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chaperonage
http://www.the-cbb.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=7247

Author:  Cosimo's Jackal [ Mon Jan 25, 2010 10:08 am ]
Post subject:  chaperonage

Reading Head Girl started me thinking about chaperonage in the Tyrolean days. EBD generally presents it as something that's chiefly for the Continental girls only, but at the beginning of Head Girl, when the Stuffer and Maria (believing Joey and co to be French) start talking about how badly chaperoned French girls are, we get Joey thinking about:

Quote:
the careful chaperoning of her Tyrolese friends, who were never allowed to be out without a maid or someone quite grown up with them. She dared not catch Grizel's eye, or she would have laughed outright. They knew just how carefully "foreign" girls were looked after! They had had to submit to the same treatment themselves many a time, for Mrs. Russell had pointed out that when in Rome one must do as the Romans, and had been insistent on the need of chaperonage as the strictest Tyrolean parent could have been.


I honestly don't remember Madge ever insisting on chaperonage as such - 'chaperonage' to me implies not just a matter of a supervising adult, but someone specifically watching over the reputation of a young girl who's approaching marriageable age. (The Robin, for instance, might be expected to need a supervising adult to make sure she doesn't fall into the lake or run off with a madman, but that's not a 'chaperone', strictly speaking...)

And surely the idea of chaperoning teenage girls runs entirely counter to early CS policy, where the girls have a great deal of freedom to go wandering around the lake outside the school grounds, going to the post office or buying apples, unsupervised? And it's not just at the Tiernsee - Joey and Frieda, not long before they leave school, are trusted to walk across town to the Mariahilf themselves after a dental appointment (though they get into trouble over going to a hotel with Margot Venables...) Isn't the CS flouting Continental parents' expectations here?

The other thing that comes up with the incident with the Stuffer and Maria is that, despite being Englishwomen, they don't think Miss Maynard, aged 23, is a suitable chaperone anyway, because she isn't old enough - they think she's a schoolgirl, too:

Quote:
'These four ought all to have been taken to a hotel for the night, with someone responsible in charge!"
The senior mistress of the Chalet School blushed at being thought an irresponsible school-girl, but made no attempt to correct the error into which the pair had fallen.


That makes many CS mistresses, who are often very young and girlish-looking, liable to be considered not old enough to be suitable chaperones for girls! (I think generally speaking you had to be either much older/beyond 'marriageable age' ( :roll: ), married or a servant to qualify.)

So, my question is, does the early CS take 'chaperonage' seriously, or does EBD think it's a quaint Continental custom, like coloured glasses and peasant dress? And does EBD make a distinction between 'chaperoning' and 'supervising' girls?

Author:  Alison H [ Mon Jan 25, 2010 10:29 am ]
Post subject:  Re: chaperonage

It certainly dies off in the British books - girls like Jacynth and Rosalie are allowed to get trains on their own when they're as young as 12 - but it does seem to be a big issue in some of the early books. It only seems to be mentioned when EBD wants to make an issue of it, though. We're told somewhere that a female teacher has to be present during Mr Denny's lessons as it would be considered inappropriate by Tyrolean parents for a male teacher to be left alone with the girls, but presumably Herr Helfen and Herr Anserl were on their own with girls in one-on-one situations unless a female staff member accompanied every girl attending an individual music lesson.

& we're told that Gisela and Maria aren't able to meet Madge and Joey at the station as there's no-one to come with them, but we see the girls going off on their own at other times ... although, to be fair, the suggestion is that they couldn't come alone that time because the station was a long way from their home.

I don't think Madge took it very seriously, but she must have had to make a show of doing so to avoid upsetting the parents. It's not handled very consistently, though.

Author:  Margaret [ Mon Jan 25, 2010 10:32 am ]
Post subject:  Re: chaperonage

The one time when they do have chaperones in when there is always a female mistress in Plato's lessons, but again that is in Tyrol.

Author:  Sunglass [ Mon Jan 25, 2010 1:21 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: chaperonage

Margaret wrote:
The one time when they do have chaperones in when there is always a female mistress in Plato's lessons, but again that is in Tyrol.


And during the girls' visit to the Kron Prinz Karl to hear the Tzigane band in New House, when the new Matron doesn't believe it's allowed because the Seniors might get into conversation with 'goodness knows who':

Quote:
Some of the resident Staff would be there; and Mr Denny, the school’s eccentric singing-master, and his sister had told her they would be going, so the girls would be well chaperoned, even though they were to sit by themselves.


(Actually, that bit always makes me giggle slightly, because while the music lessons involve having a chaperone apparnetly to preserve the girls from Mr Denny and his Elizabethan sweet-talking (!), here he is playing (kind of) chaperone to keep them away from 'rowdy' day-trippers and mysterious gypy musicians...)

