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?

Yes, I found that so insensitive too.

Tact was never young Joey's strong point. But It was a bit of a leap for Grizel to assume she could be chief bridesmaid. Frieda would probably have been next choice after Robin.

As things turned out she probably had a very quiet wedding anyway.

Part of me would love a Chalet school tv series. But knowing how much Malory Towers was changed... would it be too painful?

I think it's probably unfilmable. It would cost a fortune getting all the period detail and locations right. Malory Towers wasn't tied to a particular time and place in the same way.

The casting would be a nightmare. There'd be hordes of people shouting that Jo/Madge/Hilda/Nell were Wrong! And what would you do about the Austrian and other non-British characters?

And I doubt if any writer or producer could resist adding some 21st century slant or turning it into a jolly hockeysticks romp, so I'd rather they left it alone.

Probably best to leave it. 🙁 Just occurred to me though - would the production be aimed at an adult audience or would it be made for children? That could dictate the slant .

I would love a Chalet School TV series but I think a lot of their charm comes from the fact that the early stories don't just create a school, but a whole world around the Tiernsee. I think that would be really difficult to replicate, although I'd love to try.

Exile would be great plot for a girl led adventure film.
But it could never live up to the book.

Grizel Cochrane is also the name of a Scottish folklore heroine who saved her father from execution by dressing up as a man and robbing the mail rider who was carrying his death warrant, not once but twice, delaying the hanging until a pardon was granted. Clearly a Chaletian in spirit!

I hate to think what they’d do with Tom Gay if they did the later books.

And with Malory Towers, didn’t they more or less reduce the staff to just Miss Potts, the Head & the matron?

And introduced a male teacher. One of the French teachers was present.

It was highly enjoyable as a standalone programme but it wasn't the Malory Towers of the books.

Mam'zelle pops up as well, and Miss Potts disappears after S1. Miss Grayling changes actors as well! DS1 (8) surprisingly loves it, but it's not the same as the books

I didn’t get past season 1 for various reasons, so that’s all interesting to know.

There is a storyline in S3 which I thought was totally ripped off from the Chalet School though! Don't read on if you don't want spoilers...

SPOILERS

Miss Grayling breaks her leg (in a riding accident rather than a bus crash) and is replaced by a new temporary head, who invents all sorts of unpopular new rules and turns out to be very much up to no good. Couldn't help thinking of the CS and Miss Bubb!

Or possibly Simone even!
in fairness to Grizel though, Joey does talk a few books earlier about how they are closer than friends. So you could understand why she would have thought she was in the running. Particularly since they knew each other from childhood in England!

I’ve just remembered reading a fanfic years ago where Joey went to Belsornia to be Elisaveta’s lady in waiting & Grizel married Jack instead. I think they had 2 daughters & moved back to Pretty Maids but I’m not sure.

Me too!!

For me, it’s less about how much Joey likes Grizel, than that Joey’s supposed to be the ‘champion butter-in’, sensitive, imaginative, ready to help etc. That she really isn’t this during her schooldays and the years afterwards, and that it’s a retrofit fiction based on her following the school around and transforming problem new girls at a much later stage, is amply shown by this.

Grizel is not that nice, no, but she’s had a dreadful childhood and upbringing and literally has no one to love her. Even after she leaves school, she’s financially coerced into a career she hates. The closest she has to family are Jo and Madge. Juliet gets lots of sympathy from Joey for being repeatedly dumped by her awful parents, but Grizel’s upbringing is arguably just as bad, and she’s just as much dumped at the CS, bar the fact that her fees are paid.

It’s pretty clear that both her unkind remark to the Robin about how she won’t come first with Joey any more and her longing to be chief bridesmaid is a desperate desire to belong, to be included, to be important to someone.

It just seems strange that someone supposedly sensitive and terribly kind-hearted doesn’t see this. Robin is only a little girl at this point — Grizel thinking she might be her oldest friend’s chief bridesmaid isn’t that presumptuous or unlikely! And Joey’s reply is pretty tactless.

That idea of Joey being Elisaveta’s lady in waiting was quite quickly forgotten.

