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The real heroines (and heroes)
http://www.the-cbb.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=5679
Author:  Alison H [ Mon Feb 09, 2009 2:51 pm ]
Post subject:  The real heroines (and heroes)
Given that the general verdict on the Joey-bashing thread seems to be that the characters whom EBD made her heroines were all either too irritating or too perfect :lol: , just wondered whom people do think the inspirational characters were. I would "nominate" :D :

1. Madge, for setting up the school in the first place – a huge undertaking for a young woman with no experience of either teaching or running a business – and making a success of it.
2. Daisy, for qualifying as a doctor at a time when very few women did – even if she didn’t actually practise for very long – and for winning various awards for her research. I don’t think she gets nearly enough credit for her achievements. And she was good at sports, popular with everyone and an all-round nice person as well.
3. Margot Venables, for coping with a whole series of tragedies, and then getting her life back on track, and taking a job at the CS rather than just hanging about at Die Rosen. It was very sad that EBD then made her “fade out of life” like someone in some sort of Victorian tragedy.
4. Elisaveta, who coped remarkably well with a terrifying wartime journey, losing her home and her entire way of life, and then being widowed.
5. Bette, who also had to cope with being left a widow with young children, started a new life in another country, and took as job as a housekeeper which wouldn’t have been at all what she’d have expected from life.
6. Herr Marani and 7. Luigia di Ferrara, who both tragically died for their beliefs.
Author:  Mia [ Mon Feb 09, 2009 3:33 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: The real heroines (and heroes)
Ooh good thread!

Vater Johann - and the family who look after Robin in Spartz, the ones whose daughter was cured in the San - the Borkels?
Author:  JS [ Mon Feb 09, 2009 4:44 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: The real heroines (and heroes)
I'll say it before anyone else does: Karen, Marie, Gaudenz and Joey's faithful Anna - for holding everything together. :)
Author:  ChubbyMonkey [ Mon Feb 09, 2009 4:51 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: The real heroines (and heroes)
I don't know if you'd class him as a hero anyway, but I would definetely nominate Dr Jem, particularly early Dr Jem, for all of his doctoring.

Also Nina Rutherford for copign so well with having her father die, having to move away to a family who didn't understand her at all, being shunted to the CS, then her cousin's illness etc.
Author:  MaryR [ Mon Feb 09, 2009 4:54 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: The real heroines (and heroes)
Frau Mieders, Herr Anserl, the Linders girls, and all those who had to make their lonely and dangerous escape to England during the war. And von Ahlen and Friedrick Gluck (the right names?) who somehow managed to escape from a concentration camp after much suffering and found their way to Guensey.
Author:  Kathy_S [ Mon Feb 09, 2009 5:18 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: The real heroines (and heroes)
Mary-Lou and Joey! No list of real CS heroines is complete without them. :halo:

(not that I don't agree about lots of the others on this list)
Author:  KatS [ Mon Feb 09, 2009 6:08 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: The real heroines (and heroes)
Eustacia - by age 15 she had lost both her parents, been rejected by her only living relatives as unlovable, dumped in an unknown foreign boarding school, had a terrible accident that caused chronic back injury. By the time she has graduated from the CS (two/three years later), she has been a prefect, editor of the school magazine, and gained friends and respect. As an adult, she followed her dream and became a succesful academic at a time when that was rare for women, particularly in her field.

A quick google tells me that the first full woman professor at Oxford wasn't until 1948 - when would Stacie have been there? Surely not many years later?
Author:  MJKB [ Mon Feb 09, 2009 6:11 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: The real heroines (and heroes)
Grizel for turning her life around. Grizel came from such an emotionally disadvantaged background. All the people she invested in emotionally either let her down - Diera, did not reciprocate in the same measure - Joey and Madge, or died - her grandmother. Rescue is one of my favourite books because it deals competently with an adult on the verge of a complete mental breakdown, a trickly subject for a children's book, and well done to EBD for even broaching the subject. I know Grizel's happiness resides in her newly formed relationship with the masterful doctor, but I'm just glad she found completeness.
Author:  Emma A [ Tue Feb 10, 2009 8:42 am ]
Post subject:  Re: The real heroines (and heroes)
KatS wrote:
A quick google tells me that the first full woman professor at Oxford wasn't until 1948 - when would Stacie have been there? Surely not many years later?