I don't know about the Tyrol-era chaperoning in general. Sometimes it's definitely to do with the marriage market - I can't remember which recent school-leaver she's talking about (Bette? Bernhilda?), but Joey mentions seeing some former CS girl blushing when they meet her on the street with a man, and her mother in attendance, and assumes it's a sign she'll get engaged soon. And when Grizel is alone on the train when she runs off to see the falls, I think it's implied that the Swiss people are suprised to see a girl 'of seventeen or eighteen' alone without a chaperone, which suggests to me that seeing an unaccompanied thirteen-year-old
would excite a different response...?

But at other times, the chaperonage of Continental girls seems to be an offshoot of the 'training to perfect obedience' obsession for slightly older girls...?

But you're right that in a real-life situation Madge's trusting of the girls to wander around by themselves by the lake would probably have gone down like a lead balloon with strict Austrian parents!

ETA Something I never noticed before - there's a single daygirl called Lisa Bernaldi among the prefects in Head Girl, and her father calls to take her home at the end of the school day on the first day of term. Though that could be down to the winter weather and dark, rather than chaperoning...

Author:  ChubbyMonkey [ Mon Jan 25, 2010 2:33 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: chaperonage

But there seems to be the implication that a) they'll go in groups, plus will be obviously schoolgirls in their uniform and b) they know so many people around the lake that they'll be safe? Certainly most of the Tirolese girls seem to have parents around the lake in the summer, and there would always be people like Herr Braun who could be trusted to look after them if needed.

And, of course, Madge always encourages the CS girls to be trusted. Perhaps sometimes they should have been chaperoned - like the film crew incident - but at the same time they are only schoolgirls, and obviously so, and I think that it would run counter to the idea of being an English school for an overly heavy emphasis to be placed on chaperonage.

Author:  Liz K [ Mon Jan 25, 2010 5:22 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: chaperonage

Sunglass wrote:
I don't know about the Tyrol-era chaperoning in general. Sometimes it's definitely to do with the marriage market - I can't remember which recent school-leaver she's talking about (Bette? Bernhilda?), but Joey mentions seeing some former CS girl blushing when they meet her on the street with a man, and her mother in attendance, and assumes it's a sign she'll get engaged soon.


I'm as sure as I can be that it's Bette.

Author:  Alison H [ Mon Jan 25, 2010 5:49 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: chaperonage

Yes, it is - they see Bette and her mum out with a young man. Poor Bette and Dr di Bersetti, having to conduct their courtship under the eagle eye of Bette's mum :D .

I'm always surprised that Juliet and Donal were allowed to travel from Austria to Ireland alone together at the end of And Jo, on a journey that must have involved being away overnight (even if the night part was spent on the train). Maybe Donal's sister and brother-in-law travelled with them, but if they did it wasn't mentioned. When Daisy went to visit Laurie during her weekends off, it was made very clear that Daisy was staying overnight at Joyce Linton's house, which was nearby, so we wouldn't think she was staying with Laurie :lol:, but Juliet and Donal seem to be Alone ...

I must just have a very dirty mind :oops: .

Author:  Caroline [ Tue Jan 26, 2010 1:40 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: chaperonage

I've got a feeling that when chaperones are mentionned, it's noted that they generally aren't need at the Tiernsee, where the girls are known etc., but that they are needed in towns - isn't there a comment about Gisela and Maria wanting to greet the Bettanys and Robin when they come down for Christmas (in Jo of) but that they can't as there is no one to chaperone them in the journey across Innsbruck? Yes - here's the quote:

Quote:
"Gisela and Maria wished to come with us to meet you, but they live very far away, and there was no one to come with them, so Frau Marani refused permission. It is different here from the Tiern See, you see. This is the town.’
Joey listened wide-eyed to this, as they passed out of the station into the big brightly-lighted Bahnhof Platz. ‘But it’s early yet,’ she protested. ‘Why, it’s only half-past five! Why couldn’t they come by themselves?’
‘It is not the custom,’ explained Bernhilda, ‘and it wouldn’t be allowed.’
By this time they had reached the Droschke, so Joey said no more.

Author:  Mia [ Tue Jan 26, 2010 7:57 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: chaperonage

I was just about to comment that one required a chaperone in town, but not in the countryside before I saw Caroline's post. I suppose the Tiernsee sort of qualifies...

Author:  Sunglass [ Wed Jan 27, 2010 8:35 am ]
Post subject:  Re: chaperonage

Mia wrote:
I was just about to comment that one required a chaperone in town, but not in the countryside before I saw Caroline's post. I suppose the Tiernsee sort of qualifies...


I suppose. Only the fact that it's also (kind of) a lakeside holiday resort, with hotels, holiday homes, tourists and daytrippers, and things like the Tzigane concerts in season, which would muddy the waters a bit in the summers.

