The CBB :: View topic - Chalet School girls and the Season?

I've a vague notion that Juliet Carrack was presented, I seem to remember the young Joey taliking about her 'coming out' -don't know how she could have been with her 'questionable' people!

Lisa, 1958 was the last year the debs were presented to the Queen, but the Season carried on after that into the 1960s.

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The le Cadoulecs, von Eschenaus, von Rothenfels and von Stifts are all titled families, but is Marie von Eschenau the only CS girl (apart from Elisaveta) who marries an aristocrat? Evvy's husband could have been a baronet, but IIRC that doesn't count!

Doctors beat inherited titles in the CS world.

Mind you, even before the advent of the CS, the doctor had replaced the local squire or lord as the romantic hero in fiction.

I have a vague notion in my head, but can't think which book it is in to check, that Gypsy Carson is mentioned as being presented. Hope my memory is not bad enough to have just made that up!

Author:	ameliajane [ Wed Dec 17, 2008 2:45 pm ]
Post subject:	Chalet School girls and the Season?
My first attempt at starting a new thread... I'm reading 'The Last Season' by Fiona MacCarthey at the moment, about the last presentation of girls 'coming out' into society in 1958. The book mentions how a number of girls went abroad to be 'finished' before the Season, and how only 4 of them are going to university in the autumn. I was wondering if any of the Chalet girls did the Season? Is it mentioned in any of the books?

Author:	Alison H [ Wed Dec 17, 2008 3:05 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Chalet School girls and the Season?
We're told that Deira's been "presented", but not given any details about it. We're also told that Rosalie Way is going into "Society" - which seems odd because in Rosalie her family don't really sound posh enough to be "Society" people - but I don't think we hear anything about her after she leaves school. St Mildred's is set up at the wrong time, really - by then, most of the CS girls are from well-to-do middle-class families rather than "Society" families, and almost all of them plan to go on to further education. The work that they do there isn't really the sort of thing I associate with finishing schools (although I've probably got it all wrong - I always envisioned people walking around with books on their heads to help their deportment !).

Author:	JS [ Wed Dec 17, 2008 8:28 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Chalet School girls and the Season?
Getting out of sports cars without showing your knickers is how I think of it, Alison. Given that I can't even exit my old Astra with any elegance, I think it's clear that I'm not deb material!

Author:	Lisa [ Wed Dec 17, 2008 10:48 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Chalet School girls and the Season?
I always think of dear Gwendoline Mary in Malory Towers when I think of finishing schools in Switzerland. I didn't realise that girls still had their presentation to society as recently as 1958! I always associate that with The Regency! Lisa reads too much Georgette Heyer

Author:	Alison H [ Thu Dec 18, 2008 12:02 am ]
Post subject:	Re: Chalet School girls and the Season?
The idea of the "Season" was still going in the 1960s - the Duchess of Cornwall had a "Season" . Deira would have been presented at court at a time when the country was very keen for the Prince of Wales to find a wife ... and instead she ended up with someone who "muddled away" his money ... I'm trying to think who, apart from Deira and Rosalie, might have had a "London Season". No-one springs to mind, really: there are various aristocratic girls in the early books but they're all Austrian or German. And we don't really hear much about the Belsornian social scene . In the later books, I think the Rutherfords are perhaps about as "posh" as we get - maybe Nina's cousins were presented at court?

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Author:	ameliajane [ Thu Dec 18, 2008 1:57 am ]
Post subject:	Re: Chalet School girls and the Season?
Alison, thanks for that info about Deira and Rosalie. There are some things in the book about what the girls did at the real finishing schools which I'll find out tomorrow, but seemed to be learning French, and going to lectures and concerts. Lisa, 1958 was the last year the debs were presented to the Queen, but the Season carried on after that into the 1960s. The 'highlight' of the Season used to be Queen Charlotte's Ball which happened as recently as 2000, although it apparently had lost its touch as Angela Rippon was on the central table and was photographed in Hello! which was seen as the limit! Towards the 1960s you didn't have to be that posh to be presented - you had to be presented by a lady that had already been presented. Some of these ladies started to charge money to present girls whose background wouldn't have been deemed suitable a few years before. It seems pretty unbelievable now!

Author:	MJKB [ Thu Dec 18, 2008 10:37 am ]
Post subject:	Re: Chalet School girls and the Season?
I've a vague notion that Juliet Carrack was presented, I seem to remember the young Joey taliking about her 'coming out' -don't know how she could have been with her 'questionable' people!

Author:	Emma A [ Thu Dec 18, 2008 10:41 am ]
Post subject:	Re: Chalet School girls and the Season?
MJKB wrote: I've a vague notion that Juliet Carrack was presented, I seem to remember the young Joey taliking about her 'coming out' -don't know how she could have been with her 'questionable' people! I doubt this, since Juliet went to university from school, and returned to teach at the Annexe when she'd graduated. Grizel's family might have been posh enough for her to be presented (though she went to music college), but I can't see her step-mother being interested in presenting her. Anne Seymour, perhaps?

