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?

@ShellacB - I love the Chalet School books, but I actually prefer the Swiss ones, then the Hertfordshire and Wales ones, and I like the Tyrolean ones the least.

I always envied the girls with French flair, which meant they looked effortlessly chic. I always felt that poor tall and rather sturdy EBD was expressing a hidden longing there.

Me too, @MalvinaRussell - I am over weight, and was a chubby child, and I’m sure I would have been a bit of a second class citizen in the Chalet school because I’d have been bad at sports and all those healthy walks.

Oh, I'm firmly Hilda Jukes. Idle and plump.

Totally Team Hilda. And if Nina the Musical Genius was that fussy about her hands, she shouldn't have been playing games/PE at all, just going for healthy walks or something non-contact. Poor Hilda shouldn't have to think 'Do I have to play leapfrog with particular care when I'm leaping a genius?'

I wish we still had our laugh emoticon. This thread deserves it.

Poor Hilda was plain fat shamed. Who was feeding her cream cakes twice daily, eh?

And poor Sophie Hamel, whose name literally couldn't appear without the word 'big' in front of it.

(I've always vaguely assumed that 'big' Joan Baker was large-breasted in a sexy way that the CS authorities felt was 'common'.)

Plus stuff like Adrienne turning out to be recognised as a relative of the Robin’s because they look alike, but they’re related via the Robin’s father, when she apparently looks exactly like her mother?

And recognised by Mary Lou, who can have barely known Robin, and only Robin as an adult, when Adrienne had been surrounded all term by people who had known Robin very well as a teenager.

And not exactly an error, but in A Future Chalet School Girl they jump from ‘It’s ridiculous to think that Melanie could be related to Jeanne Le Cadoulec, that would be far too big a coincidence’ to ‘Oh yes, Jeanne Le Cadoulec was my great aunt’ (or some similar relation).

One of several reasons I dislike Future is the way Jeanne le Cadoulec was killed off retrospectively.

And Adrienne is drippy and lacking in personality, and Melanie's Aunt Amabel is also wet.

I don't think EBD was as keen on games as some other authors. One gets the feeling she shoved in a tennis match every so often because it was an expected part of a school story. She doesn't go in for lengthy descriptions of hockey matches, and we have the boating and winter sports, which are something different. The only time she goes a bit OTT is wth the lacrosse in Ruey.

Best use of games in a school story of course is by Antonia Forest. The Cricket Term is one of my favourite books.

Can I join Team Hilda Jukes too, please?

AF is brilliant, and every time I read that crucial cricket match I still hold my breath, although my grasp of the rules of cricket is minimal. And the brilliantly cruel flashforward to Lois Sanger's future and striking absence at any old girl events.

I think EBD gets a bit bullish about the CS being good at games in Rivals, when the Saints are rude about 'foreigners' and games, and suddenly the CS, despite not really having games pitches, or tennis or netball courts in the early days, has a 'brilliant' team that has played some visiting ladies county side at something (hockey?).

But it makes no sense for the CS to be in any way strong at team games in the early days, really. It has an unusual number of 'delicate' girls (if you're 'delicate' at Kingscote, you get stuck in Third Remove and aren't allowed to play netball or hockey!), lots of girls from cultures where it would be mildly unusual for young women to play hockey or netball, and whatever games pitches they have are snowed in for months at a time in winter.

I’ve got a few of the fill ins and on the whole I’ve enjoyed them all. Refuge for the Chalet School by Amy Fletcher is my favourite, it tells the story of them all first arriving in Guernsey, and features Jo & Jacks wedding.

I notice the major focus on girl guides disappears almost completely when they get to Britain.

Also, can anyone tell me is Armiford in England or Wales? Because it seems to jump about a bit!

Also, can anyone tell me is Armiford in England or Wales? Because it seems to jump about a bit!

Armiford is Hereford, where EBD lived for a time. So in England, but on the Welsh borders, hence the Welsh names such as Plas Howell.

The island, St Briavels, is somewhere off the coast of S Wales, but it's not clear exactly where. Unlike the Tiernsee and Armishire, it doesn't seem to be based on a real location.

Armiford for Hereford was rather clever on EBD's part. 'Here' is Anglo Saxon or Old English for 'army'.

I think some people think it’s based on Caldey Island, off the coast of Tenby in South Wales.

Thanks. Yes I knew that it was based on Hereford which was on the borders and that the island was definitely in Wales.

But in The Chalet School at War/Goes to it Armiford seems to be in Wales. Gwensi and the locals speak Welsh etc. Then further on it seems to be changed to being in England. Presuming this is just continuity again?

Loving this thread.
My collection was/is so gappy, and my memory so poor, that I just assumed continuity errors were me not keeping up!
I'm going to embark on another reread and then return.

Armishire is never in Wales. It's on the Welsh borders, so there was a mix of English and Welsh population.

Continuity may not have been EBD's strong point, but she knew where she lived.

Me also. I remember as a teen, watching exchange students and thinking that they could be wearing a bin bag and still look chic.

I may have picked that up incorrectly, it just seemed a lot more Welsh in the earliest Armiford books.

Not doubting for a second that EBD knew where she lived herself or where Hereford was situated irl I had just thought that whilst Armiford was based on Herford loosely, that she had originally placed it on the Welsh side of the border in The Chalet School of War and that it then seemed to change. As I said, I may have picked this up incorrectly myself.

I had also heard previously that the island was based on Caldey Island.

Probably since Gwen spoke Welsh?

(Was Armiford a bit of a pun on the Army population in the area?)

That might be it. There just seemed to be a much more Welsh flavour to the first book than the rest of the Armiford ones!

I noticed that too! Surprised Jo didn't end up becoming fluent...

I actually thought that when reading too!! Everyone here seems to be speaking Welsh and it’s odd that Jo hasn’t thought to learn it given she is fluent in basically every other language! :)

Was that the "class" thing again? It was the naids, Gardeners, farmers etc that spoke Welsh. Gwen learnt it from the maids.

It's possible. My Grandma was a proud Welsh woman, she went to boarding school in South Wales in the 30s, and they definitely didn't learn Welsh because naice young ladies didn't do that.

Interestingly two of her sisters did achieve the Chalet School Life Goal of marrying doctors, and then had to learn Welsh because most of the patients spoke it, and as wives they were basically unofficial secretary/receptionist. Grandma created upset by marrying an English man!