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Diana leaving school – why did EBD write it?
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Author:  Emma A [ Thu Aug 27, 2009 3:58 pm ]
Post subject:  Diana leaving school – why did EBD write it?
At the end of Bride Leads the CS, Diana, after her terrible term, promises to do better the following term, and to show everyone that she means to go on better. However, at the start of the next term, Miss Annersley tells Bride that Diana won’t be returning because she had taken some rings of her mother’s to sell to try to extricate herself from gambling debts. Diana’s gambling is hinted at in Bride (she’s noted playing contract bridge with a few others, which is a plot that never seems to go anywhere), so it’s not entirely a bolt from the blue.

But, why did EBD do it? Diana had repented, and it would have been interesting to see if she could settle down the following term (which would have been her last), and perhaps be in the tennis team (she’s mentioned in Changes when they’re discussing who will be in these teams, to bemoan that she’s not there, so it’s not as if her fellow pupils completely forgot about her).

Perhaps EBD felt that she couldn’t show a remorseful Diana becoming a real Chalet School girl after the wrecking of Bride’s study? It just seems an odd thing for EBD to have written her out of the series so comprehensively, and for so damning a reason.
Author:  Alison H [ Thu Aug 27, 2009 4:09 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Diana leaving school – why did EBD write it?
Similar things happen with Yseult Pertwee and Naomi Elton - they didn't do the whole repenting-of-their-ways thing but they were also written out after one term. It's a shame, I agree.
Author:  MJKB [ Thu Aug 27, 2009 4:13 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Diana leaving school – why did EBD write it?
The same fate befalls poor Joan Baker. She ends her first term on a positive, albeit remorseful, note, the next termshe has reverted to 'big' Joan with the inappropriate 'perm.' It may have something to do with the consequences of becoming newly rich.
Author:  ChubbyMonkey [ Thu Aug 27, 2009 4:15 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Diana leaving school – why did EBD write it?
I wonder if readers didn't initially react well to her, and EBD felt under pressure to get rid of her? Or if she just wanted to show that there are some habits you can't reform from and should be Avoided Altogether.
Author:  JayB [ Thu Aug 27, 2009 4:30 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Diana leaving school – why did EBD write it?
Quote:
...it would have been interesting to see if she could settle down the following term...


Maybe EBD (or her publisher) decided it wouldn't fit in well with the storyline she had planned for Changes, or she wouldn't have space to do it justice, and therefore it would be better to write Diana out altogether.
Author:  Emma A [ Thu Aug 27, 2009 4:36 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Diana leaving school – why did EBD write it?
EBD effectively writes people out of the series by seldom mentioning them again, which I'd accept for Diana - perhaps only in the sense of: "After a wrong-headed and unhappy first term, Diana had turned over a new leaf, and was working as hard as she was able..." or words to that effect. It's not as if the gambling is even mentioned explicitly in Bride, either (and to be honest, one wouldn't expect schoolgirls, in school, to be playing bridge for money - even the Tanswick girls!). It just really surprised me!
Author:  Tor [ Thu Aug 27, 2009 4:53 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Diana leaving school – why did EBD write it?
yes it is interesting that she is actively written out, rather than just fading into the background as many one-book-wonders are. MJKB might be on to something, in my very humble opinion!
Author:  JB [ Thu Aug 27, 2009 5:57 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Diana leaving school – why did EBD write it?
I can't think of anyone else who is actively written out and never mentioned again. Even the girls who are expelled are mentioned later in the series (we're told that Betty "made good" while no-one knows what happened to Thekla).

I agree that it would have been better to have Diana working quietly for her last term at school (as we're told Miss Annersley had already decided there wouldn't be a place for her in Switzerland). It's rare of EBD (in any of her books) not to allow someone a chance to make good. Maybe you're right about the nouveau riche ....

There are several occasions close together in the series when EBD has girls playing bridge (or other unsuitable card games) - Jennifer Penrose and friends in Wrong CS, Elma and friends in CS in the Oberland and then Diana et al in Bride.

Come to think of it, doesn't Jennifer Penrose disappear after Wrong?
Author:  Alison H [ Thu Aug 27, 2009 9:21 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Diana leaving school – why did EBD write it?
It does seem very odd that she was never mentioned again :? .

