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#1: The Gang Author: Loryat,

Posted: Tue Jul 25, 2006 5:03 pm
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Hopefully this will be a discussion about the gang which is why I put it in this section. Do people like the Gang? Who are their favourite members? What do people think about the way they 'lead the other middles by the nose', and what do you think EBD's attitude was to this?

First, though, I was wondering if anyone could tell me who all the gang members are. These are the ones I can remember:

Mary-Lou
Vi
Hilary
Lesley
Ruth
Doris
Josette
Maeve
Jo
Barbara
Catriona (Watson)
Catriona's bosom friend
Nina?

Are there any more, and are any of these not actually gang members?

#2: Author: Chair, Location: Rochester, Kent

Posted: Tue Jul 25, 2006 5:05 pm
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I think that Verity-Ann is a member of the gang as well.

#3: Author: Lottie, Location: Humphrey's Corner

Posted: Tue Jul 25, 2006 5:21 pm
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I think Catriona Watson's friend was Christine Vincent.

#4: Author: Katherine, Location: London, UK

Posted: Tue Jul 25, 2006 5:23 pm
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I don't have a violent dislike for them in the way that some people seem to but I can't say I really like them. They are clearly meant to be this group that you care about and in the way that Joey and Co. are - problem is that I'm just not that bothered. They are far too dominated by OOAO, only she and the new girls get their own storylines.
So I end up feeling I'm missing out for not appreciating them as characters and get a bit frustrated.
Bit like I feel about OOAO in general really.

#5: Author: nikkie, Location: Cumbria

Posted: Tue Jul 25, 2006 5:31 pm
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I always tought they were very cliche(sp?)like the way they say that Jo Scott is 'approved' there must only have been a small group that age who weren't in the gang who would have been very left out.

#6: Author: Fatima, Location: Sunny Qatar

Posted: Tue Jul 25, 2006 5:38 pm
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And there were too many of them, so it was hard to keep track of who's who.

#7: Author: Tan, Location: London via Newcastle Australia

Posted: Tue Jul 25, 2006 5:48 pm
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I never really 'got' the gang. With the exception of Mary Lou, Vi and Josette you don't really get to know them that well. They always seemed like a 'clique'.

As for leading the rest of the Middles by the nose, it almost seemed liked they dominated the rest.

For some reason I have always preferred the quintette and the earlier groupings (eg the Triumvirate of Beth, Daisy, Gwensi).

#8: Author: Miriam, Location: Jerusalem, Israel

Posted: Tue Jul 25, 2006 6:35 pm
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nikkie wrote:

I always tought they were very cliche(sp?)like the way they say that Jo Scott is 'approved' there must only have been a small group that age who weren't in the gang who would have been very left out.

As they get older they are spread over two or three years. THat would have made their individual domination of any one form relativley small - there would have been plenty of room for people to have formed other small groups of friends.

I don't think Nina was ever really a part of the gang, so much as a hanger on. She was friendly with most of the gang, but her obesession with music seems to mean that she doesn't make any really close friends.

#9: Author: jennifer, Location: Taiwan

Posted: Wed Jul 26, 2006 9:40 am
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I'm not a fan of the gang, particularly the first year or so in Switzerland.

Mary-Lou is too tightly in charge - it's not just a group of close friends, it's Mary-Lou and her faithful followers. When she's not around they don't hang together as firmly as they do when she's there to boss them around.

Quote:

For once, the Gang drifted off in couples instead of keeping together, so that Barbara and Vi; Christine and Catriona; Hilary and Lesley were all in different parts of the carriage; and Ruth Barnes had chummed up with Heather Clayton.

'That crowd miss their Mary-Lou,' Miss o'Ryan murmured to Miss Wilmot as they gazed out of the window at the end-of-autumn landscape past which they were speeding. 'She keeps them tied up when she's there. You know, some day, Mary-Lou is going to be Head Girl and won't she make them all toe the mark!'

