Is there a current chalet school thread? Anyone fancy it?

[FelicityBeedle]

Was introduced to these on MN a few years ago, having a reread. Forgotten the extent to which I want to shake Mary Lou!

Oh I’m very jealous! Although at oxfam prices I shudder to think how much they’ll be! Or maybe that’s just my local one.
I don’t own any paper copies, modern or not, I do keep an eye on the local shops though

Someone mentioned the '90s reprint cover of Exile a few pages back and I forgot to say - I don't think the girl who's getting angry with the Nazi is Robin, she's supposed to be Joey (because of the bob cut, although pedantic readers like yours truly will know that Joey has long hair in Exile). There's a girl in the background with dark curly hair who I think might be Robin, either her or Jeanne. Robin on the original cover of Exile (the one with the Gestapo officer and an extremely pissed-off Joey) looks pretty much how I imagined her, very pale with big dark eyes.

I've just checked my Exile hardback and it's actually the 50s illustration on the dust jacket which I quite like as well - of them travelling over the mountains.

The frontis illustration is a Nina K Brisley with Jo's hair hanging down in two plaits after not being able to find Robin and Hilary.

My first copy of Exile was the 80s Armada cover of the prefects on the train which I also really like and argue with myself about who's who.

whispers did someone here say they had access to the transcripts? I've just realised I'm missing three...

The tall one standing near the door is Polly Heriot, I remember that much. The one who appears in Jo Returns and runs away from her ancient guardian.

I do love Polly the best out of all the Running Away To School girls…

And Giovanna with the thick blonde curls.

@JassyRadlett I’ve sent you a message.
It must be hard not having access to them all, if only someone could help

Ah it’s just frightful isn’t it. What a predicament.

Wasn't it someone called Parker who had them? Parker123 or similar?

Parker231. I just searched and she was posting today on another topic so she’s still around.

One thing that really annoys me when the school moves its main characters to Switzerland is the references to "The English branch" which is in Wales.

And if it were truly so simple to pick up a language "when you hear it round you all the time" why on earth don't they learn Welsh as well while they are in the country, particularly Joey who supposedly soaks up other people's languages effortlessly? Instead we get "Well, aye, yes indeed, look you" and the only almost-Welsh phrase I can remember seeing used is plain WRONG. Ach y fi... Mind you, it's on a par with Scots girls being no-nonsense and sandy haired, Irish ones madcap, Prussians rude and arrogant. Where would popular fiction be without stereotypes? Yet in an early book Deira points out that they are in Austria, adding "and the foreigners are not the Austrians".

I'm afraid that what has put me off so many fill-in books is linguistic blunders and anachronisms, my personal bugbear being "due to" instead of "owing to". So far I've found one instance of "due to" in EBD's own works — not that I'm obsessive about it or anything!

In paragraph 2 of "Rivals" we read 'that Jo greets Herr Braun "in a sweet contralto voice that bespoke her a singer" but the contralto timbre popular in the early 20th century certainly doesn't quite match with the golden tones reminiscent of a (boy) chorister so admired in later books. In the St Briavel's series, someone sings Elgar's "Where Corals Lie" (which I've always rather hated), and that's one piece that's definitely associated with a fairly dark brown tone of female voice, the vocal equivalent of a viola or cello. I know EBD sang in the Three Choirs Festival chorus, but I don't know what part....mind you, with Bach even the alto lines are inspiring.

It never occurred to me that Gretchen's song might be construed as unsuitable on the grounds of hidden depths to the content, but I did find it incongruous that it's one of Joey's party pieces while only just out of school. Why OK for her but not for a professional concert performer? The explanation that you can't give the best of yourself to your art until you've suffered would hardly fit Jo at that age (unless you count being lined up to become the future Frau Doktor Maynard).

Equally, in the very first book Madge takes Joey and Grizel to see La Bohème in Paris, commenting "I don't know how much of it you'll understand, but the music is lovely". Polyglot Jo would surely follow the libretto with ease, but the plot is about a man and a woman "living in sin" and culminates in Mimi (soprano) dying of what's probably TB exacerbated by malnutrition, a theme which must have appealed to EBD. Naturally Mimi dies in good voice despite her enfeebled state, but that's opera for you.

