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Tom Gay

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#1: Tom Gay Author: Josie, Location: London

Posted: Mon Jun 06, 2005 9:45 am

Please discuss everyone's favourite tomboy here...

#2: Author: Alison H, Location: Manchester

Posted: Mon Jun 06, 2005 12:19 pm

I think Tom is great. She's kind and helpful without being either interfering or goody-goody, & she carries on providing the dolls' house even after she's left. & then her parents seem to be about the only people who provide a scholarship.

#3: Author: tan, Location: London via Newcastle Australia

Posted: Mon Jun 06, 2005 6:41 pm

I like the Tom/Bride group of friends. I think because they come across as more real than dare I say 'the gang'. Tom is one of those people who is very well-drawn. I think Jack Lambert is a poor imitation! I like the whole gentleman thing with Tom, and I find it hard to picture her in a dress.

There is that sense of decency, and I like the way she stands by Rosalie Way even though they are the antithesis of each other. I also like how there is that occasional glimpse of her even after she has graduated.

#4: Author: jennifer, Location: Sunny California

Posted: Mon Jun 06, 2005 7:36 pm

Tom is a well drawn character - you get a sense of both her strengths and weaknesses, and she does a good job of keeping to her own, rather unusual, personality. She's honest, straightforward, matter of fact and generally helpful and friendly, but also doesn't have a whole lot of patience with people, and isn't particularly good at understanding them. She's also fun to watch grow up.

I do want to smack her parents, though. They have a girl, when they wanted a boy, and decide to raise her 'as a boy'. I don't mind the fact that they ignore the gender based restrictions on behaviour, but telling the kid she's not what they wanted is cruel, and bringing her up to regard all other females as contemptible and dishonest is just warped. It also makes me wonder about the relationship between her mother and father.

#5: Author: Pado, Location: Connecticut, USA

Posted: Wed Jun 08, 2005 3:18 am

She's a gentleman, no doubt, but except for the cropped hair, she seems to lose her unique qualities as she ages. Still far and away the best of the tomboys that EBD so liked.

There's a very sweet 10 year old girl at my youngest daughter's school who always makes me think of Tom - she's far and away the least "girlish" of her peers and very comfortable being who she is. (Her younger sister clearly got G's girly side, though!)

#6: Author: JustJen, Location: waiting for a bus

Posted: Wed Jun 08, 2005 3:39 am

I liked Tom. She was an orginal character, a real person that I could relate too.
I did find her choice of becoming a missionary a bit surprising

#7: Author: patmac, Location: Yorkshire England

Posted: Wed Jun 08, 2005 7:48 am

I liked Tom, too. Tomboys always appealed to me as I wasn't a particularly 'girly' girl myself. I always identified with Enid Blyton's George and thought Malcolm Saville's Peter was really cool, too. My mother had a fit because I wanted my hair cropped!

With hindsight, she had a disastrous upbringing and I'm glad I never met her father - he sounds like a real misogynist! I always pictured her mother as a tiny, frail, downtrodden woman who said "Yes, dear." whatever he said.

As for the missionary career, I suppose EBD couldn't think of anything else for her to do. I did have a picture of her teaching little African boys to make Dolls' Houses when I first read it because at that stage in my life, the only missionaries I knew of were nuns and priests who went out and 'converted the heathen' so I didn't realise lay people went out as well. In my defence, I did read it first in the 2nd chalet Book for Girls and was only 8 at the time. Confused

#8: Author: jennifer, Location: Sunny California

Posted: Wed Jun 08, 2005 7:15 pm

Actually, I her career choice made sense to me - she struck me as the kind of person who has a deep faith, but is reluctant to speak of it, so she wouldn't necessarily do well in the traditional 'convert the heathen' style, but she seemed to end up more in the lay social ministry end of things. She genuinely likes the boys and is sympathetic towards them, and has a lot of useful skills to teach them.

I think as she got older, some of the rough edges were smoothed a little, but she still had the tomboy ways, the abhorrance of anything resembling dishonesty, and a tendency towards slang and unladylike behaviour, plus the very boyish interests.

#9: Author: Kate, Location: Ireland

Posted: Wed Jun 08, 2005 7:56 pm

I always though Tom's version of a missionary would correspond to today's social worker... Did they have social workers then?

#10: Author: Kathy_S, Location: midwestern US

Posted: Wed Jun 08, 2005 8:18 pm

The concept of social work was certainly around. In Emily of Deep Valley (Maud Hart Lovelace), Emily gives her high school graduation address (Class of 1912) on Jane Addams, and is sad that she hasn't been able to go to college for further study in the field.

And just so my view isn't totally based on GO literature Embarassed

, Google found a timeline indicating that the Columbia University School of Social Work opened in 1898.

#11: Author: Changnoi, Location: New Mexico, USA

Posted: Thu Jun 09, 2005 12:17 am

Like many people, apparently, I do like Tom.

I would like to find out what she did at St Mildred's, besides making a dollhouse for the Coming of Age. In CS in the Oberland, it seems like the girls of St Mildred's are very ladylike, all of them except Edna powdering their face and using lipstick, and Edna is gently mocked by EBD for not using makeup as well "...going about with a shiny face and pale lips". And although I don't recall specific passages, it seems like a lot of the activities at St Mildred's were about girls learning to look nice and be good hostesses and good companions, etc. Perhaps it's the general impression I got. Would someone like Tom, who is straightforward and plain-spoken and having to take a job--not just WANTING a job, but NEEDING one--fit in?

#12: Author: Susan, Location: Carlisle

Posted: Sat Jun 18, 2005 11:20 pm

Like most people I really like Tom. I felt sorry for her with her background but it says her father has been ill and it is whils he is recovering that he brings her up. I would think her mum would be too exhausted doing the Parish duties to interfere - she may not have seen much of Tom during the day when and was also probably too glad to have free childcare to say anything. Maybe her dad never actually said he really wanted a boy until she pressurised him and being Tom she would never have told even Bride in public if he had added that he loved her though.

She is a wonderful character in the books, caring for her friends even if like Rosalie Way, they were opposite to her. She rounded out Bride's group very well.

I can see her as a missionary as she was well suited to helping people. I think for Tom is would be more practical than teaching.

EBD seems to have got in a muddle between missionarys and Social Workers as she also used that for Robin, unless she saw Social Workers as people who only looked after children taken into care and felt she needed another word to mean someone who ran clubs and things for children. A bit like people today who run youth clubs who do a sterling job in a social field but are mostly volunteers.

#13: Author: Amanda M, Location: Wakefield

Posted: Sun Jun 19, 2005 11:30 am

I think I'm probably in the minority here, but I never really liked Tom. I think probably it's for the same reason that I never liked George in the Famous Five. I always found her too dismissive of females for my taste (and I'm speaking as probably one of the most unfeminine women you could probably meet). Granted, she got better as the series progressed, but I think that first impression always lasted with me.

Just my opinion Wink

#14: Author: Chair, Location: Rochester, Kent, England

Posted: Sun Jun 19, 2005 1:13 pm

I was a fan of Tom. I wish that I could make those wonderful dolls houses that she is able to make.

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