& who (whom?) had she been playing with to've racked up so much debt that it took the sale of valuable jewellery to pay it off :roll: ? I can quite understand how Elma Conroy's dodgy boyfriend or, say, Captain Carrick might have racked up a load of gambling debts, but it seems odd that a teenage girl should've done so. Surely she couldn't have lost that much money just playing with her own friends.
Author:  ChubbyMonkey [ Thu Aug 27, 2009 9:39 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Diana leaving school – why did EBD write it?
It hints to me that there might have been unsuitable connections in the background, too, which is why her parents decided to remove her.
Author:  Nightwing [ Thu Aug 27, 2009 9:46 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Diana leaving school – why did EBD write it?
I always wondered what happened to the girl that went up against Lavender Leigh - Joy Bird, wasn't it? - because I thought if anyone's actions were expellable, hers were. I guess you could argue there were similarities between her pushing Lavender down and both Deira and Margot's fits of temper which hurt other girls, but while Deira and Margot were both horrified by what they'd done, Joy seems more worried about making sure that Lavender doesn't tell anyone.
Author:  Tor [ Fri Aug 28, 2009 9:36 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Diana leaving school – why did EBD write it?
Quote:
There are several occasions close together in the series when EBD has girls playing bridge


Maybe EBD had been burned herself, recently. I can imagine her as a demon bridge player... :twisted:

I always assumed Diana was playing poker in sordid Soho dens of iniquity. I hope Mr Skelton used his glue-factory nounce to firmly extricate her form under-world types. Perhaps (or is it too early...?) she was partying with the Krays.
Author:  Cosimo's Jackal [ Fri Aug 28, 2009 9:59 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Diana leaving school – why did EBD write it?
JB wrote:
Come to think of it, doesn't Jennifer Penrose disappear after Wrong?


Now thinking of a CS oubliette where the Wrong Types who vanish suddenly are all kept locked up, with daily visits from Matey bringing bread and water...

Can't remember who old exactly Diana was, but I also assumed she was dressed and made up to look like an older teenager, and was possibly socialising with some unsavoury adults...
Author:  Catherine [ Sat Aug 29, 2009 2:46 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Diana leaving school – why did EBD write it?
Jennifer Penrose is given a brief mention at the beginning of Shocks - although I think it's only in the HB. Mrs Penrose has written / called Miss Annersley because Jennifer's been unhappy all holiday or something. That's all though, I think.
Author:  MaryR [ Sat Aug 29, 2009 3:29 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Diana leaving school – why did EBD write it?
Maybe EBD didn't know how to write about a character who had changed so drastically - so decided not to have Diane back. Personally, I would have preferred to see her struggles as she tries to behave differently.
Author:  Fiona Mc [ Sun Aug 30, 2009 3:50 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Diana leaving school – why did EBD write it?
I always thought Jennifer Penrose was one of the ones who stayed at Carnbach
Author:  Nightwing [ Sun Aug 30, 2009 6:22 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Diana leaving school – why did EBD write it?
MaryR wrote:
Maybe EBD didn't know how to write about a character who had changed so drastically - so decided not to have Diane back. Personally, I would have preferred to see her struggles as she tries to behave differently.


She actually manages to do it quite well with Cornelia - she's really awful the first time she appears, and the next she's mischievous but without being nasty, and I daresay becomes one of her more popular characters. But you're right, many of other characters we see who go through drastic changes either disappear, like Naomi, or end up not very changed at all, like Joan.

I wonder if maybe EBD regretted not having expelled Diane in the first place, for whatever reason, and so had to find another way to get rid of her.
Author:  abbeybufo [ Sun Aug 30, 2009 11:06 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Diana leaving school – why did EBD write it?
I think EBD wanted to keep the position of Miss Annersley never expelling anyone - apart from the 2 'real sinners' Thekla and Betty - though to my mind Diana was at least as nasty in character as Thekla. But having taken that position - that Hilda will always try to reform people rather than expel them - she was then perhaps rather stumped, as Mary says, as to how this could be shown, and instead invented the rather improbable sequence of events in the holiday to explain Diana's non-return.
Author:  Lesley [ Sun Aug 30, 2009 11:23 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Diana leaving school – why did EBD write it?
I did write about the study scene where Hilda does not expel Diana - and a little about the following term and Diana's reasons for not returning - see archive in St Therese Diana's Interview
Author:  Emma A [ Mon Aug 31, 2009 9:24 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Diana leaving school – why did EBD write it?
Lesley wrote:
I did write about the study scene where Hilda does not expel Diana - and a little about the following term and Diana's reasons for not returning - see archive in St Therese Diana's Interview