Author:  Fi [ Tue Feb 02, 2010 1:38 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: chaperonage

Alison H wrote:
We're told somewhere that a female teacher has to be present during Mr Denny's lessons as it would be considered inappropriate by Tyrolean parents for a male teacher to be left alone with the girls, but presumably Herr Helfen and Herr Anserl were on their own with girls in one-on-one situations unless a female staff member accompanied every girl attending an individual music lesson.


I'm not to sure about Herr Helfen but Herr Anserl was already a married man when he started working for the school whilst Mr Denny was a bachelor.

I wonder whether this made a difference to the level of chaperoning a girl required while in the presence of the respective gentlemen. Maybe Herr Anserl wasn't considered to be such a threat to the girls' virtue as he was expected to stay faithful to his wife.

Author:  Miss Di [ Wed Feb 03, 2010 4:05 am ]
Post subject:  Re: chaperonage

I could be totally misremembering but I do recall a scene (perhaps in School at) where Mdlle sat in with Grizel during her music lesson?

Author:  Miriam [ Wed Feb 03, 2010 9:01 am ]
Post subject:  Re: chaperonage

In 'School At', Mademoiselle is supervising Grizel's preactice, presumably to make sure she practices properly, and doesn't waste time.

I think chaperonage, of neccesity, died out during WWII, hence people like Gay and Jacynth travelling to school on their own - there would have been no one to take them, and unnecesary travel would have been frowned on anyway.

Author:  sealpuppy [ Fri Feb 05, 2010 5:34 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: chaperonage

Alison H wrote:
We're told somewhere that a female teacher has to be present during Mr Denny's lessons as it would be considered inappropriate by Tyrolean parents for a male teacher to be left alone with the girls.


Maybe it's just my low mind, but it would never have occurred to me that Mr Denny could be a danger to a classroom full of girls. I wonder if EBD meant to make him quite so camp? Or if she thought he was just 'delightfully artistic?' :oops:

Author:  JB [ Fri Feb 05, 2010 6:54 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: chaperonage

sealpuppy wrote:
Maybe it's just my low mind, but it would never have occurred to me that Mr Denny could be a danger to a classroom full of girls. I wonder if EBD meant to make him quite so camp? Or if she thought he was just 'delightfully artistic?' :oops:


My mind is jostling for low position with yours. I did wonder about the logic behind considering the single Mr Denny more of a threat than the married Herr Anserl. Although I suspect that by the time Herr Anserl came along, EBD simply forgot about the previous need for a chaperone. Then, there's also Herr Laubach's art lessons.

Author:  Sarah_G-G [ Fri Feb 05, 2010 8:07 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: chaperonage

JB wrote:
sealpuppy wrote:
Maybe it's just my low mind, but it would never have occurred to me that Mr Denny could be a danger to a classroom full of girls. I wonder if EBD meant to make him quite so camp? Or if she thought he was just 'delightfully artistic?' :oops:


My mind is jostling for low position with yours. I did wonder about the logic behind considering the single Mr Denny more of a threat than the married Herr Anserl. Although I suspect that by the time Herr Anserl came along, EBD simply forgot about the previous need for a chaperone. Then, there's also Herr Laubach's art lessons.


Yup, me three! And I think I read that book when I was about 10 the first time. :oops: I can remember half wondering if a chaperone was needed because Madge thought the girls would tease him too much if left on their own...

Author:  Liz K [ Fri Feb 05, 2010 9:39 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: chaperonage

Sarah_G-G wrote:
JB wrote:
sealpuppy wrote:
Maybe it's just my low mind, but it would never have occurred to me that Mr Denny could be a danger to a classroom full of girls. I wonder if EBD meant to make him quite so camp? Or if she thought he was just 'delightfully artistic?' :oops:


My mind is jostling for low position with yours. I did wonder about the logic behind considering the single Mr Denny more of a threat than the married Herr Anserl. Although I suspect that by the time Herr Anserl came along, EBD simply forgot about the previous need for a chaperone. Then, there's also Herr Laubach's art lessons.


Yup, me three! And I think I read that book when I was about 10 the first time. :oops: I can remember half wondering if a chaperone was needed because Madge thought the girls would tease him too much if left on their own...


So is the chaperonage more for the masters' own safety?!? :devil: (Yet another mind sinking to the depths!).

Author:  cestina [ Fri Feb 05, 2010 9:42 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: chaperonage

In my innocence I too always thought that the chaperon was to ensure that the girls behaved well.

I believe that until fairly recently French schools had someone in each classroom in charge of keeping order - the teacher was only supposed to impart knowledge. So rather like that.

Author:  Clare [ Sat Feb 06, 2010 6:08 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: chaperonage

cestina wrote:
I believe that until fairly recently French schools had someone in each classroom in charge of keeping order - the teacher was only supposed to impart knowledge. So rather like that.


Really? I wish that happened over here now!