OOAO is very much the driving force behind the tightness and cliquiness of the group. The way they audition people for membership is disturbing too

Quote:

The Gang were very exclusive on the whole, but so far as they had met her, they liked Jo, so Mary-Lou graciously gave consent.

and at the end of the book

"That's good, Jo! Mary-Lou never says anything she doesn't mean. You're a full-blown member of the Gang now. You were sort of on trial, before."

Jo knew this for the honour it was and she went red again as she replied

So ML has the final say in whether girls are admitted. I much prefer Bride, Tom and their gang - no one person is overshadowed, they socialise with a variety of people and you don't get the junior Mafia feel that The Gang projects on occasion.

Friendship groups and popular crowds are inevitable in the early teens, but I think the gang are too indulged. The staff should be keeping an eye on it to make sure that girls who aren't in the Gang aren't being sidelined, and making sure Mary-Lou doesn't rule unapposed, rather than encouraging her.

#10: Author: Caroline, Location: Manchester

Posted: Wed Jul 26, 2006 11:22 am
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I do quite like them, particularly at the start and the end of their school careers. But I do admit they don't have such an attractive group dynamic as Bride Bettany's group of friends, for instance.

I suspect it's because the individual characterisation isn't so strong, which comes over as M-L dominating everything because she is a character drawn in some depth, whereas so many of her chums are more two dimensional. I can't remember any defining characteristics of Christine and Catriona, for instance (other than them being bosom chums), and Ruth Barnes is famous for one thing only - the whole maths cheat / impertinent questions fight.

So many more of Bride's chums are three dimensional, interesting characters - Tom, Elfie, Nancy Chester, Julie Lucy, the Ozannes, Primrose, the Highland Twins... Even lesser members of that form (Rosalind Yolland or Bess Herbert, for instance) do have memorable characteristics. Funnily enough, the only weakly drawn character of the lot of them IMO is Loveday, and she gets to be HG!

I'd potentially add Prunella to the list of gang members. She seems to be heading that way at the start, anyway. I don't think you can count Nina - the gang has more or less broken up by then, with M-L, Vi, Hilary and Lesley a form ahead of the rest, and Jo two forms behind.

Clare Kennedy is sometimes included, though.

Caroline.

#11: Author: Fatima, Location: Sunny Qatar

Posted: Wed Jul 26, 2006 11:57 am
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Caroline wrote:

Funnily enough, the only weakly drawn character of the lot of them IMO is Loveday, and she gets to be HG!

Maybe because she was weakly drawn meant that she didn't have the faults that make the others seem so real and therefore was perfect HG material.

#12: Author: Michelle, Location: Near London

Posted: Thu Jul 27, 2006 12:33 am
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Gang membership seemed to change a bit. Emerence was in with them at one time, although that might have been before the Gang formed - Clem was Mary-Lou's special friend for a while, rather than girls her own age. Then there were the Carter twins, Angela and Anne, who disappeared at some stage - possibly they didn't go to Switzerland. Josefa Wertheim was in Three Go - I'm disappointed she didn't appear in later books. And weren't there two Lesleys, just to confuse matters? Lesley Malcolm and Lesley Bethune? Jessica Wayne was one of them sometimes.

I like some members of the Gang. Verity is always an interesting character, although she does have a personality transplant. I do find both Veritys interesting. Barbara is lovely, and Vi seems very nice. I liked the idea of Clare Kennedy's saintliness masking the wickedness within, although I don't remember seeing this side of her.

However, the rest seem to be lacking in character, and Barbara and Vi are soon taken over by Mary-Lou. So exchanges between members of the Gang are never as satisfying as those between other groups. Even in the group dominated by the triplets, characters like Rosamund, Joan, Francie, Ted and Ricki stand out. I don't know Mary-Lou's Gang that well. We all know what Mary-Lou is like, and what she thinks Verity is like, but I'd like to get to know some of the other characters. In many cases, I think you could take a conversation between the Gang, re-allocate the lines to different Gang members, and you probably wouldn't notice. I think it would be more noticeable among Bride's friends, or the triplets', or Jo's, or even Peggy's.

