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The friendship of Hilda and Kathie
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Author:  MJKB [ Mon Sep 08, 2008 5:08 pm ]
Post subject:  The friendship of Hilda and Kathie

I know alot has been written about the friendship between Kathie Ferris and Hilda Wilmot but I've never been able to figure it out myself. Kathie

was only 22 when they met and Hilda was at least 34, around the same age as Joey. If Kathie had been a past pupil of the school she might even have called Hilda 'auntie' out of school hours. Why on earth did she not hook up with Miss Andrews or even Biddy? Please comment somebody. because I don't believe for one moment that EBD saw anything 'suspect' in their friendship.
I would have thought that Kathie's character in the beginning was a dead cert for a doctor husband

Author:  Róisín [ Mon Sep 08, 2008 5:11 pm ]
Post subject: 

I think you mean Nancy Wilmot rather than Hilda :lol: Does that change your view on their friendship? So, Nancy was more of a young colleague than a supervisor to Kathy. Kathy was friends with Biddy at the beginning, but this was also the term that Biddy left to get married, so possibly Biddy was a bit distracted by preparations.

Author:  Alison H [ Mon Sep 08, 2008 8:41 pm ]
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Kathie seemed to pal up with Sharlie Andrews, who was the same age as her, at first. Nancy would've been Kathie's head of department for maths so presumably they got to know each other well because of that at first.

They were different generations in terms of the school, as you say - Nancy was only a few years younger than Joey, whereas Kathie was around the same age as Peggy Bettany - but sometimes close friendships form between people of different ages. Madge and Mlle Lepattre were very close in the early days, even though Mlle was years older.

Other "pairs" of mistresses are close friends too - Nell and Hilda obviously, and Rosalind Moore and Peggy Burnett, I think, and Mlle de Lachennais and Mlle Berne - but we never see as much of them together as we do of Kathie and Nancy, who even buy a car together. I'd love to know what EBD really thought of their relationship as being!

Author:  Lottie [ Mon Sep 08, 2008 8:46 pm ]
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I always think that EBD forgot how old Nancy should be. I get the impression that she is treated as a fairly new and inexperienced teacher when she arrives in Barbara. If so, she wouldn't be much older than Kathie.

Or else, she's a different Nancy Wilmot. After all, Nancy from St. Scholastika's definitely didn't like maths in New.

Author:  Pat [ Mon Sep 08, 2008 8:51 pm ]
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From things said it's the same Nancy, so she must have changed her ideas a bit when she grew up!!! :twisted:

Author:  Pado [ Tue Sep 09, 2008 11:07 pm ]
Post subject: 

I've always been confused by the Hilda/Nancy Wilmot thing - is my assumption that Nancy would have been Hilda's younger sister completely mad?

Author:  claire [ Wed Sep 10, 2008 8:13 am ]
Post subject: 

In Future they cover it - I think it's Irma who says Nancy hated maths in school, so it's definately the same one

Author:  Tor [ Wed Sep 10, 2008 8:40 am ]
Post subject: 

On the age subject, the biggest factor in how you get treated seems to be your relative position in terms of hitting key 'milestones' that other people feel important.

For example, I have several close friends I met through work and lived with who are a few years older than me. I never even considered their age, and I am assuming they never considered mine (I'm 28, they were mid-30s). This is because we met on equal terms, and all of us were at similar stages in our lives - single, living in London etc.

My SLOC is also a few years my senior, but I certainly don't feel younger than him, nor do I feel he considers himself to be older than me or my school friends.

However, when I first met SLOCs university friends, they immediately kept referencing my age. I mean it was like I was at dinner with my parents friends, and I had reverted to 18. Like I said, I am 28 (would have been 25 or so then), and they were in their late 20's and early 30's. Quite ridiculous - but they were married, expecting kids and adding that to the fact I was a PhD STUDENT, they really made my age an issue.

This was a shock, because I really wasn't expecting to be treated like a naive ingenue!

this is a rambling way of saying that Nancy (correct age or otherwise) would probably have forgotten the age difference between her and Kathy, and vice-versa, as they were not only colleagues, but at a similar (non-doctor chasing) stage in life and Nancy was one of the newer members of staff herself, working with many women who were her own teachers. If that doesn't keep you young, I don't know what would!

Author:  liberty [ Wed Sep 10, 2008 1:24 pm ]
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I agree that age doesn't necessarily make a difference. I'm 26 and the person I'm closest to at work is 38. Occasionally he makes reference to things that happened that I don't remember but generally I don't even think about it.