So glad I found this thread! Absolutely love the chalet school and was beginning to believe that I was the only one who had read them! You guys all mention transcripts of the books? Where on earth does one get hold of those! I moved house in a hurry as a teenager and all of my beloved chalet books got left behind! Would really love to be able to read the lot again!

@KevinTheGoat

Yay, a Chalet School thread! I was wondering what happened to them.

I'm re-reading Genius at the moment and it's one of my favourite Swiss books. I love Nina. I also re-read Eustacia, which is my least favourite Tyrolean book because everyone in it is just so awful. I know we're supposed to hate Eustacia but I'm not bloody surprised she ran away. Not only were the girls horrible to her, but so were the teachers. Miss Stewart was vile. And Robin shouldn't have been on the expedition if she was so bloody delicate.

Miss Ferrars and Miss Wilmot are my OTP. Actually, as a teen I thought Miss Annersley and Miss Wilson were a couple, but EBD would NEVER. I actually like Mary-Lou but Jesus, anyone would think Joan was banging Gaudenz in the boiler room the way OOAO talks about her. And I wish she'd shoved Evil Reg off a cliff and run away with Len instead. There's a really good (if long) thread on the CBB archives about class and EBD's portrayal of peasants vs British working-class women: www.the-cbb.co.uk/board/archive/files/FD_Class_080410.htm

Anyone here on the CBB? I know a couple of MN posters used to be in the olden days.

Yeah I felt kinda sorry for her. She was new after all and had a rotten family plus her mother was dead. But you are forgetting something, she was violent.

Whole lot of Chalet School groups fan fiction etc out there.

I just stumbled upon this Chalet School thread. I haven't laughed so much, in ages. It was last posted on 3 years ago. Is that the end of it?

I’m sure there have been others. Do a search. Incidentally, the Chalet Bulletin Board (from which I was banned aeons ago) seems to have vanished?

I just tried to answer this but it asked me to create a username. I already have one! I had to create another, in order to post this message. If anyone can solve that mystery, please let me know.

Re the post from MindtheBelleek, Yes, the Chalet Bulletin Board seems to have vanished. I'm fascinated by the fact that you were 'banned'! 😆 Were you not sufficiently deferential, when it came to discussing the balmier aspects of the books? Judging by this thread on the subject, some of the die-hard fans take the books - and themselves - terribly seriously. Like a lot of the posters, I read and re-read the books (I have just over half of the series) as comfort reading. A lot of what I love about them, are the madder aspects of both plot and characters - which is why I got such pleasure out of this thread. I've done a search but haven't quite found readers of the books on the same wavelength. If you know of one, let me know!

You didn't mention Chalet Girls Grow Up did you?
That's practically a hanging offence in most Chalet groups! 😁

Try The New Chalet Club on Facebook. They appreciate all the madness

I think my hanging offence (and it was a million years ago, so I’m a bit fuzzy on the details) was saying that I’d always felt it was odd and interesting that EBD, having depicted Joey and co dealing with the Anschluss, intervening in an anti-Semitic riot, fleeing the Nazis, then fleeing the Channel Islands again, and being well aware of the likely fates of the German, Austrian, Dutch girls etc etc then doesn’t depict Joey or Madge being in any way involved with the war effort once they’re in the UK.

No passing references to donating saucepans, knitting, digging for victory etc, and a generally comic rather than sympathetic attitude to the evacuee children billeted locally.

Someone got very cross with me and said ‘Of course they did war work, EBD just doesn’t mention it!’ and then lost their shit completely when I said there’s no ‘offstage’, there’s only the words on the page, Joey’s not a real person only some of whose activities EBD writes down, she’s only what EBD writes down.

It all kicked off.

Mind you, I already had a reputation as a ‘Joey-basher’, and I sided with Miss Bubb on academic stuff being the whole point of a school, not ‘preventing the student body from getting TB’.

Well, I can imagine how well that went down! 😂Actually, Joey didn't do much of anything remotely connected to the outside world, once she left school - apart from magically producing best-selling books, while popping out 11 children and darning Jack's socks, of course. She spent the rest of her time moving house, chasing the school from place to place, so that she could live next door - force-feeding bewildered new girls 'English Tea' and unsolicited advice. After all, once a Chalet Girl...

Thanks for reviving it!

I love a good Chalet School thread!

Shall I pass around the basket of sweet bread twists, so beloved of the girls? I'm sure someone will be along soon to dispense the steaming mugs of coffee ...