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!

I think 'pussystruck' = 'gobsmacked'. I wonder if it's an NE England/Scots thing, EBD often had characters using Scots expressions like 'drookit craw', 'drat and drabbit it' and 'ask nae questions and ye'll be tellt nae lees'.

EBD was the complete opposite of Enid Blyton and her midnight feasts. The MT/St Claire's girls were always sneaking off to have them and never got done by teachers or ended up with food poisoning.

@Gremlinsateit

Yes she clearly has interpreted it as a sweet little version of “thunderstruck”.

That’s true about Margot - she does do some awful things later, but she has been thoroughly scapegoated since a young age for doing things I think are quite developmentally appropriate, and seems to be in more trouble for those than eg the bookend.

EBD writes herself into a plothole with the CS going out to Switzerland where the triplets are concerned. the CS isn't taking under-12s (although that changes later), but the triplets have to go to Switzerland with Joey and Jack and they're underage at the time, so they all get put in forms with older girls (and then you have Inter V being created, which is a sort of dumping ground). Len and Con are with girls who are 2-3 years older than them and Margot is treated like an idiot for being with girls her own age.

@Gremlinsateit

Yes she clearly has interpreted it as a sweet little version of “thunderstruck”.

That’s true about Margot - she does do some awful things later, but she has been thoroughly scapegoated since a young age for doing things I think are quite developmentally appropriate, and seems to be in more trouble for those than eg the bookend.

Absolutely. Show me the three year old who doesn't throw earthshattering tantrums from time to time and go blue in the face in the crisp aisle in the supermarket at some inconvenient moment.

The weird bit there and I've not read Jo to the Rescue in aeons, but I think it was in that one (which is a pretty weird book, anyway) is that Len and Con, also three, are so thoroughly versed in hushing it up, rather than throwing tantrums of their own. (Had EBD ever actually met a three year old, do you suppose?)

Margot is one of those girls EBD seems rather conflicted about -- she's the tempestuous redhead who is always about to reform, but never quite does, but is somehow given far more leeway than other girls, presumably because of her parentage, and of course is never damned by the school as having been damaged by bad childhood 'training' or 'heredity', and ends up heading for being a missionary nun.

But EBD herself doesn't seem to realise at all what an unpleasant, violent, uncontrolled character she has created in Margot, and even stuff like Grizel in Reunion meeting the triplets for the first time in years and being very critical of Margot's good looks, dubbing them 'showy', is strange and interesting considering it's being applied to a 'Perfect' Maynard.

It's as if EBD was caught between wanting to write Margot as an interesting bad girl who reforms (though that is usually a plotline that happens when a new girl with an unhappy past joins the school and changes over one transformative term -- whereas Margot is a wonderfully-raised Freudesheim child with perfect parents) and wanting to do something more psychologically complex (reform isn't instant or forever), but being hampered by the fact that she's set up the triplets as three 'flat' characters who are just there to illustrate three aspects of Joey's character, the Butter-In (Len), the Dreamy Writer (Con) and the Madcap (Margot).

Plus there's the fact that all badness in the CS world can be explained by unhappiness due to a 'warped' or neglectful or unloving upbringing, but Margot has had none of that in EBD's eyes, so she has to keep bringing Margot's violent temper down to nature (her 'devil') rather than nurture.

EBD was terrible at writing little kids. I will say that she was great at writing tweens, which is why I love Three Go so much.

She was also very weird about looks and it's one topic that comes up on the CBB a lot - on the one hand you've got Len being applauded for making a snotty remark to some random woman about praising to the face, rather than being told off for being rude, and on the other you've got teachers swooning over how beautiful the school's staff are and girls obsessing over each other's looks. No wonder so many fans write slash. Ruey and Ted are expected to look a certain way and be neat and trig and whatnot, and Joey makes an incredibly rude remark about Ted's eyebrows, but Felicity King gets a bollocking for ordering anti-freckle lotion because she should be happy with her G-d-given looks. So Felicity has to accept her freckles but Ted can't accept her eyebrows or thick hair? I suppose you could make the argument that a young skin doesn't need chemicals plastering on it, but it does confuse me a bit.

Joey and Len butting in is what TV Tropes call an 'informed attribute'. Joey only really butts in as an adult. Mary-Lou is incredibly proactive (she Gets Shit Done), but I never get that impression with Len, apart from maybe when she and Ros help Ted with her languages when they're in quarantine.

Today’s line which made me laugh
“ “Gabrielle—she’s new: French, but quite nice”

Excerpt From
44. Ruey Richardson at the Chalet School
Elinor Brent-Dyer
This material may be protected by copyright.”

@KevinTheGoat

EBD was terrible at writing little kids. I will say that she was great at writing tweens, which is why I love Three Go so much.

She was also very weird about looks and it's one topic that comes up on the CBB a lot - on the one hand you've got Len being applauded for making a snotty remark to some random woman about praising to the face, rather than being told off for being rude, and on the other you've got teachers swooning over how beautiful the school's staff are and girls obsessing over each other's looks. No wonder so many fans write slash. Ruey and Ted are expected to look a certain way and be neat and trig and whatnot, and Joey makes an incredibly rude remark about Ted's eyebrows, but Felicity King gets a bollocking for ordering anti-freckle lotion because she should be happy with her G-d-given looks. So Felicity has to accept her freckles but Ted can't accept her eyebrows or thick hair? I suppose you could make the argument that a young skin doesn't need chemicals plastering on it, but it does confuse me a bit.