Author:  JS [ Thu Sep 11, 2008 5:49 pm ]
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I agree with what Tor says about being friends with people who are at a similar stage of life, almost regardless of age. Kathie and Nancy both enjoy teaching and neither is off getting married and having babies. I don't recall Biddy and Hilary Burn being such good pals (and what were their relative ages - wasn't Hilary several years older?) but they ended up sharing a house when their life circumstances coincided.

Author:  MJKB [ Mon Nov 10, 2008 10:26 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: The friendship of Hilda and Kathie

The age gap between Biddy and Hilary is far less than that between Nancy and Kathie. Also, Biddy and Hilary were at school together, so that would make a difference.
I can certainly see how Kathie and Nancy would become friendly, they do have a fair amount in common. But they were at different stages in life when they first met, Kathie was in her early twenties, not far removed from her school days, while Nancy was in her early to mid thirties. With that disparity in age they would have different social interests. Actually, while I started this discussion, I'm inclined to agree with Lottie that EBD prpbably forgot how old Nancy was.

Author:  JB [ Tue Nov 11, 2008 3:26 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: The friendship of Hilda and Kathie

Perhaps Nancy didn't train as a teacher immediately she left school. She would have been of the generation who left just before the war. In one of the wartime books Miss Annersley updates the school on some old girls who've joined up but I can't remember if Nancy is one of them. Maybe there's a drabble in there re what she did during the war??

Later on her age is recognised when she stands in as Head during Challenge (even though Matey) still treats her as though she's 12.

Author:  Catherine [ Tue Nov 11, 2008 4:11 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: The friendship of Hilda and Kathie

I'm fairly sure Nancy was a Wren during the war. Nancy was friends with Sharlie, Peggy and Rosalind and they seemed to adopt Kathie. Sometimes you meet people and feel like you've known them for ages so maybe that's what happened with them. I think though it was friendship that developed gradually 'behind the scenes' as they don't seem to be especially friendly during Kathie's first term.

Author:  clair [ Tue Nov 11, 2008 5:26 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: The friendship of Hilda and Kathie

I never really think of the ages, some people are just friends. I have friends who are 40 years older than myself but that doesn't even enter my head when we're talking or out for lunch etc. I always seem to see this as a group of friends and that their friendship develops naturally through several terms

Author:  Alison H [ Tue Nov 11, 2008 10:36 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: The friendship of Hilda and Kathie

In terms of lifestyle, there was so little to do around the Platz that age might not have made as much of a difference as it might've done in a different location. People in their early 20s like Kathie and Sharlie might have wanted to go out dancing or whatever but in reality they wouldn't've got much chance!

Although I'm sure there must've been a nice pub somewhere in the area where the mistresses (and possibly the Sixth Formers) sneaked off to sometimes: they'd've gone mad if they'd've been stuck in the school building all the time with nowhere else to go but Freudesheim!

Author:  MJKB [ Wed Nov 12, 2008 4:01 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: The friendship of Hilda and Kathie

What contented, clean, pure lives these women led! No Chalet School girl ever went out husband seeking. Professional men, (doctors , mainly) just turned up and rescued them! No dating, no being dumped, no divorse, no angst. The highlight of life on the Platz is 'English Tea' with Joey and a cosy chat about how well or badly you are doing as a Chalet School Mistress. Which begs the comment - what a self satisfied tyrant Joey Maynard turned out to be. Imagine having to be eternally interested in the progress of her 'long family', having to look at photographs of her leaping over ditches, having to listen to endless stories about her 'wicked middle days.' Yet the charm of the Chalet School for me is this very safeness and cosiness, this sense of contentment and fulfillment they all appear to experience, except Grizel, of course. Grizel, imho, is the one of EBD's best drawn character. She experiences a great deal in life, teaching, emigrating and setting up a business, being crossed in love etc. I have to admit I was really pleased when she was rewarded with a (doctor) husband and a family. I guess most of us, especially those of us who love this genre of children's literature, need a happy ending and EBD gives us those in plenty.

Author:  Alison H [ Wed Nov 12, 2008 4:11 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: The friendship of Hilda and Kathie

Juliet was temporarily dumped, but I think she was the only one.

Several people lost husbands/fiancés in the War, though. And Frau Mieders was a widow, although I don't think we ever find out how Her Mieders died. Margot Venables was also widowed young, and so was Bette Rincini; and several major characters (including Madge and Joey) lose or had lost either or both parents at an early age.