I do wonder if EBD originally planned to end the series after the third or fourth book and was intending to tie it up with Madge marrying Jem, Joey going to Belsornia etc. Then it became so popular that she decided to carry on, so Joey ended up doing another year at school (she was originally meant to go to Belsornia and finish school a year later earlier.)

Possibly then intending to do a few more stories in Joey’s extra year and possibly end it after that. Then she decided to carry on again and shelved the idea of Belsornia all together.

Do other readers think that Jack Maynard was intended as a future husband for Joey from
the very start, or was that decided upon later?
I did wonder if EBD did originally intend for Joey to remain unmarried, as she had originally insisted she would and as EBD was herself and then changed course after she left school. Having said that there were definitely a few subtle hints about Jack pre Exile.

I think Jo is very much modelled on Jo March who also of course declares that she will never marry.

there were definitely a few subtle hints about Jack pre Exile.

Yes. One I recall is in New House, when the girls are talking about their futures. Jo says she doesn't know anyone she might marry, and Marie looks knowing. And there are other hints specifically about Jack but I can't remember which books.

That idea of Joey being Elisaveta’s lady in waiting was quite quickly forgotten.

The Belsornia idea was definitely dropped in New House - Jo says then she isn't going.

She would have been a disaster as lady in waiting. She wasn't tactful or diplomatic or, at that stage of her life, particularly careful of her appearance, or good at waiting quietly in the background until needed. I think Madge would have realised it wasn't a good idea.

And I think EBD wanted to keep on writing about Joey, and there wouldn't really have been much to write about if she'd gone to Belsornia.

The first obvious hint about Jack and Joey occurs in Camp I think, where Jem encourages Joey to talk to Jack when he visits the camp.

I think so too, and that it's no coincidence their initials are the same, albeit reversed for married/maiden name (March/Maynard/Bhaer/Bettany). Each has a similarly-named elder sister (Madge/Margaret) and they both end up as writers, but heavily involved in a family-founded school. Where Jo Bettany differs is that she doesn't have Jo March's obsession with being a boy, and preference for boys over girls as an adult.

I found the Jack/Jo relationship creepy. He turns up on book 2?3? As a fully qualified doctor when Jo was a young teenager. Then watches her grow up before pouncing not long after she leaves school.

Then was it Marie who met her husband when he was a dignitary visiting the school and listing over a school girl...

Its not good by modern standards

Then was it Marie who met her husband when he was a dignitary visiting the school and listing over a school girl...

He was 22 and she was nearly 18 and he took her for ice cream and lemonade!

The first obvious hint about Jack and Joey occurs in Camp I think, where Jem encourages Joey to talk to Jack when he visits the camp.

I don't think Jem meant anything more by that than to remind Jo of her manners - she hadn't said hallo or good morning to Jack.

...before pouncing not long after she leaves school

Hardly pouncing. Jo had been out of school for going on two years. She'd had the trip to India, where she could have met someone else. And Jack still didn't make a move until she collapsed weeping all over him.

@HonoriaBulstrode ”What a solid lump of comfort you are!” 🤣 I always found it fairly creepy that he keeps calling her “My child” when they’re first married 😬

Are we ever told what the age difference between Joey and Jack is? He turned up as a qualified Doctor when she was around 13. That would mean he would have to have been 23 at the least surely and realistically more likely to have been about 25 or 26 as you would think he would have had some experience as a Doctor in England before moving out to Tyrol. So probably 10 to 12 years in difference?

When Jack is first introduced there isn’t much indication that he is very much younger than Jem. However, retrospectively when Jack is missing in Highland Twins, Jem is reflecting on him being such a young Doctor when he arrived in Tyrol.

I know we are told in Jo returns that Jem is around 35 and he is 3 years younger than Margot who is 38 then. Joey was 18 in that book which would have made Madge 30, so there would have been 5 years between the two of them. However, I think (but am not sure) that at a later date it is indicated that Jem is older than that.

I also thought of that as a hint in Camp when Jem made such an issue of Joey saying hello to Jack. I know it could just be a mind your manners rebuke, but it seemed fairly pointed.