Yes, I read this, and had to remind myself that EBD didn't, when reading Bride and Changes! :oops: Your scenario seemed awfully likely, Lesley, and explained several things in Bride that were never entirely clear - for example, why did Diana think herself superior to other girls when she had a "common" accent, and her father was a self-made man? The way she's portrayed seems to suggest that she was completely unaware of his origins, and unaware that her accent would show her to be not "out of the top drawer" to knowledgeable Chaletians. As a character, her snobbery might have worked better if she had been an earl's daughter or something similar, and with a cut-glass accent!
Author:  MJKB [ Fri Sep 04, 2009 2:44 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Diana leaving school – why did EBD write it?
I think EBD was better at writing about reforming characters than Enid Blyton. Every term poor old Gwendoline Mary was suitably squashed and pummelled by the girls and mistressess but returned to school the following term exactly the same. Alison in St.Clare's is the same.
Author:  hac61 [ Sat Sep 05, 2009 1:01 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Diana leaving school – why did EBD write it?
MJKB wrote:
I think EBD was better at writing about reforming characters than Enid Blyton. Every term poor old Gwendoline Mary was suitably squashed and pummelled by the girls and mistressess but returned to school the following term exactly the same. Alison in St.Clare's is the same.


That's because during the holidays their parents undid everything the school had done during term time!


hac
Author:  Lesley [ Sat Sep 05, 2009 3:49 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Diana leaving school – why did EBD write it?
Alison did get better - by the last EB book she was much improved. With Gwen it took a tragedy before she really learnt.
Author:  ChubbyMonkey [ Sat Sep 05, 2009 8:38 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Diana leaving school – why did EBD write it?
Lesley wrote:
Alison did get better - by the last EB book she was much improved. With Gwen it took a tragedy before she really learnt.


A tragedy reforming a character - who would have thought...

Gwen has really put me off the MT series as I've grown up - I just feel so sorry for her. Yes, she is obnoxious and vain and annoying, but if they took the time to try and improve her rather than just bullying her that might make all the difference. Just because they have no phobias they think it's ok to push her into the pool, and there is the horrible episode where they all laugh at her. A little understanding goes a long way.
Author:  Abi [ Sat Sep 05, 2009 8:55 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Diana leaving school – why did EBD write it?
On the other hand, even though it's rather unpleasant it is also probably more true to life. In some ways, Enid Blyton is unexpectedly realistic (only in some ways, of course :D ).
Author:  Lesley [ Sat Sep 05, 2009 10:02 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Diana leaving school – why did EBD write it?
Gwen is obnoxious, vain and annoying - but she's also cruel, a liar, a cheat, a thief, she becomes friends with people solely for the reflected glory she can receive from being with them and, should this friend suddenly turn out to be less than perfect she will drop them like a stone (Daphne, Mavis and Clarissa), she is lazy and will not work unless she has to - and will even frighten her parents in an attempt to get out of an exam.

She is a very unpleasant character - one that EBD would not allow in her stories for fear of showing her readers just how nasty some individuals can be. Yes Alicia and the others are nasty toward her - but frankly she deserved it.
Author:  Cassie [ Sat Sep 05, 2009 10:06 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Diana leaving school – why did EBD write it?
JB wrote:
I can't think of anyone else who is actively written out and never mentioned again. Even the girls who are expelled are mentioned later in the series (we're told that Betty "made good" while no-one knows what happened to Thekla).


Are we ever told what happens to Betty, or just that she eventually "made good"?
Author:  lavender [ Wed Sep 09, 2009 3:56 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Diana leaving school – why did EBD write it?
Didn't she end up in the WRNS or something?
Author:  JB [ Wed Sep 09, 2009 4:42 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Diana leaving school – why did EBD write it?
I can't remember if this is in the series itself or a fill-in.

In (I think) Peace Comes to the Chalet School, Betty visits Joey and Janie on the day of the sale and tells them what she's been doing.
Author:  Alison H [ Sun Sep 13, 2009 7:04 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Diana leaving school – why did EBD write it?
I was re-reading a bit of Bride the other day after the discussion about Matey going into Bride's study, and this bit struck me:

Quote:
[Miss Everett speaking] "I happen to know something about John Skelton [Diana's father], as it chances. His father was foreman in a knacker's yard and young John, who was thirteen, went into the business ... he was a hard-working clever, lad ... went to night school ... and the result was Skelton's Glues [his multi-million pound business]. I take my hat off to him ... but his daughter is a silly little nincompoop who wants taking down several pegs ... I could do it, of course; but I'm not going to. She isn't worth the fuss!"