Joey and Len butting in is what TV Tropes call an 'informed attribute'. Joey only really butts in as an adult. Mary-Lou is incredibly proactive (she Gets Shit Done), but I never get that impression with Len, apart from maybe when she and Ros help Ted with her languages when they're in quarantine.

Yes - she is sort of a middle manager Len - gets to meet trains and buses and be dormitory prefect a lot. Hadn't heard of an informed attribute before, but great concept.

*Today 21:04FelicityBeedle

Today’s line which made me laugh
“ “Gabrielle—she’s new: French, but quite nice”*

Never noticed that I thought only Prussians were automatically unpleasant.

Do German girls ever come back to the school, after the war?

@KevinTheGoat

I think 'pussystruck' = 'gobsmacked'. I wonder if it's an NE England/Scots thing, EBD often had characters using Scots expressions like 'drookit craw', 'drat and drabbit it' and 'ask nae questions and ye'll be tellt nae lees'.

EBD was the complete opposite of Enid Blyton and her midnight feasts. The MT/St Claire's girls were always sneaking off to have them and never got done by teachers or ended up with food poisoning.

I had always assumed it was a double entendre - like the way EBD and various contemporaries had people ejaculating in surprise and delight etc. Or hackneyed literary slang like the awful Americanisms that she and PG Wodehouse and Frank Richards all seem to have recycled. But it's not, is it? Google doesn't throw up a single respectable use of the phrase, ever!

I'm so glad I was never inspired to imitate it

I really need to know what OOAO means........

Our one and only! I asked the same in an older thread

@helpmechoosewheretolive She's often referred to as "our one and only Mary-Lou".

Sorry! By the time I'd managed to get the @ bit to work, the question had been answered.

(I couldn't get @MinorCharacter 's post as a quote.)

I think EBD finds herself in a lot of difficulty with the second generation of Chalet girls in this regard - she wants the characters to be interesting and well rounded, obviously, but she also doesn't want to criticise the parenting they've received in the way she would perfectly naturally do if they were random newcomers.

It's less of a nightmare with Madge's children, partly because Madge and Jem are not centre stage any more by this point and partly because they're not on such a pedestal anyway, but I do think it's part of the hiccup with Sybil. (Again, there's a very conceivable version of events where Sybil's self-esteem issues stem directly from growing up in a welcoming and loving household where her mother is already mothering half the world and perhaps overcompensating for absent parents at her own child's expense... but I dont think EBD intended that!)

With Joey's kids, she paints herself into a corner by giving each triplet a single adjective and sticking doggedly to it in spite of everything. It's not simply that they can't grow: Grizel for example is also a character who doesn't magically outgrow her shortcomings until Reunion - she's reflective, not static, but she's still a prickly insecure adult when she returns as a teacher and sets Len on fire etc, and it's a believable state of affairs. (But Grizel of course can be blamed on bad parenting trauma.) For me the issue with the one-dimensional triplets is that one adjective doesn't create a personality, and I think if they'd been a set of triplets with insignificant parentage EBD would have accepted this after a couple of books and faded them into the background, but obviously she can't do that with Jo's children.

I wonder whether EBD envisaged, whilst writing about the toddler triplets lisping charmingly with their varied hair colours and their single character traits, that she'd end up writing their entire school career...

They have a few German pupils in the Swiss years and I think Gisela's daughter Natalie is a pupil while they're in the UK, but that's it.

@NellWilsonsWhiteHair

(I couldn't get *@MinorCharacter* 's post as a quote.)

I think EBD finds herself in a lot of difficulty with the second generation of Chalet girls in this regard - she wants the characters to be interesting and well rounded, obviously, but she also doesn't want to criticise the parenting they've received in the way she would perfectly naturally do if they were random newcomers.

It's less of a nightmare with Madge's children, partly because Madge and Jem are not centre stage any more by this point and partly because they're not on such a pedestal anyway, but I do think it's part of the hiccup with Sybil. (Again, there's a very conceivable version of events where Sybil's self-esteem issues stem directly from growing up in a welcoming and loving household where her mother is already mothering half the world and perhaps overcompensating for absent parents at her own child's expense... but I dont think EBD intended that!)

With Joey's kids, she paints herself into a corner by giving each triplet a single adjective and sticking doggedly to it in spite of everything. It's not simply that they can't grow: Grizel for example is also a character who doesn't magically outgrow her shortcomings until Reunion - she's reflective, not static, but she's still a prickly insecure adult when she returns as a teacher and sets Len on fire etc, and it's a believable state of affairs. (But Grizel of course can be blamed on bad parenting trauma.) For me the issue with the one-dimensional triplets is that one adjective doesn't create a personality, and I think if they'd been a set of triplets with insignificant parentage EBD would have accepted this after a couple of books and faded them into the background, but obviously she can't do that with Jo's children.

