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?

From the 'Penny Catechism', that a convert of Jo's vintage would have been expected to read and know

182. Does the first Commandment forbid dealing with the devil and
superstitious practices?
The first Commandment forbids all dealing with the devil and superstitious
practices, such as consulting spiritualists and fortune-tellers, and
trusting to charms, omens, dreams, and suchlike fooleries.

http://www.staugustinechapel.org/Library/books_pdf/PennyCatechism.pdf

I'm re-reading Island, and it got me thinking about Margot, who is shipped off to Canada at the beginning due to her terrible delicacy. Prior to that point, where is it mentioned? I've got a gap in my collection between Exile and this point (have read all of them but don't have my own copies, except Jo to the Rescue, where the main health concerns are Phoebe's ?rheumatism and Stephen's teeth) but I don't remember any big dramatic illnesses such as Jo had in her schooldays. I know there was Josette's awful burns accident, but was Margot really at death's door very often?!

I don’t remember it being a major plot point at the time in any books — it’s one of EBD’s retrofitting moments, like Cornelia having been mothered by Mademoiselle (though we never see this in action and are only told it after her death) or Joey having been a champion ‘butter-in’ at school (which just wasn’t true at all. She was a perfectly ordinary, though very popular schoolgirl, and only started ‘butting in’ when the plots required it to keep her in contact with the CS, much later.)

From the 'Penny Catechism', that a convert of Jo's vintage would have been expected to read and know

EBD should also have known it then, because she too was a convert. So either she had forgotten, or decided the second sight was too good a story not to use it, and just had Nell to give the other point of view.

the Nazi attitude to gypsies was such that Jo could have got them all killed.

Would Jo have known that in 1938, though?

was Margot really at death's door very often?!

There are one or two mentions of Margot having had some illness 'offscreen'. In HT and/or Lavender, I think. At that time there was no likelihood of sending her to Canada of course, so it wasn't foreshadowing, but maybe EBD had some other long term development in mind.

Yes, this from Highland Twins:
A look of fear came into Joey’s eyes. Last winter Margot, the youngest of the triplets, had nearly died of bronchitis, and she was by no means as sturdy as her elder sisters, even now.

(One of the benefits of Faded Page: one can search the text.)

Oh dear.

I just bought a St Christopher medal as my daughter just passed her driving test (tbf, it did feel a little iffy. Still bought it though)

Ah, but a blessed medal is quite different from a lucky charm.

I don’t think there’s anything at all heterodox about St Christopher medals or Miraculous medals!

We got ds one for his 17th birthday- he absolutely loves it!

Yes, but again, it’s never an actual, current plot point. We’re only ever told about it long afterwards, unlike, say, Joey’s own teenage brushes with death.

Same!

To be fair, she didn't write many books covering the time when Margot could have been ill - the toddler period of the triplets

I've just finished "Wins the Trick" which I thought would have been similar to the "feud" with the Bellini twins/Mystic M and, although I enjoyed it, Saint Mary Lou made an appearance!

Slightly off-topic but Angela Brazil's turn of the century schoolgirls often wore Swastika charms for luck - it seems strange to think that, before it was adopted by the Nazis, the Swastika was simply a good luck symbol like a clover or horse shoe or shamrock - and had it not been chosen and forever tainted by the Nazis, we might today be wearing, e.g. a necklace with a 'lucky Swastika' pendant and it would just be a normal and unremarkable sight.

Yes, but no need then to invent a retrospective illness, either!

I mean, even given that childhood illnesses were more common and more potentially serious when she was writing, EBD does fetishise illness. Her ‘delicate’ characters are always more interesting (to her) than her robustly healthy ones! She even gives healthy-as-a-clam Mary-Lou a brush with death that results in a total change in her appearance so that she magically morphs from stocky, passable-looking and straight-haired to tall, willowy, curly-haired and stunning.

But I suppose the entire series owes its existence to Joey’s sickliness. If she’d been a robust child, Madge would have just taken her to India to housekeep for Dick, and would have married some other Brit in the Civil Service, and Joey would either have stayed in England and boarded, or Madge would have taught her at home in India.

