The Chalet School 2 - Still talking about it a century later!

[ShellacB]

Hi everyone. Here is the new thread!

I agree that Joey would have been wasted in Belsornia. Also, that she would not have made a good lady in waiting.

I suspect it was just an idea to give her a happy ending if the series ended after Madge‘s wedding.

Thanks for the new thread! I suppose at the time she wrote that plan, EBD had no idea about the war that would come and force the movement of the school and so on. I can't remember if Jack Maynard had appeared in the series at the point where Belsornia was a serious plan, and if so, whether she planned to match them up or not initially.

Checking in on the new thread.

I can't remember if Jack Maynard had appeared in the series at the point where Belsornia was a serious plan, and if so, whether she planned to match them up or not initially.

I think Jack replaced Belsornia in EBD's plan for Jo quite early on, but she didn't rule out Belsornia until New House, Jo's last term at school. Then, Belsornia is off, and Marie looks knowing when Jo says she doesn't know anyone she might marry.

I always felt a bit sorry for EBD.

First, Austria was annexed. Oh well, she had to move them.

So........the CS moved to Guernsey. The. CIs are then invaded. Bad luck.

I bet EBD was very certain that Hitler wouldn't invade islands off the coast of Wales when she moved the CS again.

Did they still have pretty cretonnes by the bed on the island? I can't remember now.
🤣

Thank you for the new thread!

Agreed
But it's also partly what makes her books still so interesting now, that they were written near contemporaneously at a time when so much was happening in those places

First, Austria was annexed. Oh well, she had to move them.
So........the CS moved to Guernsey. The. CIs are then invaded. Bad luck.

And then they spent all the war years talking about when they could go back to Tirol, but even when the war was over, they couldn't. So EBD gave up waiting and moved them to Switzerland instead.

I bet EBD was very certain that Hitler wouldn't invade islands off the coast of Wales when she moved the CS again.

Well Hitler was long dead by then, unless you're writing a thriller.....

He wasn't dead then. The school was there during the war.

I bet EBD was very certain that Hitler wouldn't invade islands off the coast of Wales when she moved the CS again.
Well Hitler was long dead by then, unless you're writing a thriller...

He wasn't dead then. The school was there during the war.

Island was after Three Go. The war was over by then. The triplets are eight, so it must be 1948 in school time.

Thanks for the new thread!

Just checking in 😊

Also checking in!

Agree, Joey would have been a terrible lady in waiting. Always rushing off on her own business and saying the wrong thing.

I've been half way through a re-read for a while. I've got stuck at Changes - just cant bring myself to move into the Swiss era. I haven't done a full readthrough since I completed my unedited collection so I really need to get on with it. But I like the magic of the early books and am always disappointed with the weirdness of Joey in the Later books.

I've always agreed with the fan theory that Joey was inspired or partly inspired by Jo March of Little Women. If this theory is true, writing must have been on the cards for the character at some point, although unlike Jo March, Joey didn't talk about it as her sole ambition in life while she was growing uo.

I'm 76 and loved The Chalet School as a young girl. I don't remember that much about it now but I know I longed to go there. It was out of my reach as a working class girl but it was fun to dream!

You should re-read them, if you don't remember much it will be a real joy, just the thing for autumn and winter - you can find them online if you no longer have your childhood copies.

Good idea. I don't have childhood copies, books were all from library and what a joy it was to go and find one I hadn't read. I love libraries, still use them.

Yes, I still use the library, sadly I think the Chalet School has long since gone onto the library discards shelf. When I was a child I would get books from the library and then if there was one I loved I would save up my 20p a week pocket money to buy my own copy.

The Chalet School books are online at www.fadedpage.com - you can download them to ebook readers or just read them onscreen as HTML. All bar one I think are the unabridged versions.

As a child I mainly read the Armada abridged ones, there were lots in charity shops in the 80s. I've been able to collect some of the unabridged ones as an adult but a lot of mine are still Armada paperbacks either my childhood copies or copies I have picked up since, but I don't have all of them - I always look out for them when I am in second hand bookshops.

I have both the Armada and original of my all time favourite, 'Wrong' even though the only difference is that the forbidden book is updated from Gone With The Wind to the (far raunchier) Forever Amber. I couldn't bear to give away my childhood Armada of 'Wrong' when I found a hardback!