I wonder whether EBD envisaged, whilst writing about the toddler triplets lisping charmingly with their varied hair colours and their single character traits, that she'd end up writing their entire school career...

And when they do get development, it doesn't stick. Con goes back to daydreaming in Two Sams and Margot is horrible in both Trials and Triplets, with Len fussing over her and trying to cover up the bookend incident.

And because there are the three of them, they aren't surrounded by a strong friendship group that pushes them into shape. Jo doesn't mature evenly or much at all while she's at school, but her friends do. They manage her, and they push back against her a bit.

It's a shame we never see Rosamund as headgirl because we never do see the triplets except as leaders and centre of attention after the focus moves to them in Inter V. Pity they weren't left split up. They had some really lovely friends who kept getting elbowed out of the limelight.

Len and Con sort of are, a few of the new girls - Ros, Richenda, Ted - end up forming a friendship group with them, but it's never really as strong and cohesive as Bride's friendship group (my favourite) or the Quintette. Margot has Emerence, and to a lesser extent Francie and Connie, but that's it (and Francie has a ginormous crush on Margot).

Rosamund is lovely and I wish we'd seen more of her as Head Girl, but I guess she was just a placeholder for Len. I wish we'd seen more of Ted too. I loved her and her genuine struggles with trying to overcome bad habits, but she got overshadowed in her own book by Margot's nastiness. She's not a bad kid at heart, just very lost and her mum doesn't give a shit about her.

@KevinTheGoat

Len and Con sort of are, a few of the new girls - Ros, Richenda, Ted - end up forming a friendship group with them, but it's never really as strong and cohesive as Bride's friendship group (my favourite) or the Quintette. Margot has Emerence, and to a lesser extent Francie and Connie, but that's it (and Francie has a ginormous crush on Margot).

Rosamund is lovely and I wish we'd seen more of her as Head Girl, but I guess she was just a placeholder for Len. I wish we'd seen more of Ted too. I loved her and her genuine struggles with trying to overcome bad habits, but she got overshadowed in her own book by Margot's nastiness. She's not a bad kid at heart, just very lost and her mum doesn't give a shit about her.

Yes, Ted, Rosamund, Ruey, Richenda - all lovely characters. Francie and Odette - looked as if they might get a storyline but it flickers out.

You just never see them assert themselves around the triplets. Frieda tries to calm Jo down, Marie talks sense to her about Eustacia. There's a real sense that they ground her and they are maturing faster than her - even Simone by the end. They are fond of Madge but rooted in their own families and cultures.

The triplets' friends are more like protégées - and Joey is like a substitute mother to several of them. I can't think of any storyline where a triplet turns to them for advice, or they disagree - after any initial reforms. They seem more like satellites.

Reading Jack and it seems the girls only ever had one gym slip, and the only day that wasn’t uniform was Sunday. Do you think they were only washed termly? There’s a few mentions of spoiling it and having to wear Sunday skirts or PE kit, I can’t imagine that going well with the young kids

That's a worrying thought.

Maybe they only had one at a time - i.e. you popped one in the laundry when you changed for dinner on Saturday and your fresh laundry appeared that evening having been washed during the week?

Thanks for your kind words @MinorCharacter

I do like Grizel - she is so 3 dimensional and being one of the originals does not bow down before Jo. Generally speaking I much prefer the earlier adventure books like Princess and of course Exile over the later ones.

Thanks to Parker I also read the Abbey series - so interesting, especially the early ones.

Grizel can be a bit of a bitch to Joey but honestly, it is refreshing to see a character who doesn't worship the ground Joey walks on and she is a very well-written character. She wouldn't be out of place in an Antonia Forest.

@FelicityBeedle

Reading Jack and it seems the girls only ever had one gym slip, and the only day that wasn’t uniform was Sunday. Do you think they were only washed termly? There’s a few mentions of spoiling it and having to wear Sunday skirts or PE kit, I can’t imagine that going well with the young kids

I'd not thought about this before, but I'm inclined to think actually it did have to last a whole term (well, a half term - they have an 'exeat' at half term right?). I can't recall any suggestion of gym slips going through the laundry (whereas the lighter items - blouses and hankies and so on - definitely do). And I guess it was practical dark heavy material. I'm not sure, but I'm definitely erring on the side of no weekly wash for the gymslips!

They wore uniform for the exeat generally! Another question is periods, were disposables a common thing in the 50s? I know of sanitary belts but thought they were later somehow
Now onto wins the trick and they’re sitting exams, I’ve found this page of ‘50s exam papers if anyone else is interested. The art one fascinates me, I assume staff got some warning as to the specific objects they had to provide? www.abgs.org.uk/academicactivities/Exams/exam_papers.htm

Chalet School girls don't get periods!

Maybe that was why Grizel was so cranky. Bad PMS.

Girls probably started later in those days, because they'd have been smaller, thinner and lighter than the majority of teenagers today, with a few exceptions like poor Sophie Hammel, who was always described as big!
I reckon the average would have been 14 to 15, but 16 or 17 wouldn't have been unusual.