"I sincerely hope you won't," Miss Annersley said in some alarm. "If some of the girls got to hear of this, Diana would have a very thin time. Children can be very heartless, and if she's setting any of them against her they might well make very cruel use of such information."


It's said in the context of a discussion about Diana trying to make out that she's above everyone else, so to some extent the issue is that Diana's misleading people about her family's origins, rather than the issue being what her family's origins actually are, but I still thought it was interesting. We're often told that CS girls aren't snobs, and we're also told that CS girls are far too well-mannered to make either judgements or remarks about people's backgrounds, but here both Miss Annersley and Miss Everett clearly feel that Diana would be given a hard time if it were known that her father came from a working-class family.

That's probably a much more realistic take on things than Joey telling Rosamund Lilley that of course no-one'd care that her family were working-class, but I just thought it made an interesting contrast.

BTW, what did EBD have against the children of self-made men? Vera Smithers's father was another self-made millionaire, and Vera, like Diana, is shown to be the antithesis of a good CS girl.
Author:  Lesley [ Sun Sep 13, 2009 7:15 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Diana leaving school – why did EBD write it?
Alison H wrote:
BTW, what did EBD have against the children of self-made men? Vera Smithers's father was another self-made millionaire, and Vera, like Diana, is shown to be the antithesis of a good CS girl.


I think that's all the class thing again - a self-made millionaire has money but not the background to go with it - and, of course, the children of the same cannot possible have absorbed the morals and ethics known instinctively to the middle and upper clases.

(Not my thoughts, of course - but prevelant in the time EBD was writing)
Author:  Alison H [ Sun Sep 13, 2009 7:17 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Diana leaving school – why did EBD write it?
I'm inclined to think that too ... shame that she's so obvious about it when she's so open-minded in some other areas :( .
Author:  Abi [ Sun Sep 13, 2009 7:19 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Diana leaving school – why did EBD write it?
I think maybe the hard time would be partly because of the way Diana had been, and the fact that she had been misleading about her family. There are examples of girls who are from self-made families but not given a hard time - Sophy Hamel's father is in trade, for instance.
Author:  ChubbyMonkey [ Sun Sep 13, 2009 7:40 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Diana leaving school – why did EBD write it?
And then of course there's the 'not-even-self-made-man' like Mr Baker, who EBD clearly doesn't approve of at all.

I don't think it's self-made men so much as snobs that EBD has a thing against - after all, the MBR clan is, for the most part, self-made themselves, aren't they. They just realise it and do their best to be Christian and help others through their position.
Author:  JayB [ Sun Sep 13, 2009 7:43 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Diana leaving school – why did EBD write it?
I think the girls would have used the knacker's yard in particular to get revenge on Diana for her airs and graces. There wouldn't be nearly so much ammunition in her father and grandfather having been gardeners as Ros Lilley's dad was. I think a knacker's yard in the family could give rise to taunting even in today's supposedly more egalitarian age.
Author:  Cosimo's Jackal [ Sun Sep 13, 2009 8:21 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Diana leaving school – why did EBD write it?
This strikes me as an interestingly contradictory moment, like the 'no speaking about religion rule' - it suggests that CS girls (rather than the odd misfit new girl) can behave unpleasantly at times to one another. I find it quite dark that Hilda genuinely thinks CS girls would give Diana a 'thin time' because of the source of her family's money - realistic, certainly, but very un-CS!

And it's much more of a test than the Ros Lilley situation. Ros is so nice and eager to join in and learn 'correct' behaviour that there's no particular merit in behaving well to her - it would be like kicking a puppy. But the real test of good behaviour (including things like not behaving in a prejudicial way because of someone's race/class/creed/whatever) is whether you still maintain those standards towards someone you personally don't like. Yes, Diana is deeply unpleasant, and gives herself airs, but I don't think that would have made it any more justifiable for her schoolfellows to have taunted her with the knacker's yard.

Another big difference between Ros and Diana is that Ros is 'decent, unpretentious working-class' and is eager to 'better herself' at the CS. Diana is from the kind of very new money from the 'lowest' possible source that really alarmed the middle classes because it constituted a threat to the status quo.