The whole idea of acceptance is very annoying. I hate the bit where Jo Scott is "accepted" as one of the Gang. Although it is rather nice to find a group of friends who like you, it does rather seem as though Jo has been given some great honour - and has passed a test. There was no need to make such a big thing of it. When Bride accepted Lavender as a friend, no-one made a fuss about it and said "you're one of us now". Actually, I'm not convinced Jo sees it as much as an honour - I think the next term, she drops out of Mary-Lou's class, and spends the rest of her school career with the triplets.

#13: Author: Caroline, Location: Manchester

Posted: Thu Jul 27, 2006 9:37 am
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Michelle wrote:

I like some members of the Gang. Verity is always an interesting character, although she does have a personality transplant. I do find both Veritys interesting. Barbara is lovely, and Vi seems very nice. I liked the idea of Clare Kennedy's saintliness masking the wickedness within, although I don't remember seeing this side of her.

I reckon Barbara is another one who had a personality transplant. I think she's lovely as a new girl, but by the time she is in the sixth and a prefect, she seems to have lost her gentleness and girly-ness and become rather a strident, tactless individual. Maybe this was done to make her a contrast to Josette, but I find I don't like Babs anything like as much when she is a senior.

Michelle wrote:

I However, the rest seem to be lacking in character, and Barbara and Vi are soon taken over by Mary-Lou. So exchanges between members of the Gang are never as satisfying as those between other groups. Even in the group dominated by the triplets, characters like Rosamund, Joan, Francie, Ted and Ricki stand out. I don't know Mary-Lou's Gang that well. We all know what Mary-Lou is like, and what she thinks Verity is like, but I'd like to get to know some of the other characters. In many cases, I think you could take a conversation between the Gang, re-allocate the lines to different Gang members, and you probably wouldn't notice. I think it would be more noticeable among Bride's friends, or the triplets', or Jo's, or even Peggy's.

Another point is that most of the Triplets chums have had books of their own - i.e. where they are the star - Rosamund and Joan in Problems, Ted and Ricki in their eponymous books, Francie playing a large part in Ruey Richardson. So we get to know them really well as individuals - their home lives, their "issues". You can't say that about the gang - of them, Mary-Lou has a starring role in about four books, Verity stars in Three Go, and Barbara in Barbara and Jo in Kenya. Considering the number of books they all feature in, very few of the gang 'star' in a book - no Vi, Lesley, no Hilary, no Doris...

One of my 'missing terms' books was supposed to star Vi as a new junior. Anyone fancy writing a pre-Mary-Lou story about the gang?

Caroline.

Edited to avoid spreeing

#14: Author: jennifer, Location: Taiwan

Posted: Fri Jul 28, 2006 2:08 pm
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The charactesr in the Gang I feel I know well are Mary-Lou and Verity, mainly. Vi sort of gets shadowed by Mary-Lou, Barbara fades after her first book, and the others have only one or two definining characteristics.

In Bride's group, I know Bride, Tom, Rosalie, Julie, Flora and Fiona, Vanna and Nella and Nancy reasonably well - some because they are central to a book, and others because we see them and their families over a number of books.

In the triplet's group, I have clear pictures of the triplets, Jo, Rosamund, Joan, Ricki, Ted and Francie.

Each group has fairly one dimensional members, but the latter two are much more fleshed out - Bride et al partially because we see the Chester/Lucy/Ozanne connection over many books and see their parents and siblings and aunts and uncle, and the triplets gorup because many of them play major roles in books.

#15: Author: Loryat,

Posted: Tue Aug 08, 2006 3:05 pm
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I quite like most of the members of the gang but I'm confused as to why people like Clare Kennedy, who seems to be really popular, isn't in it. Is Clare just too independent or what? In Barbara, when Barbara is framed by that horrible girl and the whole form starts accusing her, EBD writes that it was a pity that no member of the gang, or Clare Kennedy, was there. So although CK is not a gang member she is a moral and responsible individual.