Stacie would have been at Oxford for her undergraduate degree between 1938 and 1941. I don't know when it's stated that she's Dr Benson, with her DLitt - certainly by the late 1950s, when she teaches at the CS, but probably earlier. She probably would have been called up after she graduated, and wouldn't have been able to start a post-graduate degree until 1946.

I don't think she's ever a Professor (which is quite different to being a tutor or lecturer or Fellow of the College) in the books, but may well have been appointed one later in her career, say in the 1960s. I like to think so, anyway! :D
Author:  Cat C [ Tue Feb 10, 2009 1:18 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: The real heroines (and heroes)
Quote:
She probably would have been called up after she graduated, and wouldn't have been able to start a post-graduate degree until 1946.


Would she have been called-up though, after her back injury? I really have no idea...
Author:  Emma A [ Tue Feb 10, 2009 2:14 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: The real heroines (and heroes)
I'd nominate Jacynth's Auntie - loving, generous, self-sacrificing. She makes such an impact on the reader (and on Jacynth herself) in only one book, and is so well-drawn that you feel you know her - or would have been a better person for knowing her! :halo:
Author:  JayB [ Tue Feb 10, 2009 6:34 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: The real heroines (and heroes)
Cat C wrote:
Quote:
She probably would have been called up after she graduated, and wouldn't have been able to start a post-graduate degree until 1946.

Would she have been called-up though, after her back injury? I really have no idea...


She wouldn't have been fit for the services or factory work. But I think she'd have been a candidate for Intelligence, myself. Lots of bright young classicists and historians were at Bletchley Park and in other branches of the intelligence services. (Peter Wimsey's recommendation would have been sufficient to get her in.) :wink:
Author:  Elbee [ Tue Feb 10, 2009 8:44 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: The real heroines (and heroes)
JayB wrote:
But I think she'd have been a candidate for Intelligence, myself. Lots of bright young classicists and historians were at Bletchley Park and in other branches of the intelligence services. :wink:

I've read a couple of books recently about Bletchley Park, having visited the place a couple of years ago, and I can definitely picture Stacie there. Probably quite a few CS girls would have ended up there, especially with their language skills.
Author:  Alex [ Tue Feb 10, 2009 9:13 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: The real heroines (and heroes)
Juliet, for showing her gratitude the only way she could.
Author:  MJKB [ Tue Feb 10, 2009 11:34 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: The real heroines (and heroes)
Im quite surprised that no one has mentioned Bill so far.I've already plumped for Grizel, but I think Bill is pretty admirable too. She loses all her family within a very short space of time, and at a very early age. Then she joins the CS at a time when most staff members are untrained and she is, I THINK, the only university graduate. She shows extraordinary courage and initiative in getting everyone safely away from the murderous gang in Spartz and again in the flight from Austria.
When Mademoiselle retires Bill, who arrived at the school before Hilda, is passed over, yet she never shows any sign of resentment and is Hilda's greatest support.
Author:  Maeve [ Wed Feb 11, 2009 8:51 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: The real heroines (and heroes)
Mademoiselle LePattre for carrying on at the school on as long as she could even when she was ill.

Elizabeth Arnett for turning her life around.

Gertrude Becker for not doing what the Nazis wanted her to do.

Joey and Grizel when they went looking for Corney when the mad Herr Arnsel had captured her -- that was scary.
Author:  Fiona Mc [ Sun Feb 15, 2009 5:08 am ]
Post subject:  Re: The real heroines (and heroes)
Gottfried Mensch, while all the others escaping Austria, had to escape on the run as they were wanted by the authorities, Gottfried put his own life on the line and led the group to Switzerland. Given he would have been treated as a traitor to his country, I think that was one of the bravest acts in the entire book.
Author:  tiffinata [ Sun Feb 15, 2009 11:23 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: The real heroines (and heroes)
Kester Belliver (or however you spell it) for being a conservationist during a time when conservation wasn't considered an issue
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