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?

I agree, but I think that’s almost certainly EBD not grasping nuance, rather than Miss Honora having a significant backstory that involved skulking on the continent because Kerry got too hot for her! Deira O’Hagan and Maureen Whatsit (O’Donovan?) at St Scholastika’s, have the wrong names for Anglo-Irish girls.

I’ve read the Pixie O’Shaughnessy books, but likewise aeons ago. Mostly what I remember is some spectacularly messed-up parenting, her father inviting people around to see how unusually ugly his child is, and her being trained as a baby to point to where ‘your nose is supposed to be’! And the unpleasant prejudices of her schoolmates, but that’s par for the course at that era.

Oh, she’s a crashing snob! The way Joan Baker is never allowed to reform because of what Joey terms her ‘heredity’ is grim. And the books are in many ways awful — sentimental, cloying, repetitive, with giant authorial crushes on characters she’s wrecked over time by depicting them as infallible and universally adored. But I still adore the series. As you say, imponderable!

Part of it for me is the sort of familiar -strange mix of a school that was also in such a dramatic setting for most of the series
And sense of friendships across nationalities that actually feels pretty radical at time the European countries were recovering from one war and lurching into the next.

And, for all the snobbery and the fact some her main characters were intensely irritating, I really like some of the values her books portray. I think they definitely shaped me into someone who would step in and help in an emergency and I have done so many times.

And they fostered my love of languages to the point I spent several summer holidays at an international language school in France.

I think part of what makes them so appealing and addictive is that she had a way of writing which makes you feel as if you actually know the characters!

That along with the fact that we get to see characters like Joey from childhood all the way to adulthood adds to the appeal. That is quite rare amongst a book series.

Then the thorough description of the scenery, most particularly in the Tyrolean books is excellent.

I also found Robyn incredibly annoying, even as a child. Joey taking an instant dislike for people for simply looking at her the wrong way is also incredibly annoying along with the idea that you couldn't be a decent human if you didn't adore Robyn.

Sometimes the characters who were eulogised a little less, for example Madge, Bill, Charlie, Daisy were actually more likeable than the Robyn, Mary Lou etc who were constantly forced on us as being wonderful.

I have to say I did really like young Joey. It was when she became an adult that she became irritating. Although, even when she was young we were often told she was wonderful when her behaviour was anything but!

Yes you are right, just to follow a whole community of people through such a long period of time is pretty amazing. And she did create a world we can still enjoy, discuss (and argue over!) 100 years after the first book was published

I very much agree with all three of you. The Chalet School community is a bit like my (enormous) extended family; some I love, many I don't even like and too many are embarrassing/annoying/often both. But they are still my family and I know what to expect from them. I also take the point that I can partly credit the books with making me beaver away at French and German, even though I never reached the level of fluency where I could teach my classes in three languages. Not even close! I also loved the young Joey and rather envied the delicacy that meant just standing by an open door on a winter morning could land her at death's door. I was sent to school unless I literally could not lift my head from the pillow. I remember doing my Latin o-level positively incandescent with German measles. The situation was reversed when I made heavy weather of pregnancy and childbirth despite my robust constitution while Joey birthed eleven with apparent ease. And remained slender and girlish into the bargain!

So far I think that nearly everyone has either Exile, The School at the Chalet or Jo of the Chalet School as their favourite.

My favourite has always been 'The Wrong Chalet School'.

Ah don't forget Flora and Fauna and all their Highland speech. That's pretty annoying too.

Yes it was well cut from the Armada version I read as a child but I recently read the uncut version and it is jarring!

Yes that’s a good one!

Ah I'm about to read the uncut version for the first time.....😅

I distinctly remember feeling bad on Biddy's behalf at the prospect of her being kept as a potential maid for the Robin.

But that was only a suggestion put forward by someone - Vanna, I think - which was squashed immediately by Joey. There was a suggestion that Biddy could be trained to be a lady's maid, but it was her mother's job, so it wasn't an unreasonable idea.

Once she's an established member of the school, Biddy isn't treated any differently from the others - even when she's in trouble as a Wicked Middle.

