load of guff in it?

I can admire Lawrie for that, granted. I don't dislike her, just I like Nicola more. The whole Marie Dobson affair is just so brilliantly written, shocking, and unlike so many other bland school stories. AF's amazing knack for writing uncomfortable situations...

Yes - about human nature, I was just pondering that bit where Miranda ponders how odd it is that Lawrie and Nicola will be able to get away with wearing navy after the whole school has moved to scarlet, but if Sandra did it everyone would say "get the proper uniform for god's sake" (or words to that effect). Talking about the impact of something like glamour maybe?

I now need to reluctantly step away from the thread - oven timer beeping - but thank you ladies for sharing my enthusiasm - never met anyone in RL who loves the books, or indeed has even read them.

Oooo FandZ I think that is fantastic!

Off the top of my head things that made the books so different were things that were dealt with in an adult way.

The Marie Dobson affair

The guiding disaster and the shifting nuances - so that it was hard to put your finger on WHY LS was such a slithery character, in a way that actually happens so often in real life

The part where they find the clothes swapshop and they start dressing in hippy gear and it touches on drugs

How things are taken so seriously and dealt with in depth e.g. the Catholicism / Miranda's Jewishness, the architecture of the Minster (the falcon), the falconry, the actual literature of the theatrics, etc. etc. That there's so much history and culture woven in.

Nicola's first folio, her love of Nelson.

oh yes Esther! poor Esther

Lois is superb, just brilliant
cannot think of another character who is so convincingly toe raggy but you can completely understand why she does what she does and also see her to be quite charming

Wasn't it Tim who objected to the 'guff'? 'I won't sign anything that says 'passed away. Put died and I'll think about it'
Lawrie iirc simply refused to have anything to do with it at all, which is an illustration of her self-centredness (if you don't like her) or her lack of hyp[ocrisy (if you do)

Oh yes - Nicola's first folio, I loved it when no-one else read the exam paper properly. And then all that bizzo when it turned out to be Lawrie who won the scholarship, quality stuff.

yes you are right
but let's face it, it was still guff
they all loathed her