Chalet School - plot inconsistency bothering me

[VintageGardenia]

I don't know why I suddenly thought of this but perhaps my first 3 consecutive glasses of postnatal wine have brought out my inner dullness.

There is a Chalet School book (Exploits?) where some of the girls bake apple pies and mistakenly use cloves of garlic instead of cloves.

Not believable and silly.

I think they're still pretty good tbh - especially the early ones.

It was the early ones I remember reading. I don't think i had any of these really grown up ones - though i remember Joey falling in love - was it jem?

No Jem married Madge. Joey married Dr Jack Maynard who worked with (for?) Jem at the San. Their romance is in Exile.

no jem was her bil! Jack was her husband - she married him after they'd escaped the nazis together...

"Oh Jack, what a solid lump of comfort you are!"

or something similar was Joey's declaration of lurve.

Vintage - that's an interesting question - what was the financial position of the various sans? The orginal austrian san definately just belonged to Jem - ditto the Channel Islands one - but then at some point Jack seems to become an equal partner in the welsh san and has sole responsibility for the swiss san....

Presumably Jack bought into a partnership with Jem at some stage but considering the whole school was started because Madge was broke, there's never much examination of people's circumstances, or the business end of the school itself either.

Jack Maynard (though handsome on my book cover) wasn't much of a character, though, in my memory - wasn't written up to Jo.

Argh tired can't type coherent posts.

Ooh good memories - you're right of course. Though i can't decide whether an in depth discussion of the real financial workings of such fictional organisations is a good thing - or not! I'm off to trawl Amazon!

No Madge and Dick for that matter just end up oddly well off considering their original dire straits. How on earth did Dick ever afford the cornish mansion that is the Quadrant??? I've always thought that Jack and Jem have basically the same character actually - and that's why Madge and Jem are all but written out of the books as soon as Joey grows up. EBD needs to keep the men off the same stage because she could only write one husband model!

So a few people have mentioned a thesis in relation to this topic. Own up, has anyone got a PhD based on stories on girls' boarding schools?

of - I mean

Would be interesting to read biography of EBD actually - why are her books so riddled with women? Interestingly actually, I think that she had a similar situation to Enid Blyton in that the father left (as in abandoned, not just separated from) the family while she was still a child.

Would have been dreadful stigma at the time.

And many of the girls don't have strong father characters, or am I starting to make things up?

I have to go to bed now.

In morning will research and write biography, mental note.

Oh dear:

In 1912, her brother Henzell died at age seventeen of cerebro-spinal fever.

Illness was a big deal for her, then. It shows.

(There's a name you never see on Baby Names.)

My recollection was that she grew up in South Shields and her father was a sailor, so not around much, but did earn enough to allow EBD to go to private school and get an education that would stand her in good stead later in life.

EBD also started her own girls school, there is a brief bio on wiki.

Dick inherited the Quadrant. Think they got good payout from Nazis when they left austria ()

I love Exile apparantly EBD was actually ahead of the comman thinking when she wrote that as not much was known about how bad stuff was gettingat the point

Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh I'm in heaven!

I went to the Tiernsee on holiday this year...and went on the Lake Steamer...from Buchau to St Scolastika...it was BEAUTIFUL

sorry lol...it is the most gorgeous place! Saw the dripping rock and everything!

GrapefruitMoon, I'm sure your book is "Come Back Lucy," by Pamela Sykes.

It is about an orphan brought up by a kind but very old-fashioned great-aunt, who is sent to live with cousins after the great-aunt dies.

The father is an architect specialising in refurbishing/wrecking Victorian houses and the mother would spend more time on Mumsnet than the housework - if Mumsnet had been invented then.

There is an episode where the family decorate the tree, which turns out to be silver and blue tinsel, and not the real tree with handed down baubles, Lucy is expecting.

But there is a girl from the past who tries to take Lucy over.

It was also a TV series, in the late 70's, I think.

I've still got my copy, from Chip Club (does anyone else remember Chip Club - no-one in RL seems to), my daughter read it and loved it last year.

How did I miss this thread?

Am looking forward to latest issue of FOCS arriving soon

Antonia Forest is a much better writer though.

I remember Chip Club

Idris, hooray! Highlight of my childhood. I have been saying Chip Club to people for years but I've always got a vague, mystified look.

The book club/fair leaflets my daughter gets from school are such rubbish by comparison with Chip Club - Magic Kitten has Sleepover with Rainbow Fairy type slush.

Was it Antonia Forest or Forrester? I borrowed them from the library so I have none of them, and I gather the prices are sky-high second-hand.