Ah don't forget Flora and Fauna and all their Highland speech. That's pretty annoying too.

EBD wasn't the only author who did this with Scottish accents. EJ Oxenham did it too. And they are both quite restrained compared to some others. O Douglas (Anna Buchan, John Buchan's sister) was quite excruciating at times. And she was Scottish.

I think EBD was both rather "delicate" about pregnancy (it wasn't a naice thing to mention in school stories) and fairly ignorant. It barely gets mentioned in many cases, and frequently we see people being surprised by their friends' babies arriving, despite them having seen each other frequently beforehand! We know her medical knowledge was sketchy at best, and as she never married nor (AFAIK) had any sisters etc who might have illuminated her, the mechanics of pregnancy and birth were probably pretty hazy to her.

There's a section in one of the early books, maybe Princess or Head Girl, where Madge climbs up the very rough track/mountainside to the Sonnalpe, and if you do the sums she must have been at least 5-6 months pregnant with David at the time! Meanwhile Joey needs medical assistance after falling in a box, but pops out triplets with no drama at all.

I think EBD was both rather "delicate" about pregnancy (it wasn't a naice thing to mention in school stories) and fairly ignorant. It barely gets mentioned in many cases, and frequently we see people being surprised by their friends' babies arriving, despite them having seen each other frequently beforehand!

Again, she wasn't the only one. In the Abbey books, Maidlin, aged fourteen, didn't notice that Joy was in the late stages of a twin pregnancy.

Hold on to your hat! 😁

Yes good luck!

Although, I have to say that with the exception of the annoyance of the twins dialogue the unabridged version is much better.

There is a load missing from the Armada version of that book, including a whole chapter dedicated to the return visit of a significant early Tyrol character!

And the fact that they travel to the CS in full Highland costume — kilts, sporrans, socks, plaids pinned with a brooch and bonnets with eagle feathers, which she specifies is their ‘usual attire’! Did she actually imagine everyone on Erisay went around in head to toe tartan on a daily basis?

She writes about them as if they’re an uncontacted Amazonian tribe encountering ‘civilisation’ for the first time.

Wrong is really good, though it’s never been clear to me which CS Katharine’s aunt intended to send her to, as none of the clues quite add up.

i also have a soft spot for Carola Storms, especially when Carola tries to put together a CS uniform by buying a lot of brown things before she runs away.

I think it's 'the other Chalet School' whose head, also called Wilson, is in hospital when they're trying to get to the bottom, of things and then leaves/retires - that's what Aunt Luce says right at the end (so she is happy to leave Katherine at The Chalet School, as the basis for choosing the other one was Katherine's mum knowing its head). The non-straightforward solution to that mystery is clever, I've always thought.

Doesn't the 'other' Chalet School eventually merge with the 'real' one, importing some rather snobbish pupils who don't assimilate immediately, in Bride Leads . . . .

Much as had happened at Springdale twenty years earlier.

I always thought it very odd that there would be another school with exactly the same unusual name, in a similar area of the country! And their bright orange tunics sounded awful!

Weird. 'Chalet' made sense in the Alps, less so in where ever the UK version originated.

There are three Chalet schools —there’s also a prep school as well as the orange-tunic one and the CS!

The bit that always cracks me up in Wrong (well, apart from the deep unlikeliness of a girl with an almost identical name having been supposed to supposed to go to the CS and then not arriving, and who also has a missing missionary father somewhere in Asia ) is the bit where some other new girl announces she’s been sent to the CS because she’s a ‘dud at lessons’ because her father says their house is too small to do homework in, only having a kitchen, a sitting room and three bedrooms!

Yes, but Aunt Luce is also very clear on having chosen the school with the brown tunics, not the orange ones, and the Tanswick CS, even though it’s the one Mrs Gordon’s friend used to teach at, has the orange tunics.

It also raised the interest of two generations of teenagers in the excitement of Unsuitable Books, initially Gone With the Wind, and later Forever Amber.

I'd love to know what behind the scenes literary or publishing pressure group pushed the change.

I do love the Wrong Chalet School, that description of the clothes during the trunk unpacking scene, and Blossom's initiative in escaping captivity.