In a lot of ways they're surrounded by tragedy, especially with the San so close, but, as you say, life at the CS itself seems to be very safe and cosy. Someone could make a lot of analysing that ...

Author:  Sunglass [ Thu Nov 13, 2008 3:41 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: The friendship of Hilda and Kathie

I always find myself regarding the claustrophobia of the staff's existence on the Platz with total horror - there was absolutely nothing there bar the School, San and a few chalets and guesthouses. And a bloody echo at the Auberge.

I have colleagues I consider close friends, but even then I couldn't handle being thrown into company with them for every single meal and on every evening! Presumably in the summer and autumn, if you liked being the open air, you could spend a lot of enjoyable time outdoors walking, or scrambling, but the winter evenings and long periods of bad weather would have been unbearable to anyone other than EBD's mistresses, who appear eternally contented with collective coffee, chatter about school legends, and the occasional tea at Freudesheim... (I know I'd have been holed up in my room with a novel and a bottle of Jameson's, and almost certainly fired by half-term.)

Even though I like in EBD the absence of that unease about all-female communities being 'unhealthy' that you find in Dorothy L Sayers' 'Gaudy Night', I also like to imagine that some of the mistresses were secret malcontents who pretended to retire early and secretly took the train down the mountain to go dancing, and flirt with unsuitable (non-doctor) men, and that the occasional moments of staff unfairness/crossness EBD writes about weren't due to her eternal alibi of toothache but to hangovers. Maybe Matey had a special noxious hangover remedy she handed out in grim silence.

Author:  JB [ Thu Nov 13, 2008 9:20 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: The friendship of Hilda and Kathie

Quote:
the occasional moments of staff unfairness/crossness EBD writes about weren't due to her eternal alibi of toothache but to hangovers.


It casts a new light on Joan Bertram's bilious attacks. :shock:

Author:  Pado [ Thu Nov 13, 2008 10:29 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: The friendship of Hilda and Kathie

It casts a new light on Joan Bertram's bilious attacks.[/quote]

Or indeed on the "nectar" that Mademoiselle calls coffee.
And others might call martinis?

Author:  Alison H [ Thu Nov 13, 2008 10:58 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: The friendship of Hilda and Kathie

There are occasional references to mistresses going away for their "free weekends". Nancy and Kathie went away for a weekend together at one point, presumably having sweet-talked Rosalie into arranging the roster so they were both free at the same time :wink: . I'm sure they all got up to plenty once they were away from the Gornetz Platz :lol: .

Author:  charmkat [ Thu Feb 19, 2009 5:32 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: The friendship of Hilda and Kathie

Pre Nancy Wilmot/Kathie - I think the interesting thing is the way Kathie is so immediately shocked (at their first meeting) and later upset by Biddy getting married. Does anyone else consider there is an 'undertone' here?

Author:  MJKB [ Thu Feb 19, 2009 7:04 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: The friendship of Hilda and Kathie

I don't think so. Kathie is just out of college and going abroad for the first time. She meets a very pleasant, friendly girl a few years older than herself. She probably thought she'd fallen on her feet having a friendly face among strangers. She was bound to be disappointed on hearing that Biddy was leaving at the end of the term.

Author:  Meg14 [ Thu Feb 19, 2009 9:55 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: The friendship of Hilda and Kathie

Quote:
I know I'd have been holed up in my room with a novel and a bottle of Jameson's, and almost certainly fired by half-term


Me too sunglass for sure!!! :D

Author:  MJKB [ Fri Feb 20, 2009 12:26 am ]
Post subject:  Re: The friendship of Hilda and Kathie

Sunglass wrote:
there was absolutely nothing there bar the School, San and a few chalets and guesthouses. And a bloody echo at the Auberge.
Ah, but it was the BEST echo!

Author:  Nightwing [ Fri Feb 20, 2009 2:20 am ]
Post subject:  Re: The friendship of Hilda and Kathie

charmkat wrote:
Does anyone else consider there is an 'undertone' here?


I'd never really thought about it before, but it's easy to imagine Kathie entertaining a crush on Biddy - after all, Biddy is still fairly young, and is friendly and charming!

Author:  Alison H [ Fri Feb 20, 2009 8:14 am ]
Post subject:  Re: The friendship of Hilda and Kathie

As far as being disappointed that Biddy's leaving goes, I've always just taken it to mean that Kathie was disappointed that someone who looked like she could become a good friend wasn't going to be at the school much longer.

