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?

Brilliant! 🤣🤣🤣🤣

Jem needed a train disaster for Madge let him into the friend zone and then to save Joey from (yet another) near death experience to move him out of the friend zone and into the lurve zone.

I alwaysfelt sorry for the Bettany kids. It was bad enough the parents only planned to see them once a year. But getting stranded and not seeing them for 7?8? Years?.

I presume it was a real story for many as well.

Also... which Austria book should I read tonight?

Exile is by far the best imo. That’s if you count it given the second half is set in Guernsey.

Then Jo of, Princess and Lintons in that order.

Tbh I think nearly all of the Tyrolean ones are good. The war ones in Hereford are good too but I am at the end of Hereford/start of the island now and I can already see a big dip in quality.

The only Tyrolean one I struggle a bit with is Eustacia. On one level because I think everyone is horrible to her and I don’t blame her for not loving them. On another one she doesn’t just improve her attitude after the accident, she has a complete character transplant overnight. She goes from being described to us as horrible to literally having zero flaws or negative aspects to her personality after she hurts her back. She is literally like a flawless Saint from after the accident and the remainder of her time as a main character….

Sorry I meant to put Princess ahead of Jo of as the next best after Exile

She goes from being described to us as horrible to literally having zero flaws or negative aspects to her personality after she hurts her back. She is literally like a flawless Saint from after the accident and the remainder of her time as a main character….

I wonder if EBD ever read What Katy Did?

I'm pretty sure there was a thread on "if Ofsted visited the Chalet School" a few years ago, which was brilliant!

I wonder if EBD ever read What Katy Did?

I'm sure she would have done.

At least she never inflicted a Cousin Helen on us.

And Stacie never ran the home from her sickbed.

Oh, they treat Eustacia appallingly — her parents die in quick succession, she’s a quiet, studious child thrown into a big, noisy household of complete strangers where all the rules are different, then rejected almost immediately by them and sent overseas to boarding school precisely so that she can’t come home for holidays. No one cuts her much slack because she’s a ‘prig’, but no one seems to give a second thought to the fact the she’s just lost her entire family and is alone in the world. She’d have fared much better in Miss Bubb’s version of the CS, where academic achievement was important.

I was amused that several of the Chalet School characters don't like being prefects, or Head Girl: notably Joey herself, and Peggy. They had allies in Fred and George from Harry Potter, who said "being a prefect would take all the fun out of life".

And here is my favourite word of all from the Chalet School books:

SPLASHERY!

(Meaning a washroom, for the uninformed.) I've never seen it anywhere else, not even in a dictionary.

There are frequent discussions in Chalet online places about whether EBD has accidentally written a really accurate description of an autistic girl in (pre-redemption) Eustacia.

I remember those on the CBB a million years ago, in between the major fights between the Joey-bashers and the Joey-lovers.

I mean, I sort of see it, but what strikes me most about some of EBD's more interesting 'problem' characters, is that she, despite writing them, doesn't appear to see what the issue is at all, or to blame other characters who are supposedly sensitive and nurturing, for not seeing it either.

EBD writes off Eustacia in the first line of the book:

There is no disguising the fact that Eustacia Benson was the most arrant little prig that ever existed.

The odd thing is that she then provides the reader with all the information needed to understand why Eustacia is the way she is, but refuses to show her an ounce of sympathy as a sheltered, clever, under-socialised 14 year old suddenly orphaned and alone in the world, given into the care of total strangers who then send her immediately to a continental boarding school because they want her at home as little as possible.

TLDR: I think it's Eustacia's upbringing that has made her odd. She's never been to school or had much contact with anyone other than her professionally preoccupied parents.

She doesn’t cut her any slack, does she? Similar to Naomi Elton many years later, who has a life changing disability (luckily cured by another accident) and is not as cheerful as you’d wish. Also, an atheist.

I think that was to some extent the attitude of the time - the 'stiff upper lip' - if tragedy struck, you were expected to pull yourself together and get on with your life.

I do occasionally wish I could live in those times, and get the sort of illness where you need to spend a few months in a sanatorium in the Swiss alps, drinking creamy milk, and being wheeled out onto the balcony in my bed, to breath in the health-giving Swiss air.

And maybe one of the lovely doctors from the San could fall in love with me, so I could stay on the Platz forever, and send my daughters to the Chalet School.