Author:  sealpuppy [ Sat Feb 06, 2010 7:31 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: chaperonage

Isn't there an aside where Madge worries that the girls might be impertinent or giggle at his Elizabethan language? It can't have been because they thought he was a risk to a lot of girls. Though I suppose a well-brought up middle-class girl like Madge might not have realised that some men took no interest in the ladies. :oops:
(On yet another low note, somewhere else there was a comment a day or so ago about women taking up teaching because the men they might have married, had died in the War. Can't you just imagine Bill, for example, heaving a sigh and rolling her eyes up to heaven, on beholding Mr Denny for the first time, so clearly not husband fodder! :shock: )

Author:  cal562301 [ Sat Feb 06, 2010 7:53 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: chaperonage

I may be naive, but I never even considered Mr Denny in the light of recent posts. I just accepted him as an eccentric music master, just like the one I had at school.

Though, come to think of it, as far as I know, he never married either. But that doesn't automatically mean a lack of interest in the ladies.

I thought it was usually men who assumed that any man over 40 who hasn't married must be gay, so I'm a bit shocked to see that assumption on this board.

Hope that doesn't offend anyone, but that's how I feel.

Edited once to correct typo

Author:  ChubbyMonkey [ Sat Feb 06, 2010 8:34 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: chaperonage

I'd never thought of it either - and I don't think it's true, for what that's worth! - but then I'd also always assumed that it was to stop the girls from getting into mischief. After all, in 'Three Go' we have:

Quote:
Miss Burnett, the history mistress, and one-time head-girl of the school, followed him, and took her seat behind him on the dais. When the school had first begun in Tirol, it had been felt well to fall in with Continental ideas of chaperonage for the elder girls, and a mistress had always been in the room during the lessons. In England there was no need for that, but it had become a custom, and one was always there. On occasions such as this when the whole school was present, it was often a good plan. Middles are never little angels, especially in the bulk, and Plato had fits of wild rage sometimes, though generally he was easy-going enough. In such an event, the mistress in charge usually managed to rise to the occasion and trouble was averted.

Author:  JB [ Sat Feb 06, 2010 8:43 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: chaperonage

sealpuppy wrote:
Though I suppose a well-brought up middle-class girl like Madge might not have realised that some men took no interest in the ladies. :oops:
(On yet another low note, somewhere else there was a comment a day or so ago about women taking up teaching because the men they might have married, had died in the War. Can't you just imagine Bill, for example, heaving a sigh and rolling her eyes up to heaven, on beholding Mr Denny for the first time, so clearly not husband fodder! :shock: )


Or, considering your previous point about well-brought up girls, perhaps not all the mistreses realised this and Sarah Denny had to fight them off on this behalf?

Author:  Alison H [ Sat Feb 06, 2010 9:07 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: chaperonage

I always got the impression that Mr Denny was on a little planet all of his own and had no great interest in forming relationships with anyone - except his poor sister, who seemed like quite a sociable person who might've liked to go the evening dances etc but instead seemed to spend a lot of her free time looking after him. I think he'd've been completely thrown if someone'd tried it on with him!

Didn't the Dennys live at Die Rosen during the brief period when the school was up at the Sonnalpe? I'm just imagining him wandering along with his head in the clouds, humming some new tune or other, totally oblivious to the fact that Rix and David'd stuck a silly note on his back, and driving Madge and Marie mad by never turning up to meals on time.

It's quite worrying that any teacher should be so liable to fly into a rage that another teacher has to sit in on their lesson in case things get out of hand :shock: . I'm never sure if Mr Denny and Herr Laubach get away with the way they sometimes yell at the girls because they're "arty" or because they're men :shock:.

Author:  sealpuppy [ Sat Feb 06, 2010 9:16 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: chaperonage

Sorry! Didn't mean to offend anyone - but I only really got into the CS books as an adult, and I imagine that perspective influenced my reading re Mr Denny. :oops:

Author:  Abi [ Sat Feb 06, 2010 10:23 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: chaperonage

JB wrote:
sealpuppy wrote:
Though I suppose a well-brought up middle-class girl like Madge might not have realised that some men took no interest in the ladies. :oops:
(On yet another low note, somewhere else there was a comment a day or so ago about women taking up teaching because the men they might have married, had died in the War. Can't you just imagine Bill, for example, heaving a sigh and rolling her eyes up to heaven, on beholding Mr Denny for the first time, so clearly not husband fodder! :shock: )


Or, considering your previous point about well-brought up girls, perhaps not all the mistreses realised this and Sarah Denny had to fight them off on this behalf?


:lol: Starting to feel quite sorry for Mr Denny!

I only thought of him as rather weird, though I suppose coming to the books as an adult he would look a bit camp. :) I suspect EBD just meant him as a bit of comic relief, though I like the way she brings a more serious element to his character later on - like when he keeps the girls calm by singing during the raid in at War.

