The Chalet School

[ShellacB]

There seem to be plenty of old Chalet School Threads, but I can't find a current one.

In the middle of a re read. I have just finished the Tyrolean and Herefordshire ones. I loved them!

I do remember the Swiss books not being quite of the same quality, so not sure whether to read them all.

Could anyone recommend the best Swiss books if I was to skim through?

Oh I love the descriptions generally, it's just something about the bits about plays and fêtes that means I skim over them

I particularly loved the descriptions of the dormitories

I like a good dormitory description. On the other hand the repeated ‘quoth Jo’ makes me want to punch people, as does chirpy advice about stopping your ski tips crossing, or the adulation of that bloody echo.😀

I think this is one of the examples of it just being a completely different time. Universal healthcare didn't exist anywhere, and while there might be a few charity hospitals offering some care to poorer payments, I get the feeling that a fancy facility only for those who can pay, was not considered terribly out of the ordinary.

Plus at that time most of the TB treatment didn't actually work, so the patients were mainly going to die in a slightly more scenic location.

Oberland has the best dormitory description. Recommended for floral curtain fans.

Sure, it’s just that the school is so attuned to local poverty at the Tiernsee, and to Vater Johann’s poor parishioners etc. The rhetoric about the San is all noble endeavour and leading the fight against the ‘white scourge’ etc etc, but as you say, it was mostly a matter of dying with an expensive view while swelling Jem’s coffers!

A Chalet School drinking game could involve downing a shot at every use of the word ‘dainty’.

Also at every reference to Jo being Matey’s heart’s darling.

"Creamy milk" would also be a good one. And 'twists' in the Swiss books.

And luscious black cherry jam!

We are going to be completely pissed.

Bowls of coffee and bread and also lots of strong coffee late at night which never causes insomnia.

Don't forget a shot for the honey and nut cakes!

But which Matey? I could never keep track of which surname was the real OG one who loved Jo, and which were just the bit-parts

And the Abbess’s ‘cello-like’ tones and eyes ‘that had never yet needed glasses’.

The Robin being called an Engelkind.

Joey’s chorister-like voice.

Little golden potato balls.

Being told to bend your knees while walking uphill.u

Milky coffee!

Margot’s ‘devil’.

Double drink every time a doctor administers a sedative.

Shot every time an old girl has a baby. Double shot if it’s a multiple birth.

Bottoms up!

Don’t forget “trig and trim!”

You have really upset me now- equating the good looking and kind Dr’s Jem and Jack with Michael Fabricant.

I forgot - positive featherbeds of whipped cream. Shame on me.

Fair haired manly Doctors.
Our one and only Mary Lou.

An extra shot for every time Jo has a near death experience.

Two extra shots for every time Jo runs off in the middle of the night after a runaway school pal and saves her life.

How I love the Chalet School world. You've been suddenly orphaned? Nothing that some delicious Austrian coffee and a riotous evening of games in the gym can't put right. Go and see Auntie Jo. She's got all the time in the world to put you to rights. Anna, mind. She's on amphetamines in the laundry room doing her third whites wash of the morning after the latest twins had a bad night teething.

This does change a few times doesn’t it?

i thought i was imagining it but Matey is both Maron Lloyd and Matron Gould in different books

And there were two different nasty substitute Matrons in the Tyrol books. One when Elisaveta was there, one when the seniors went to listen to the gypsy band.

You have to be zen with the Matrons or it drives you mad.

Seems ironic that in Jo Returns when she is writing her first book that she realises she has mixed up some characters so rewrites a couple of chapters then makes a list of who is in her book and ticks off who has already appeared so she doesn’t get confused again.

EBD obviously knew the mechanics of writing but didn’t put it into practice 🤣🤣

One locks the Robin in a room somewhere, though I can’t remember why? Possibly the same woman is matron in New House (is she the Baby Voodoo matron?) and doesn’t grasp that Joey as HG doesn’t get her room inspected, or her bedside reading confiscated.

EBD has a bee in her bonnet about reading in bed. Isn’t she always specifying that it needs to be done sitting up and wearing a bed jacket, otherwise it’s bad for your eyes?😀

The part about reading when lying down was actually something people in past generations believed and not just EBD!

I remember an elderly lady I knew who used to talk about how bad it was for your eyes to read when lying down!

The bed jacket part I have only heard mentioned in The Chalet School though.