I think swastikas occur in lots of cultures, long before they were appropriated by Nazism — you certainly see them often in Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism.

Re Joey in Highland Twins, I also found that odd and I felt that Bill’s voicing of her disapproval was EBD‘s own view on it being aired. I think she just thought it was a good plot and hence Joey had to be involved. Very out of character for Joey, though.

Highland Twins is a great book, but there are a lot of continuity errors in it. Perhaps there was less editing done during the war. Also, we know that EBD was very busy in those years with her own school on top of the writing. She only produced one every two years in that period which might account for a few errors. Interestingly, I think she produced some of her highest quality writing in terms of plot etc, in that period between 1938 and 1948 when she was also running a school! So perhaps writing less was a good thing in terms of quality of plot.

Re Margot’s illness, it is correct that there is a large gap in time between Jo to the Rescue and Three, so we missed quite a few years there where she could have had childhood illnesses . Three felt like a bit of a restart, so I often wonder whether EBD had originally thought of ending the series with her ode to adult Jo in Jo to the Rescue. Perhaps the pressure of the school alongside writing was getting a bit much. Or maybe she just decided to wait until the triplets were old enough to write as real characters and wanted time for a complete clearout of characters before Mary Lou etc arrived for a fresh start. The language in Three, for example, is so different that it does almost feel like a new series!

Oh hell, is that the "mokes" era? Or "brats"?

That’s the mokes era. Literally every second line!!!

So odd when there had been such an overly exuberant focus on ‘slang’ in the early books. For a complete change to them calling each other derogatory names and that being fine because our oao Mary Lou was involved!

Had major problems with fadedpage last night, done all the work arounds etc, still couldn't get direct via email to kindle which hasn't been an issue before. Had to use the download to Amazon then send to kindle method in the end. Anyone else had recent issues?

I've found it's been a bit hit and miss whether I get it or not. Have to refresh and repeat.

On the language thing, I feel so uncomfortable with the "brats" and "idiots" comments. Those are words I would never use about my children or friends.

And yet later on we're repeatedly told that Mary-Lou spent most of her childhood exclusively with adults, which is why she is so youneek in her outlook. I can't imagine her Gran allowing slang like that!

I also find that aspect really odd - why didn't she go to school before? Or meet any other children before the holiday where she meets Clem?

Madge told Joey & the others that the Robin had always lived with adults ‘so they wouldn’t find her too much of a baby.’

That didn’t last long.

That aged badly 😆

Yes, it's particularly odd in that she's absolutely babied by everyone at the school from the moment she arrives! There's that moment when they pull back the blanket (Miss Maynard must have the strength of an ox, as she appears to have carried a sleeping six year old in her arms the entire way from Spartz to the ferry landing!) and it's all 'such a lovely baby face', and bathing her in a baby bath in the dormitory, as though she's a toddler at most.

I mean, Amy Stevens was only eight when she started at the CS in its first week or two of existence, and no one seems to have been babying her to anywhere near the same extent.

EBD is fascinated by children who have lived exclusively with adults, but she has some deeply inconsistent strategies for explaining their behaviour in relation to those adults. You have the Robin, who behaves as though she is much younger than her age until she's into her teens. (How old is she when they flee Austria in Exile? -- because people are still carrying her on their shoulders like a doll!)

You have Polly Heriot, who is dying to be a madcap schoolgirl after an upbringing by elderly guardians.

You have Verity, who is prim and proper and disapproves of modern children, after being brought up by two elderly people and a governess who was in her 70s.

You have Eustacia (whose parents are older as well as a scholar and a medic), who is also prim and proper, but in a scholarly way.

And maybe rather more oddly, you have Mary-Lou, essentially brought up by her grandmother, as her mother is a wet lettuce, who apparently was a 'quiet little puss' before meeting Clem and Tony, after which she turns into a tomboy but still 'doesn't like girls'.

I mean, Amy Stevens was only eight when she started at the CS in its first week or two of existence, and no one seems to have been babying her to anywhere near the same extent.

Juliet bathed Amy though, didn’t she?