noel streatfield

[motherinferior]

Just thought might be worth separate thread.

Caldecott Place - yep, truly weird. But I read them all over and over again as a child...

The Growing Summer is pretty peculiar too IMO.

I've never heard of Caldecott Place - there was one scummy mentioned too that I'd never heard of.
The Growing Summer rings a bell but I can't remember anything about it. I did read the Fossil books, The Painted Garden, the Bell Family, Thursday's Child, White Boots...a few others too I'm sure.
(Read them in my council house btw! )

Apple Bough...The Circus is Coming (though that has been retitled Circus Shoes for some reason, to make it clear that it's connected to Ballet Shoes I suppose - oh! There are also Dancing Shoes - Theatre Shoes - Tennis Shoes - are those her original titles, anybody?)

My stats:

Fave book: Curtain Up/The Painted Garden

Fave Fossil sister: Petrova

Fave moral message: It's ok to be talentless and nice (Myra in Apple Bough) or even talentless, unattractive and bad tempered (Jane in Painted Garden, Victoria in the Vicarage one- based on NS's childhood, I believe).

NS was rather beautiful according to the photo in the National Portrait Gallery though...

Don't think they are the original titles, janh...

scummy, I bet Curtain Up is Theatre Shoes!

I loved Myra - also (sorry) the awful spoilt actor kid in Painted Garden, the one who had paddies and a doting mummy, I mean I loathed him really but so much it kind of turned around!

I think I've only read Ballet Shoes and I can't remember much about it so maybe I'm only a bit middle class

There are 131 NS entries on Amazon - the first few are "Gemma" books - haven't read them so they must be the latest.

Was she beautiful, scummy? Good. There is a biog entry that said she was one of 3 sisters:

Maybe she was one of those people who grew into her face later. Her father was a clergyman - that would be where the Bells came from!

I read all the Gemma books, I should think late sixties. They were good, much more self-consciously "modern" that the others. The girls form a pop group, for heaven's sake

And here's a jolly useful site !

i've got an NS book sitting by my bed, waiting for when i have a spare second (ha). it's called saplings, about a family coping with ww2, written for adults i think. and i never realised 'til i bought it that her name is spelt streatfEIld. well, never noticed would be more accurate....

hey everyone, join this thread and prove you are middle class! off to start an arthur ransome thread - not...

Yes, I'm joining this thread... read all the Ballet Shoes and all the Gemma books- can't remember the others though. I'll have to buy them for dd to read when she's older!

bk, they are good stories - you are kidding, yes?

Ballet Shoes was serialised on Radio 4 at Christmas and I listened to it in raptures of nostalgia. And yes, I thought it was a wonderful story. And as in all good children's stories the parents were shadowy, absent figures. How middle class is THAT!
Mind you, my mum and I used to listen to Radio 4 together on our caravan site in Cornwall while eating potato soup because we couldn't afford anything else! (then we licked the road clean!)

I loved all the Fossil books and have kept them for my dds.

I had to read them - clue is in the name!

The Painted Garden was my favourite though. They had to go to America to help their father get over the fact that he ran someone over And they were all so talented Fantastic.

Ballet Shoes for Anna was great too. Their parents died in an earthquake

Might have to reread them. Perfect pregnancy fare.

Didn't realise she was so prolific. Thanks tamum - will check out those unknowns on the list.

janh, yes, i am kidding, though i thought a little gentle ribbing might not be out of place! kept being encouraged to read "ballet shoes" but as i was a tomboy arthur ransome was more appealing. my really favourite books growing up were the "narnia" series.

aloha, weren't the parents shadowy figures because all three children were orphans?!! I don't think they even had the same parents, they just were taken in by that mad professor Uncle figure who was into fossils, which is why they gave themselves the surname Fossil?

Dragging my memory a bit here, but I'm sure that's right. This has definitely made me want to read the book again...

Yes, they were all orphans thrown together, and all very different.

I was wondering in a vague sort of way last night (I don't have much of a life) how far the NS stories shaped little girls' ambitions of what they wanted to do and who they wanted to be. Interestingly the Fossils, of course, are trained to sing and dance and act in order to support themselves, and I think quite a few of the other dancing girls do as well (there's that strong thread of impoverished gentility running through pretty well all NS's work).

I read pretty well everything I could come across as a child - Ransome (although I was a chronically inactive kid!), Narnia, the lot. Recently read The Child That Books Built by Francis Spufford which is very interesting on the whole 'golden age' of kiddielit of the time (1970s). I love children's books. Manage to claim a semi-academic interest in them a lot of the time but basically I think I just like them, especially fantasy writing like Susan Cooper and Diana Wynne Jones.

bk, phew, glad you didn't mean it! I loved Narnia too - I was really v lucky as a reading child because my dad worked at Penguin Books so I had a regular supply of nice healthy Puffins (I can remember him bringing the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe home - Susan and Lucy dancing with Aslan on the cover, price 1s 6d!) I probably would never have read some of them otherwise although I did haunt the library too (shiny brown lino and lots of little cardboard tickets...)

My time was 50s and 60s so I had all the Jill pony books too, plus the Pullein-Thompson ones, and Monica Edwards. Sadly we moved when I was 14 and they were all chucked out (no charity shops then - what a scary idea!)

pph, yes, they were all orphans, brought back by GUM - Great Uncle Matthew, raised by Sylvia (GUM's great-niece) and an old nanny person, can't remember her name. When they made the BBC version Sylvia was played by Angela Thorne (?), she was very wispy and posh but too pretty really. The Fossils never made me want to be a dancer but I coveted those necklaces and the matching sashes for the white dresses (though I'd rather have had a pony).

Funnily enough I was in Hay-on-Wye at the weekend trying to find some Streatfield books (I was after Thursday's Child) and came across Caldecott Place. Still have all the Gemma and 'Shoes' books. Also envied Pauline, Petrova and Posy their necklaces and sashes.
Also trying to find books I loved by Jane Shaw (Susan books) and Pamela Brown (The Swish of The Curtain). All very middle-class I suppose

Bettys have you tried www.abebooks.com
You can find pretty much any book on there.

abebooks is a slippery slope. I have spent daft amounts of money procuring Susan books from Australia, Canada...all over really. But it's still nice to browse in a proper bookshop and maybe hit gold!

bettys, I think my Thursday's Child came from Oxfam, but just now there are 4 used ones on Amazon!

OOh, I've been rereading Susan Cooper recently. Adored the Narnia books and read them all. Loved Alan Garner too. Then went on to John Wyndham. Was scared senseless by The Kraken Wakes.

Yes, all good kids fiction is parent-free IMO. Like in the Narnia books where in the 'real' world they have an old uncle and a big house, and in Narnia of course, they live as adults and have respect etc.

Also adored the book with the bedridden child whose drawings came alive in her dreams. And Tom's Midnight Garden.