The New Chalet Club has a lending library https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=ww2.newchaletclub.co.uk/&ved=2ahUKEwi98qf1tdSWAxXM8LsIHZ0RGuQQFnoECBEQAQ&sqi=2&usg=AOvVaw2Dz7Bsk9RxNMgreJJmP1WC

You can generally buy the armada versions cheaply too. The unabridged versions can be a lot more pricey but I have managed to buy some Girls Gone Buy copies second hand recently

Hello 😊 Not sure how I missed the first of these threads. I am currently in the Swiss era and reading Joey and Co in Tirol which is one I haven’t read too often. I have nearly all of them in GGBP versions and have got DD (20) into reading them too although this means that some of my books may be hiding somewhere else at the moment. Must sort out my girls school stories bookcase again.

Your just made me think about the fact that EBD very much focuses on the ‘standardness’ of the ‘dainty’ CS cubicles, not the fact that they’re always in very different types and ages of building, none purpose-built as a school. They’re at the original chalet, a hotel on the Sonnalpe, Sarres on Guernsey which has been empty for years and is semi-derelict, then Plas Howell, which is is a Palladian mansion, then in the Big House on St Briavel’s, then in another former hotel on the Gornetz Platz.

Some of Angela Brazil’s books like The Manor House School make a big deal of the oldness and picturesqueness of the houses they’re in, but, after an initial description of things like Plas Howell having expensive wallpaper in the drawing room that will be used as the Hall, EBD doesn’t really stress it. It always strikes me, for instance, that she invariably describes dormitories that have six or eight cubicles, but that can’t have been possible for most of the pupils for of the school’s history, surely? I know she specifies that at Der Edel Ritter, the 150-bedroom Sonnalpe hotel, no dormitories have more than four girls and some only two, and Mary-Lou is initially in a 2-bed overflow with Clem at Plas Howell, but I think literally every other new girl is in a six-or eight-bed dormitory, wherever the school is.

Are any of you members of The New Chalet Club ? ww2.newchaletclub.co.uk/

They produce magazines 3 times a year, hold annual club get togethers and local meet ups. They also do bigger trips. Last year 50 of them went to Pertisau when the early books are based. There is also a flourishing facebook page which you don't need to be a member of the club to join. Well worth the £15 annual membership.

@helpfulperson, has the Chalet Bulletin Board definitively died? What happened to it? I used to be a regular poster years ago.

It would definitely be worth giving Girls Gone By a look if you prefer physical books.

Unfortunately they only publish a few at a time and they go out of print quite quickly, which is a shame. There was a centenary issue of The School at the Chalet produced last year which was a completely unabridged part of the original, but is out of print now.

I think that you can still get some copies elsewhere online, though. As others have said there are plenty of Armada's still available online too.

I do think it's a real shame that they aren't all officially published at once somewhere. There is clearly enough interest still.

I know that you prefer a physical book, but I have always thought it a shame that GGB didn't at least publish the whole series on ebook form for purchase. I think that many would purchase those and I honestly don't think that it would have made very much difference to their sales of physical copies released sporadically as many would still want to buy these as collectors items.

Thanks for this. I am going to give it a look.

On the other hand, there is an argument that having to move the school in Exile refreshed the series and helped it to last longer. It also gave EBD her best Chalet School book at a point when it was all starting to get slightly repetitive in Tyrol.

The moves to Guernsey and then Herefordshire certainly created drama and some good stories to tell. I am not sure if Tyrol and would be as good and looked upon as favourably and with as much nostalgia if it had rambled on there for another twenty books, ala Switzerland at the end. It probably would have become repetitive and tired too.

Now Guernsey was unfortunate, because she had done so much scene setting there in Exile that she clearly wouldn't have wanted to go though the hassle of moving again after only one book. Although, that did allow EBD the opportunity to carry her Guernsey characters over into The Chalet School world and allow the two to merge together at a period when she clearly had less time for writing and also wouldn't have been able to produce as much with limits on paper etc.

The island was my least favourite location. I presume the school was moved there to be near mountains and water again for adventures, but it was almost too fictional and unlikely and the reasons for them moving so remotely but still within the UK were a bit sketchy....