I think it's because they're men and arty, Alison! There's Mr Barrass, too, who seems to have violent rages, whereas any female artists (Mrs Barrass, Katherine Gordon's Aunt Luce) are mild and vague. Though to be fair Mr Denny is vague and mild most of the time.

Author:  sealpuppy [ Sun Feb 07, 2010 8:35 am ]
Post subject:  Re: chaperonage

It was just an idle, flippant comment. :oops:
He comes across, I thought, as being rather bloodless and sexless, but camp. And I had the impression that both Dennys were only in their early/mid thirties at the beginning.

Author:  Tor [ Sun Feb 07, 2010 12:52 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: chaperonage

Quote:
He comes across, I thought, as being rather bloodless and sexless, but camp.


Mr Denny came across like that to me too! I think EBD did a rather good job - intentionally or otherwise - with him; she created a character that I immediately labelled 'silly, and a bit ridiculous, but lovely' as a child reader, which is just how the CS girls respond to him, despite him clearly cutting enough of a romantic dash for Madge to worry for a bit that the girls might go silly over him.

Quote:
I thought it was usually men who assumed that any man over 40 who hasn't married must be gay, so I'm a bit shocked to see that assumption on this board


I don't think it is an assumption by anyone, merely the exploration of a possibility. It's possible, it's plausible, and a legitimate theory; why not voice it - if not here, where?

Author:  Sunglass [ Sun Feb 07, 2010 2:44 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: chaperonage

cal562301 wrote:
I thought it was usually men who assumed that any man over 40 who hasn't married must be gay, so I'm a bit shocked to see that assumption on this board.


Well, I think the assumption from that kind of straight man is that any unmarried man over 40 is gay and that this is a bad thing, which makes the assumption damaging. If, on the other hand, being gay is seen as simply one a variety of sexualities, then why not explore Mr D's possible gayness? I tend to try not to be heterosexist in assuming everyone is straight unless proven otherwise!

I do think EBD, in writing Mr Denny, has produced a memorably unusual character for the CS universe, where men are mostly either masterful (straight) medics, 'simple' peasants, or variously good or bad father-figures to CS girls - and certainly he's her only real eccentric CS teacher, if we leave out Herr Laubach and Herr Anserl on the grounds of them just being a bit shouty. I've certainly known the occasional gay man who self-presented with a kind of elaborate campness that isn't unlike Mr Denny's mannered speech and appearance. It seems highly unlikely EBD was consciously writing a gay man, but on the other hand, if she moved in theatrical circles, she might not have been entirely oblivious to other sexualities...? ('Being musical' is, after all, an old-fashioned expression for being gay! :) ) In fact, I've sometimes wondered whether he was a portrait of someone EBD knew, he's such an unusual figure in the CS universe, where virtually every other teacher is the usual EBD strict-but-fair-and-trig woman.

More realistically, and given that the Malory Towers music teacher was also a rather odd young man who certainly isn't regarded as a potential heart-throb by the girls (Darrell Rivers chalks 'OY!' on the seat of his trousers at one point) - I wonder whether EBD wasn't signalling, like EB, that here was a 'safe' man, who wasn't going to be a source of schoolgirl crushes. Think of the contrast with Anne Digby's sexy maths supply teacher Max in one of the Trebizon books, who surfs, corrects tests on the beach, and is fancied by half the school...

Author:  ChubbyMonkey [ Sun Feb 07, 2010 3:23 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: chaperonage

Sunglass wrote:
...and certainly he's her only real eccentric CS teacher, if we leave out Herr Laubach and Herr Anserl on the grounds of them just being a bit shouty.


:lol: :lol: :lol: You know, it's most unladlylike to make someone snort in such a way.

Interesting idea about schoolgirl crushes - there are so many relationships which could be explored as being that way inclined, but certainly none involving male teachers that I can think of. (I do maintain that OOAO had a "bit of a thing" for Jack, in my own oddball way, but doctors don't count) However, I would never, ever have picked up on them as a child - to go a bit Freudian, I suppose that could be because of crushes on the characters myself! Unlikely, but in psychoanalysis terms that just makes it all the more plausible - which was who EBD was writing for, so I do think that maybe we're coming at this from too much of an adult point of view. Why put in sub-texts if you never expect your audience to pick up on them?

Author:  Tor [ Sun Feb 07, 2010 3:44 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: chaperonage

Quote:
I do maintain that OOAO had a "bit of a thing" for Jack, in my own oddball way, but doctors don't count


I can totally see this, Ariel! It puts a whole other light on that conversation about boys. And on Mary-Lou continuing to turn up on the Platz after leaving school. Not in a CGGU trying to steal someones husband way, but in that lovesick adolescent crush way of 'accidentally' bumping into your crush all the time... :lol: :lol:

I still think sub-text can be unintentional on the authors part; I've said it before a lot, but I think EBD strengths at characterisation stem from an intuitive idea of how people think, feel and behave, and her best writing in these areas happen when she kind-of goes with it, even if she isn't exactly sure what that behaviour might signify. If that makes sense...? It's one of the ways I read her wonderful portrayals of deep female friendships, which might or might-not have a sexual component, but that are open to both interpretations to us as readers (adult or otherwise - I certainly wondered as a child!).