A girl can dream.

And yet EBD has oodles of sympathy to spare for other characters whom she likes, who often display no stiff upper lip or self-control whatsoever.

Joey goes completely mad when she thinks the Robin's health is at risk, and has no more stiff upper lip than a wet noodle, and at other points randomly blames people like poor Eustacia for accidentally causing an accident that causes Robin to worry (which somehow wrecks her health overnight). And EBD is all over that. Joey's feelings are regarded as entirely natural and understandable, while Eustacia's feelings (both parents dead, alone in the world, at boarding school abroad, terrible accident leading to prolonged invalidism) are minimised, at least before she reforms.

Juliet is pitied and empathised with (I mean, by the narrator as well as 'nice' characters like Madge and Joey), when her parents abandon her, but Grizel doesn't get anywhere near the same sympathy despite a similarly nasty, loveless upbringing.

Psychopathic Margot Maynard is endlessly sympathised with by everyone in the series, despite physically injuring someone badly during a fit of uncontrolled rage, whereas Eustacia smacking Kitty Burnett is regarded with horror.

You only get to express your feelings via fainting, tears, or throwing bookends to a sympathetic audience if you're a Bettany/Maynard/Russell, or one of their wards or favourites.😀

The worse one of all is Jem telling the Balbini twins (12 at the time I think?) that because of their own naughtiness they’ve missed saying goodbye to their mother before she died. Breathtakingly awful. Jem is mostly a decent bloke, but that is genuinely awful. Also Jack refusing to speak to one of his sons for months (Mike?) after he almost causes some sort of accident. I’m pretty sure he ends up being sent away to the ever-accommodating Winne Embury for an entire summer.

Oh, I'd forgotten Jem and the Balbinis -- that was unbelievably cruel! Jem has moments of being a total fascist, and EBD clearly thinks is the Mark of a Man and Medic.

And yes, ditto for Jack and Mike! That's also brutal! Mike is an ordinarily mischievous kid who climbs down a cliff after a bird's nest and gets stuck. Which, OK, would shock any parent, but it's an ordinary childhood exploit, and he's in no way responsible for Joey fainting and staying unconscious for two hours, or for the fact that she for some reason brought all eleven of her children with her to walk along the edge of a cliff!

But the maddest bit is everyone simply accepting as normal that Jack's temper is so bad that he needs to be kept away from his own son for several weeks, by sending Mike off to a different country with his aunt and uncle for a month!

Again, even though this is all clearly in the service of getting rid of all the Maynard offspring except the triplets, one senses EBD approves of this proper Manly Head of Household/Solid Lump of Comfort behaviour.

I just wanted to say thank you for bringing my attention to faded page which I had never heard of. I read the CS books as a child and wanted to reread but could only find very expensive print copies. Just had some emailed to my kindle for free!

Jem was awful to the Balbini twins who had lost their mother only hours beforehand.

There are definite examples of what would be considered to be toxic and controlling behaviour by today’s standards by both Jack and Jem.
In the Island Jack arranges to send Margot to Canada with the Russell’s without even checking with Joey first!
They randomly make big family decisions without having the courtesy to even check with their wives.
That’s not even to mention drugging them to sleep without their knowledge!!!

I've just read Jo Returns.
Firstly... it appears I've never read it!

Secondly... it just seems so wierd that Mollie and Madge weren't allowed anywhere near their own sick children. Then Dick and Mollie seem to depart leaving their 4 children behind before they are better.

Thirdly... has anyone got any idea for the form structure of that school?

I have never fathomed out the form structure, but it does seem that they place pupils by ability, with little regard to age. They don't seem to have streaming to differentiate on ability, they just move the pupils up, or put them to work with older forms for certain subjects only, as with Eustacia and Maths and Greek.

Moving up at random times surely means they miss bits of the curriculum though?

The bits I remember about Jo Returns are Matey doing Victorian ‘moral’ literary criticism on Joey’s first novel and Joey making Polly Heriot draw up some kind of history chart with dates, events and illustrations, which EBD clearly thought was very zany and modern and down with the kids.

Oh, and that insane scene where Dick and Mollie are leaving not one baby but two at the Sonnalpe to go back to India and Mollie is understandably upset, but immediately cheers up (because of her ‘mercurial’ Irish temperament) when Dock changes the subject to their parting present of a typewriter to Joey!