I think the gang is tolerated because all the girls are nice, well behaved, and don't bully the rest although they do lead them. In the same scene in Barbara one of the girls worries about attacking Barbara because of what the gang might do to her. This seems like bullying, but is it perhaps that the gang won't tolerate that kind of behaviour towards a new girl, whether or not she's related to a gang member? Are the gang protectors of the weak?

On the other hand, I dislike the scene in Kenya where Mary-Lou decides that the German and French speaking girls are going to have to help the English speakers with their French and German. I know she says that they'll all help with their English in return but that's a lot less work! Also the girls don't seem to have a say in it.

I think EBD was experimenting with a new style of friendship group in comparison to the more natural and easy going friendships we have in the earlier books. Joey's quartette, the triumverate and so on do not have a 'Junior Mafia' mentality in the way the gang seem to do. However it is actually quite a believable grouping, led more or less by one girl and dominating the rest of the year group. I don't think EBD liked this grouping though, as she dispersed the gang in later years and gave Mary-Lou friendships outwith it - Jessica, and Nina for example. Also, Len and Co are definitely not a group in the style of the gang.

#16: Author: JackieP, Location: Kingston upon Hull

Posted: Tue Aug 08, 2006 7:29 pm
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I think with Clare Kennedy she was always in a differrent form group to the majority of the gang, and as that's how the gang formed, she was always someone who was more on the outskirts. Barbara's the only person who's in a different form to the gang when she joins it, but even then she's in the same dormy and is Vi's cousin, so it mitigates the effect of being in different forms.

JackieP

#17: Author: Ruth B, Location: Oxford, UK

Posted: Wed Aug 09, 2006 9:43 am
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I've always disliked the gang. It always seemed to consist of OOAO and her faithful lap dogs. Also, they are the sort that exist in most schools and spend their school career making us lesser mortals feel rather inferior. My favourite groupings are the two triumvirates - Daisy, Beth and Gwensi and then, later, Jacynth, Gillian and Gay. To me, these relationships seem to be the most healthy that EBD managed to produce.

#18: The gang Author: Fiona Mc, Location: Bendigo, Australia

Posted: Sun Aug 13, 2006 4:38 am
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I didn't mind the gang and never really saw them as the junoir mafia or so exclusive though I admit they did seem that way a bit in the first year in Switzerland. To me the gang consisted of girls whom had been friendsfor a good 4 or 5 years and some longer and so they tended to stick together and when your friends with a group for that long its sometimes harder to branch out a bit more. They only seemed to do that when the gang was scattered over 2-3 forms than when they were all more or less in the same one. I think their exclusiveness tended to be due to that than anything else. I also think that it fairly realistic as I can remember most groups of friends in High School were formed in the first year and seemed to last until at least Form 4 and people tended to branch out a bit more when we started specializing a bit more. I don't particularly remember one group being better than another or at least I never did. You tended to hang out with the ones whom you had stuff in common with or who had a similiar moral compass to you and I thing thats what the gang tended to do

#19: Author: Miriam, Location: Jerusalem, Israel

Posted: Tue Aug 15, 2006 8:38 pm
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Quote:

I think EBD was experimenting with a new style of friendship group in comparison to the more natural and easy going friendships we have in the earlier books. Joey's quartette, the triumverate and so on do not have a 'Junior Mafia' mentality in the way the gang seem to do. However it is actually quite a believable grouping, led more or less by one girl and dominating the rest of the year group. I don't think EBD liked this grouping though, as she dispersed the gang in later years and gave Mary-Lou friendships outwith it - Jessica, and Nina for example. Also, Len and Co are definitely not a group in the style of the gang.

She didn't abandon the idea though. Jack Lamberts group (whatever they were called) was developing along very similar lines to the way the gang was, and the same phrases are often used to describe them. I think whenever one very dominant cahracter was introduced they had to lead a large and exclusive group of friends in thier form, which, as they moved up the school, would gain influence over their form and later thier section of the school. Jacks own character was very different to Mary-Lou's, but thier leadership qualities display themselves in very similar ways.

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