What I meant to say was that what Miss Everett is not understanding in the bit Alison quoted is that Diana is putting on airs and graces - she even used to have a clique called 'Nous autres' at Tanswick, right? - to try to cover up her low background, which she would have been all too aware of as a liability.
Author:  Nightwing [ Sun Sep 13, 2009 8:34 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Diana leaving school – why did EBD write it?
Cosimo's Jackal wrote:
But the real test of good behaviour (including things like not behaving in a prejudicial way because of someone's race/class/creed/whatever) is whether you still maintain those standards towards someone you personally don't like.


I'm kind of ignoring the main thrust of your argument here :D but to me there's a difference between disliking someone because of who they are, and disliking someone for pretending to be someone else. I remember, at school we never liked the girls who were called "try-hards" - essentially, the girls who would try to be someone else in order to fit in with a particular group of people. It wasn't very nice of us, but I could definitely understand how the CS girls would resent someone who was so fake without it having anything to do with classism.
Author:  Abi [ Sun Sep 13, 2009 8:38 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Diana leaving school – why did EBD write it?
And of course there are people who dislike someone because they don't fit in and don't try.

But yes, I think, particularly with the CS ethos, the girls would be disgusted with Diana for trying to decieve them in that way.
Author:  Cosimo's Jackal [ Sun Sep 13, 2009 9:07 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Diana leaving school – why did EBD write it?
I wouldn't necessarily class it as 'deceit' in the same sense as telling lies for no reason other than to deceive, or pretending something to run with a popular crowd.

Diana isn't at all a sympathetic character, but given that Miss Annersley is 'alarmed' when Miss Everett discloses Diana's background because of what it might mean if it got out to the other girls, and even Miss Everett, a mistress, seems to suggest that she could use her knowledge of Diana's father to 'take her down down several pegs', I could envisage a situation where Diana puts on airs as a kind of survival mechanism.

The rationale would run something like 'If I have a very exclusive clique and put on airs like mad, they're less likely to suspect my background isn't socially OK.' It's not a nice strategy, and it doesn't make her liked, but she isn't actually 'found out' by the other girls, is she? So we never get a chance to see whether they would have behaved well or badly about it.
Author:  Tor [ Mon Sep 14, 2009 10:47 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Diana leaving school – why did EBD write it?
The bit about the discussion between Miss Everett and Miss Annersley that makes my tummy go funny is the 'I could take her down a peg or two' bit.

To me this sums up one of the most insidious and nastiest aspects of attitudes to class and social mobility: Had Diana been 'old money', for example, she'd have been rightly sneered at for being a snob, but there would be no sentiment that the source of her sense of superiority could be challenged. Because she is 'new money' however, she could be taken down a peg or two by throwing her origins in her face.

Now it is very true that someone who gives themselves airs is probably more vulnerable to attack from that quarter than someone who doesn't give to hoots about their social position, and so that would be a more effective way of cutting her to the quick, but to me it underlines the difference between *true* egalitarianism, and the more surface-level veneer of playing lip-service to anti-snobbery ideals, letting the odd working class upstart think they are part of the club, but always keeping their background as a potential trump card. Effectively, Diana doesn't 'know her place'. She is a nasty piece of work, but if the CS mistresses were really class-blind they would deal with her nastiness, and snobbishness just as they would with Thekla's, and wouldn't feel the need to 'take her down a peg of two'.
Author:  Cosimo's Jackal [ Mon Sep 14, 2009 11:40 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Diana leaving school – why did EBD write it?
Tor wrote:
The bit about the discussion between Miss Everett and Miss Annersley that makes my tummy go funny is the 'I could take her down a peg or two' bit.


Yes, absolutely - it's a horrible moment of middle-class unassailability knowing it always has a weapon in hand to smack down the counter-jumpers who get above themselves.

Diana is a deeply not-nice girl, but at least some of that not-niceness is bound up with her vulnerability to the kind of 'taking down a peg or two' Miss Everett has it in her power to do. Showing off and putting on airs of exclusivity may not seem like the most intelligent way for a very nouveau riche glue factory heiress to 'pass' in a pretty much 100% middle/upper-middle-class school, but I don't like the implication that it would be Diana's own fault if mistresses or girls used her background against her. Even if she's the most unpleasant character who ever passed through the CS, that doesn't make class-based taunts OK. By all means deal with her nastiness, but - as Tor said - the way Thekla was dealt with, without bringing her own background into it as a smackdown.