Author:  Sunglass [ Sun Feb 07, 2010 4:11 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: chaperonage

I totally agree she had a thing for Jack, out of all of her masterful medics!

I'd agree with Tor that not all subtext is intentional on the author's part, and that some of the most interesting complexities of EBD's writing creep in despite her conscious intentions. (Like lots of the things we end up discussing at length here, like - I don't know - her complicated depictions of stepfamilies, or social class, or the way that despite subscribing to the notion that training makes the child, and despite repeatedly presenting Freudesheim as a perfect home with perfect parenting, it nonetheless produces the complicated, guilty and angry Margot...)

Plus I'd add that some of the time she's writing for her own adult self, or the kind of adult CS fan who wanted as much detail as possible on the inner workings of the school or Fredesheim, as much as for an imagined child reader..?

Author:  cal562301 [ Sun Feb 07, 2010 4:16 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: chaperonage

I think maybe my last post was a bit strong and if I upset anyone, I apologise.

I had no idea that 'being musical' was an old-fashioned way of saying someone was gay, although there are a lot of stereotypical 'luvvies' throughout the history of the entertainment business.

And of course, at the time when EBD was writing, althouigh homosexuals undoubtedly existed, homosexuality (in England at least) was still illegal. In any case, it would have been totally inappropriate for her to hint more strongly to such a thing in a children's books.

Perhaps the problem is that with the best will in the world, all us CBBers are now adults and it's hard (for me at least) to read these books throuigh a child's eyes, although some of you obviously have stronger recollections of what your reaction to the books you read as a child were, which is great.

Sunglass wrote:
More realistically, and given that the Malory Towers music teacher was also a rather odd young man who certainly isn't regarded as a potential heart-throb by the girls (Darrell Rivers chalks 'OY!' on the seat of his trousers at one point) - I wonder whether EBD wasn't signalling, like EB, that here was a 'safe' man, who wasn't going to be a source of schoolgirl crushes. Think of the contrast with Anne Digby's sexy maths supply teacher Max in one of the Trebizon books, who surfs, corrects tests on the beach, and is fancied by half the school...


I have read and enjoyed the Trebizon books, which I found the children's section of our library and I have to admit that the portrayal of Max made me uncomfortable. I felt he was in danger of crossing the dividing line between staff and pupils, which has to be maintained, particularly between older pupils and teachers of the opposite sex.

Author:  Tor [ Sun Feb 07, 2010 4:41 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: chaperonage

Quote:
I think maybe my last post was a bit strong and if I upset anyone, I apologise.


Please don't apologise; I certainly wasn't upset, but I always feel the need to respond to posts which I worry might stifle debate (which, by the way, i am sure you weren't trying to do). I like to hear everyone's opinions and personal responses. :D

Quote:
Perhaps the problem is that with the best will in the world, all us CBBers are now adults and it's hard (for me at least) to read these books throuigh a child's eyes, although some of you obviously have stronger recollections of what your reaction to the books you read as a child were, which is great.


Another thing is that we all span a wide range of generations and upbringings here on the board, and I guess no-ones childhood can be considered typical. I read the CS books avidly from about 9 until about 15, where I let them lie for a while (except for the odd illness related comfort read), and my 'childhood' reactions spanned quite a wide range of development, and at 15 I would have been reading the CS books alongside books like Maurice, and Oranges are Not the Only Fruit. I'm a child of the 1980s, too, and this marks the era where things like homosexuality became mainstream, and the focus of much debate (note that last social attitudes survey, for example). All these things are going to influence how I read characters, I accept that.

I have quite vivid memories of the CS books, and I also get little shocks when I re-read now, and realize my childhood impression of a character or a situation was quite different then, to how I read it now. My real interest lies in finding out how other people respond to characters (as we are all working with more-or-less the same textual material), and using that as the starting point for looking at how EBD used language, and plot to lead to these varying interpretation; and then trying to see how much that might stray from her intentions as an author.

I totally don't remember the Max character in Trebizon - which makes me think I thought it was completely legitimate and not at all unusual to fancy your male teachers. We all totally harassed the young male teachers at my school, so that is - sadly - likely on my part. We were horrible. But, to be fair, they seemed to encourage, and one was sacked for having an affair with a sixth former. :shock:

Author:  ChubbyMonkey [ Sun Feb 07, 2010 4:54 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: chaperonage

We had someone who was sacked for the same reason, but at the time it just creeped me out! In fact, coming newly (last week) from a conversation with someone about a certain lecturer, I can say that it still does! Possibly EBD's prudishness affecting me there...