Author:	Jennie [ Thu Dec 18, 2008 2:04 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Chalet School girls and the Season?
Presentation at Court was mainly done at Drawing Rooms in the later years, so afternoon dresses were worn. No white satin and ostrich feathers for the Queen. I can't remember who, but a young author wrote about being presented before the Drawing Rooms finished, and she was hoiked out of her boarding school for it, and her sister if I remember rightly, and they went back to school the next day. The Headmistress told them not to discuss it with their schoolmates.

Author:	Lolly [ Thu Dec 18, 2008 3:16 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Chalet School girls and the Season?
ameliajane wrote: Lisa, 1958 was the last year the debs were presented to the Queen, but the Season carried on after that into the 1960s. ....and into the 70s, 80s, 90s and Noughties!!!! Several of the girls I went to school with were debs at the end of the 90s. There's something about the Queen Charlotte ball here: http://www.burkes-peerage.net/articles/re_queencharlotteball.aspx

Author:	Emma A [ Thu Dec 18, 2008 4:27 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Chalet School girls and the Season?
Anne de Courcey's two books Debs At War and 1939: The Last Season are interesting reads, and she explains quite clearly (particularly in the second one) exactly what "doing the Season" was like in the late 1930s. She talked to a number of ex-debs (most of whom appeared to have married peers!) about their experiences. Most looked on their Season as a break from the highly restrictive lives they led at home - daughters of the upper class were not, in general, highly regarded by their families. Debs At War paints an interesting picture of how most of the debutantes adapted well to life in one of the women's services (or in the Land Army or munitions works, and so on) - for many it was the first time they had had to rely on themselves, and discovered that they were intelligent (though often poorly educated prior to the war) and competent women. Many had been sent abroad (usually France and Germany) after their fairly minimal educations to learn the language by staying with families, rather than attending 'finishing schools'.

Author:	Jennie [ Thu Dec 18, 2008 4:45 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Chalet School girls and the Season?
The main purpose of the Season was to marry off the girls to suitable young men, and then their families had no more responsibility for them. If the girls didn't marry, they had very unrewarding futures ahead of them, often as unwanted maiden aunts in their family homes, especially as their education was so poor that they had no chance of getting a job to support themselves and live independent lives. Happy was the girl who inherited enough money to buy herself a cottage where she could live on a small income and devote herself to gardening and good works.

Author:	Carys [ Fri Dec 19, 2008 9:36 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Chalet School girls and the Season?
I've always thought that Elaine Gilling was presented because her Father was a baronet, though she was not a CS girl of course. Maybe Sybil and Josette should have been presented seeing as Jem was given a baronet! Hons and Rebels by Jessica Mitford shows the upper classes attitude to the education of girls and how important the season was deemed to be.

Author:	Sunglass [ Sun Dec 21, 2008 8:16 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Chalet School girls and the Season?
To be honest, I don't see anyone considering a season for the Russell girls. Jem's baronetcy (if that's what it was?) wouldn't make much of a difference - most of the UK upper classes have never had titles, unlike their continental European equivalents. EBD just doesn't (laudably enough) seem that interested in the 'society' side of things - conflicts with her desire for girls to be useful after school. Deira O'Hagan is the only girl I can remember who was definitely a debutante, and that's only mentioned after she's left - I like to imagine her raising hell at Queen Charlotte's ball and then joining the SOE. I've always rather liked that the CS ethos was quite offhand about such matters, despite - as far as one can gather - the majority of the girls being upper-middle and upper-class, and certainly a significant minority simply 'going home' after school as they didn't need to earn a living. I like that Joey (I think talking to Thekla, maybe?) says something very offhand about having had a princess at the CS and various people having 'soppy titles'. I think it's interesting, though, that the only aristocratic snob at the CS is German and not British, and that the only real instance of class consciousness/snobbery is a working-class/middle-class one, rather than upper-class/middle-class. I wonder whether EBD ever had any intention of really sending Joey to be Elisaveta's lady-in-waiting?

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Author:	Alison H [ Sun Dec 21, 2008 8:39 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Chalet School girls and the Season?
Princess was written very early on in the series, and there'd been some other GO books featuring princesses which is presumably where the idea came from. I get the impression that EBD very soon decided that the princess-at-the-school thing just didn't really fit, which is why Elisaveta left soon afterwards and we didn't even get to see her wedding. I always feel very sorry for Elisaveta - years later she's still going on about how Joey is her best friend when really she just isn't a part of Joey's life at all, and I think it was very mean and totally unnecessary that her husband was killed off in an accident - but there isn't really a place for her in the CS world. Which is a great shame, because she's a lovely character (and I love reading about Eastern European royals, even fictional ones ). The le Cadoulecs, von Eschenaus, von Rothenfels and von Stifts are all titled families, but is Marie von Eschenau the only CS girl (apart from Elisaveta) who marries an aristocrat? Evvy's husband could have been a baronet, but IIRC that doesn't count!

