The one that gets me is the makeup - it's clear that makeup is fast and cheap on people like Joan, but Peggy, in Oberland, tells one of the other girls that she's rude to *not* wear makeup, forcing other people to look at her shiny nose and pale lips!

It was a kind of puritanical idea at one time - bathing was supposed to be for getting clean, not for lingering in nice scented hot water which was seen as being too "sensual"

Why? What could she or anyone else have against pony tails? Was it that they suggest a rude part of a horse's anatomy?

Actually, I've never really had a sense of how many different 'sittings' in each bathroom there were every morning by the Swiss days, when the school was large? Three? Four? More?

I imagined that Len's pony tail was tied high on her head so it would be more likely to tangle and might Joey see it as a bit too modern? It seems ok for girls to have a single plait or tail which ties on the neck. Hope that makes sense - I can picture it but it's harder to put into words.

Joan wore a thick layer, that 'could be scraped off with a knife', and probably didn't do much for her looks. Apart from that, it was the school rulr that make-up was not allowed for girls under sixteen.

I wonder if Rosalie had to do that as well as everything else. It's a wonder the poor woman never had a nervous breakdown!

At my junior school in the late 50's there was a battle everyday. A girl would come in with a high pony tail which her mother did for her. The Head teacher (there were only 2 teachers, 1 for all the infants, 1 for the juniors) used to take it down and tie it on her neck.

I doubt showers had been invented then!

I wonder how often the girls changed their blouses and underwear etc. They bathed very frequently but they may not have been allowed to use deodorant.

We were never alone. If we wanted solitude it was thought that we must have some perverse reason. We had fifteen-minute bath "hours" three times a week: we were supposed to bathe modestly in our underclothes; I love nothing better than the glorious sensuous feeling of water on my skin, and would bathe in the normal way, then rush into my underclothes and dip underwater, always afraid of being caught and held up as an example of American depravity (If I did anything wrong it was an international incident); while we were bathing, the matron was apt to peer either over or under the partitions.