I'm like you, Tor, in that I find it interesting to see how other people react. But I must say that there are times I rue finding the CBB - it's a wonderful place, but some of the more extreme Joey-bashing and the like makes me sad. Fair enough, if that's your opinion, but I want to think of the books fondly, as the comfort that they were during my childhood, and some of the comments do take that away from me. Though each to her opinion, I won't try and stop it!

At least I've been reassured that I'm not the only one who has naughty thoughts about teenage crushes occasionally :oops: :lol:

Author:  Alison H [ Sun Feb 07, 2010 5:24 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: chaperonage

We got a new male geography teacher once, and a rumour went round the school that he was drop-dead gorgeous and that the headmistress'd been in two minds about whether or not to employ him in case we all developed crushes on him.

We were very disappointed when he turned up and he wasn't even remotely good-looking!

When Mr Denny first arrived, Jo and Simone had a conversation about him, and Simone said that she thought he looked "romantic". Jo and Margia said that he looked like a prat because of his clothes, and nicknamed him "Plato". I haven't got the exact quote to hand, but Madge, when she heard about this, said she was glad because it'd be very hard to get sentimental over "Plato" and so it put an end to the one thing she'd been worried about when she employed him. So it sounds as if Madge was worried that the girls'd all develop crushes on Mr Denny ... either because she thought they'd find his "artiness" super-sexy or just because there were so few men around :lol: :lol: . I think that's the one and only time it's ever suggested that CS girls would be so unladylike as to develop crushes on people :lol: . Although Grizel was presumably rather keen on the then Prince of Wales (the future Duke of Windsor), the no 1 pin up of the day, as she collected postcards of him :wink: .

Author:  Sunglass [ Sun Feb 07, 2010 5:27 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: chaperonage

Tor wrote:
at 15 I would have been reading the CS books alongside books like Maurice, and Oranges are Not the Only Fruit. I'm a child of the 1980s, too, and this marks the era where things like homosexuality became mainstream


Snap on reading Jeanette Winterson and Maurice alongside the CS - I adored Maurice in my mid-teens and used to wail over Clive's cruel desertion of him - and I too would still have been dipping into the CS as a comfort read when a couple of the more advanced of my older friends were hitting university and starting to come out. So, all in all, it felt perfectly legitimate to ponder Mr Denny's orientation, given the way EBD kind of feminises him physically, with the long hair and girlish pink and white complexion, when all her other men seem Ruggedly Manly.

Just reading this thread now, it occurs to me to wonder whether Austria would have actually been a good destination for a gay Englishman of Mr Denny's era, as wouldn't it have operated under a version of the Napoleonic Code?

Tor wrote:
I totally don't remember the Max character in Trebizon - which makes me think I thought it was completely legitimate and not at all unusual to fancy your male teachers. We all totally harassed the young male teachers at my school, so that is - sadly - likely on my part. We were horrible. But, to be fair, they seemed to encourage, and one was sacked for having an affair with a sixth former. :shock:


I certainly never found the Max situation particularly odd either. I don't think he actually does anything sexually inappropriate from my memory of the book, apart from being a rather uncommitted teacher and mixing up test results in a way that favours his favourite...? At my school, by the time we were in the final year, we were mostly over age, and used to go to the pub occasionally with our younger teachers, male and female. without feeling it was a suspect situation! I definitely remember being in a nightclub and meeting my male English teacher on the dancefloor. Very un-CS, I fear. :oops: :oops: Although I like the idea of the prefects sneaking out to the Auberge with Kathie Ferrars and Nancy Wilmot of an evening... Maybe Plato came along to join in the sing-songs!

Author:  JB [ Sun Feb 07, 2010 5:37 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: chaperonage

Sunglass wrote:
I certainly never found the Max situation particularly odd either. I don't think he actually does anything sexually inappropriate from my memory of the book, apart from being a rather uncommitted teacher and mixing up test results in a way that favours his favourite...?


IIRC Roberta has a crush on Max who she remembers from his time teaching at her previous school. He's scared because he left that school under a cloud and he thinks she might know this (she doesn't), which is why he makes a favourite of her.

Author:  Alison H [ Tue Feb 09, 2010 4:09 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: chaperonage

What seems to make all the difference is if a man is, or says he is, a doctor. Jack Maynard often comes to collect small groups of girls and escort them back up the Sonnalpe to visit Madge and Gisela: no-one seems to mind this, yet surely it's a lot more inappropriate than Mr Denny sitting in a classroom with a large number of girls. & Hilary Burn and the other mistress involved (forgotten who it was now) quite happily take the girls off to Phil Graves's house after the accident at the lily ponds: for all they knew, he could have been an axe murderer!