Author:	Sunglass [ Sun Dec 21, 2008 10:05 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Chalet School girls and the Season?
Alison H wrote: [ The le Cadoulecs, von Eschenaus, von Rothenfels and von Stifts are all titled families, but is Marie von Eschenau the only CS girl (apart from Elisaveta) who marries an aristocrat? Evvy's husband could have been a baronet, but IIRC that doesn't count! I can't think of anyone else - Simone's husband doesn't inherit a title along with the chateau, does he? I think EBD has a much more lower-middle-class estimation of what constitutes an Important Person. She's not that interested in (UK) aristocrats, more in 'great doctors' and in the kind of status/power being a doctor/doctor's wife used to get you - like when Joey occasionally puts on her doctor's wife airs when confronted with some situation she feels requires it. Which is I suppose borne out in the fact EBD doesn't marry more of her well-born old girls off to passing barons or earls staying at the Kron Prinz Karl/visiting tubercular relatives at the San/mountaineering. Doctors beat inherited titles in the CS world.

Author:	Cat C [ Sun Dec 21, 2008 10:48 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Chalet School girls and the Season?
Quote: Doctors beat inherited titles in the CS world. Oh dear! You just reminded me of Goodness Gracious Me! (Comedy series first on BBC radio and then televison about Indian culture in the UK, more or less). About the Indian hierarchy of degrees: Accountancy is better than Economics, Pharmacy is better than Law, and Medicine is better than anything else you could ever think of! Ultimate ambition of any Indian mother is being able to refer to 'my son the doctor'. Maybe the Indian influence on EBD and her works was deeper than we ever realised

Author:	DramaPrefect [ Wed Dec 31, 2008 3:48 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Chalet School girls and the Season?
I have a vague notion in my head, but can't think which book it is in to check, that Gypsy Carson is mentioned as being presented. Hope my memory is not bad enough to have just made that up!

Author:	MJKB [ Wed Dec 31, 2008 11:21 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Chalet School girls and the Season?
Cat c says: "Ultimate ambition of any Indian mother is being able to refer to 'my son the doctor.'" I think you could add Irish, American, Jewish, Nigerian and the rest to that! In America, for example, your chances of getting into medical school are about equal to becoming President. And Ireland has had to change the entry procedures in order to put some control on the points required for medicine. Mind you, even before the advent of the CS, the doctor had replaced the local squire or lord as the romantic hero in fiction.

Author:	JayB [ Thu Jan 01, 2009 12:15 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Chalet School girls and the Season?
Quote: Mind you, even before the advent of the CS, the doctor had replaced the local squire or lord as the romantic hero in fiction. Most of EBD's readers (and most Mills & Booon readers) would have encountered doctors at some point, whereas the aristocracy, even the landed gentry, would be beyond their experience. And doctors had enormous authority at the time EBD was writing - more so even than the clergy, probably, at a time when fewer and fewer people went to church, and parish clergy were never very well off (Mr Gay, for example). So I think EBD's choice of a doctor for a husband for Madge was quite a good one - I just think she pushed it to extremes later on. It's interesting that all the girls from titled families are Continental, and Madge and Jo are quite dismissive of Continental titles and the Continental girls' attitudes to titles at various points. And in Exploits (and much later in Problem) it's emphasised that a girl's own character and her contribution to the community is more important than what or who her father is. Other than Jem's (very new) baronetcy, among the English families I think we just have Sir Guy Rutherford, who may be a knight or a baronet - but even a baronetcy would barely scrape him into the upper classes. He must have had access to money, since he was able to move his entire family to Switzerland at one point (maybe he mortgaged some land) but their style of living is far from grand. The British CS girls whose backgrounds we know about are solidly middle class, with fathers in the professions, the church, the services, and in business. Unrealistic in most cases that they could afford to send their daughters to an expensive school in Switzerland, but I exepct these were the typical backgrounds of the girls EBD taught herself, and was most familiar with.

Author:	Jennie [ Thu Jan 01, 2009 10:33 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Chalet School girls and the Season?
re Sir Guy and Lady Rutherford, the book is set not long after the Second World War, when there were shortages of everything as well as very high rates of income tax, so he was struggling to manage the estate with an acute shortage of labour, as well as paying more out of his income in tax. As his two sons were in the forces, he was not having to support them unless he gave them both an allowance to help out. So, he would regard his daughters' expenses at boarding school as an investment, bearing in mind that Nina was self-supporting on the money she inherited from her father. And, as the girls went to boarding school, the fees also covered food, heating and lighting as well as lessons. And I do get the impression that the Rutherfords would have given their last penny for the health and welfare of their girls.

Author:	James [ Mon Jan 05, 2009 8:51 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Chalet School girls and the Season?
DramaPrefect wrote: I have a vague notion in my head, but can't think which book it is in to check, that Gypsy Carson is mentioned as being presented. Hope my memory is not bad enough to have just made that up! I think I remember that too, so both of our memories are playing tricks if it didn't happen! (And no, no idea of anything useful like which book...)

Author:	DramaPrefect [ Tue Jan 06, 2009 1:40 am ]
Post subject:	Re: Chalet School girls and the Season?
I have a feeling it's somewhere around Jo Returns/New...oh well, an excuse to dig out my transcript of New, seeing as I couldn't decide which book to go for next!