I'm hoping Miss Everett, the only CS mistress I've never liked, is alone on the CS staff in her attitude.
Author:  JayB [ Mon Sep 14, 2009 11:57 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Diana leaving school – why did EBD write it?
Quote:
I'm hoping Miss Everett, the only CS mistress I've never liked, is alone on the CS staff in her attitude.

Hilda does slap her down immediately, doesn't she? She makes it clear that Miss Everett's attitude is inappropriate, even though she's quite tactful about it - talking about what would happen if the girls found out, rather than rebuking Miss Everett directly, in front of the rest of the staff.

I imagine a lot of it is down to personality clash between Miss Everett and Diana. Miss Everett is a blunt person who has no patience with slackers or people who don't take her subject seriously. I imagine Diana hates getting her hands dirty, and thinks gardening is beneath her, and possibly also thinks Miss Everett, who is a gardener by profession, not a teacher, is also beneath her, and shows it.
Author:  Tor [ Mon Sep 14, 2009 12:07 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Diana leaving school – why did EBD write it?
Quote:
Hilda does slap her down immediately, doesn't she? She makes it clear that Miss Everett's attitude is inappropriate, even though she's quite tactful about it


Yes, this is how I like to read it. And I also think that you are right JayB about the personality clash between Diana and Miss Everett. It's one of the many occasions that I feel EBD gets people behaving just right, and in character (even if it does mean that we get significant deviation from the CS mission statement!). I think Miss Everett would be the kind of sharp, no nonsense person who would dislike Diana, and would have seen immediately the best way of getting at her (i.e. playing her at her own game).

But I always find it interesting that EBD sometimes feels the need to use Hilda/Joey/OOAO as a mouth-piece for extolling a particular theory (on religious tolerance/chid-rearing etc) and at other times just lets the scene play out in a fairly natural way. I suspect this gives us a side-view into what she spends time thinking/holds strong opinions about.

Personally, I'd like to have seen a lot more of the 'natural' banter. Her characters are a lot less perfect, but a lot more real when she just seems to run with it!
Author:  Cosimo's Jackal [ Mon Sep 14, 2009 1:11 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Diana leaving school – why did EBD write it?
Maybe this is a good place to say that I think this is a very good scene because it's real-seeming and gives an insight into real personality conflicts among staff and between staff and pupils, and another side to the CS. And no EBD-mouthpiece comes in to tell us the moral of the story. It's not nice, or cosy, or 'evocative writing', but it's good dramatic writing.

I say this because of the discussion on the 'Bigger Insult' thread, where some people felt the average discussion on the board was overly critical. I've never found it so, but I think this thread about Diana, like the one about Grizel, or the unbelievably longrunning one on class, or the one on Joey and the Peace League, is a good example of how a question or observation about something in the series that isn't black and white, or easily resolved, or is a bit problematic, can generate a lot of great discussion in a way that is, really, a tribute to EBD's writing and world-building. The 'evocative writing' thread is lovely, but I think that there's also an implied compliment to EBD in a lot of the discussion of problematic or unresolved stuff on other threads. People aren't necessarily prefacing their comment with 'By the way, this is a brilliant bit', but I think that's often implied by the fact that there's a lot to say about a scene or character, even if it's not all admiration.

That's certainly how I intend my contribution to this thread about this scene. I don't like the sentiments expressed by Miss Everett at all, but it's really well-written stuff.
Author:  Mrs Redboots [ Tue Sep 15, 2009 5:04 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Diana leaving school – why did EBD write it?
But at that time and in that place "taking someone down a peg or two" was definitely considered a Good Thing if you got what was called "above yourself". Nothing to do with class - a new girl who came from the grandest of grand families would be taken down a peg or two if she spoke out of turn or put on airs. The whole idea of boarding-schools, in my experience anyway, was to turn out little clones of one another. It reminds me of that Communist illustration of the field of wheat, and those ears that stuck up above the others were cut off so that all should be the same.

I never read it that the girls would mind how Diana's father had made his money - they would, however, mind that she gave herself airs because her family was better off than many (after all, many of the older families may have masses of land and so on but be fairly cash-poor!). Snobbery was what wasn't liked - Ros was accepted because she didn't put on airs; Joan, who tried to, was not.
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