Author:  ammonite [ Tue Feb 09, 2010 6:35 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: chaperonage

But wasn't it that in the Phil Graves case that they needed to get dry and warm - I can't see them getting undressed and dry on the riverbank!
With Jack escorting the girls up to the Sonnalpe it was known that he was doing that and the girls were in effect chaperoning each other. The school knew when they left and Madge knew when they arrived, when they were likely to have left and that couldn't allow any time for anything to happen.
Plus in all the very old fashioned stories about schools wasn't it the dancing or art masters that were the ones to end up having relationships?

Author:  ChubbyMonkey [ Tue Feb 09, 2010 7:11 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: chaperonage

Alison H wrote:
I haven't got the exact quote to hand, but Madge, when she heard about this, said she was glad because it'd be very hard to get sentimental over "Plato" and so it put an end to the one thing she'd been worried about when she employed him.


Quote:
‘He looked at ass!’ returned Joey briskly. ‘I loathe men who have their hair bobbed! And why couldn’t’ he war a decent collar and tie like other folks?’ which put a complete stopper on the one thing Madge had feared when she had finally agreed to letting him have the singing.


I'm not quite sure how else you could interpret that, but it doesn't sound right to me! Perhaps she was worried that the girls would mock him in some way?

Author:  Sarah_G-G [ Tue Feb 09, 2010 10:59 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: chaperonage

ChubbyMonkey wrote:
Alison H wrote:
I haven't got the exact quote to hand, but Madge, when she heard about this, said she was glad because it'd be very hard to get sentimental over "Plato" and so it put an end to the one thing she'd been worried about when she employed him.


Quote:
‘He looked at ass!’ returned Joey briskly. ‘I loathe men who have their hair bobbed! And why couldn’t’ he war a decent collar and tie like other folks?’ which put a complete stopper on the one thing Madge had feared when she had finally agreed to letting him have the singing.


I'm not quite sure how else you could interpret that, but it doesn't sound right to me! Perhaps she was worried that the girls would mock him in some way?


That's what I always got from that quote, but admittedly I was always a little confused by the bit "... which put a complete stopper on..." because I couldn't decide if that meant "which put an end to her fears" or "which sealed/ confirmed her fears." Help, anyone? :oops: :lol: It's just one of those phrases I never really heard in other contexts and so wasn't quite sure about.

Author:  Abi [ Tue Feb 09, 2010 11:29 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: chaperonage

'Put an end to', I think - like putting a stopper on a bottle. So she no longer feared that the girls would fancy/mock Plato.

Author:  Alison H [ Wed Feb 10, 2010 12:12 am ]
Post subject:  Re: chaperonage

Well, Simone thought he looked "romantic", so maybe she always harboured a secret crush on him but was too embarrassed to mention it again :lol: .

Author:  bonnie [ Thu Feb 11, 2010 3:25 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: chaperonage

I must admit to a bit of a soft spot for Mr Denny, and I took the 'complete stopper' bit to indicate that Madge was concerned the girls would fancy him (after all, most of them had probably never previously been exposed to a young man that wasn't their brother!). So he must have been reasonably good-looking in spite of the weirdness!

Author:  Llywela [ Thu Feb 11, 2010 3:59 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: chaperonage

Thinking of chaperones, there's that section in...I think it's Island, during Annis's little escapade when she is washed up on Kester Bellever's island. Having secured Annis's rescue, which then left her in the sticky position of having a vulnerable teenage girl alone with an unmarried man, EBD then had to go to great lengths to provide Annis with the 11 year old Cherry Christie as a 'chaperone' - she takes great pains to have Cherry explain in detail that she was present at all times while Annis was being stripped and changed, and that her dignity was not compromised!

Author:  ChubbyMonkey [ Thu Feb 11, 2010 4:17 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: chaperonage

And yet I'm sure (can't find the quote for the life of me at the moment) that at some point Jem hurries Joey home and plunges her straight in a hot bath, because the way EBD phrased it always made me think that he had been there for the undressing/plunging and wonder at how embarrassed I would have been!

So perhaps it's ok for doctors to see you without it compromising your dignity?

Author:  Artemis [ Thu Feb 11, 2010 4:22 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: chaperonage

Is Joey 14 at that point? Wasn't that the cut off? A 14 year old was, to quote Lewis Carroll 'standing with reluctant feet/where the brook and river meet'

Before 14 girls were children and could be kissed/babied/petted/dumped into baths with no problem. After 14 they were untouchable, because considered to be on the womanly side of girlhood.

Author:  Llywela [ Thu Feb 11, 2010 4:45 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: chaperonage

Also, wasn't Jem already either married or at least engaged to Madge by that time? *memory is hazy* So wouldn't he fall under the banner of being a relative of sorts (plus, obviously, a Doctor and therefore beyond reproach) whereas Kester Bellever fell into a different category altogether, however lovely he might be.

Author:  Alison H [ Thu Feb 11, 2010 4:45 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: chaperonage

Personally I would have objected very strongly to having my chest rubbed by Matron when I was 17, which happens to Jo :shock: .

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