A bit OT, but please could someone with a hb/GGBP version of New Mistress tell me if it says anything about Kathie's parents? My pb just says that the Graysons took Kathie as "a motherless and fatherless one day old baby" (or words to that effect). Mrs Ferrars must have died in childbirth, and I've always assumed that Mr Ferrars (assuming that they were indeed Mr and Mrs Ferrars!) had died of illness or in an accident a few months earlier, but I've just been moved to wonder if we're told any more anywhere.

Author:  Lottie [ Mon Feb 23, 2009 12:03 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: The friendship of Hilda and Kathie

There doesn't seem to be any more about Kathie's parents in the GGBP version, apart from the fact that her mother was called Kitten. She may have been Mrs. Grayson's (much) younger sister, since Kathie is referred to as "little Kitten's girl".

Author:  MJKB [ Mon Feb 23, 2009 3:23 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: The friendship of Hilda and Kathie

In my first year of teaching I was in a very small private school - a lovely place to cut one's teeth. I was friendly with everyone on the staff, pretty much, and particularly friendly with a teacher about 15 years older than I (We're still friends), but I would go out at the weekends with friends of my own age including a few from school. So my problem with Nancy and Kathie is that they appear to socialise together in term time and probably during holiday periods. I would have thought they'd have had different interests socially.

Author:  Sunglass [ Mon Feb 23, 2009 4:19 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: The friendship of Hilda and Kathie

I like the fact that it emerges in Jane that they have a car together. Suggests that they have a habit of zooming off on free weekends and holidays and nipping about Switzerland and further afield having fun. Rather than sitting about at the Auberge shouting at the echo, hoping the Middles aren't on a ramble in that direction for once.

I can't remember if we're ever told what kind of car it is, but in my mind's eye it's a nippy little sports car and they wear headscarves and sunglasses with the top down and look wonderfully chic - kind of Thelma and Louise without the rape, murder and holding up grocery shops. Though Nancy strikes me as the type who'd probably be excellent at self-defence, and too clear-headed to have let Kathie be seduced by Brad Pitt and lose all their money.

Author:  Maeve [ Mon Feb 23, 2009 4:30 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: The friendship of Hilda and Kathie

Sunglass wrote:

Quote:
I can't remember if we're ever told what kind of car it is, but in my mind's eye it's a nippy little sports car and they wear headscarves and sunglasses with the top down and look wonderfully chic - kind of Thelma and Louise without the rape, murder and holding up grocery shops.


:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

Author:  Alison H [ Mon Feb 23, 2009 4:44 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: The friendship of Hilda and Kathie

I love that image!

Anyone fancy writing a "mistresses on their free weekends" drabble :D ? Surely they didn't really spend their free weekends checking out places for possible future school trips or visiting Winnie Embury ... especially given that there seems to've been absolutely nothing to do on the Platz other than sit in the staff room or drink tea with Joey :wink: .

Author:  MJKB [ Tue Feb 24, 2009 11:40 am ]
Post subject:  Re: The friendship of Hilda and Kathie

Nancy is one of the nicest characters in the series, well as a Mistress, that is. She's always good humoured, never bossy or overbearing, and an excellent maths teacher to boot. I'm just not sure that Kathie and herself are a good 'fit'. I'd have preferred a friendship of the same kind between Nancy and Biddy, or possibly Hilary and Nancy, and the latter pair were best friends at school. Surely EBD forgot Nancy's vintage when she paired her up with Kathie.

Author:  MaryR [ Tue Feb 24, 2009 3:41 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: The friendship of Hilda and Kathie

Alison H wrote:
I love that image!

Anyone fancy writing a "mistresses on their free weekends" drabble :D ? .

Plenty of that in my Hilda's Revenge, where Nell drives a great many vintage cars in all sorts of places, thanks to Hilda, and then threatens Hilda with a holiday in the desert as a revenge, riding camels. :oops: They even find a lovely carousel to ride in Interlaken. :D

Author:  Elle [ Wed Feb 25, 2009 10:51 am ]
Post subject:  Re: The friendship of Hilda and Kathie

Alison H wrote:
I love that image!

Anyone fancy writing a "mistresses on their free weekends" drabble :D ? Surely they didn't really spend their free weekends checking out places for possible future school trips or visiting Winnie Embury ... especially given that there seems to've been absolutely nothing to do on the Platz other than sit in the staff room or drink tea with Joey :wink: .



I might have a go at that once I have finished with 'You will marry your Doctor!'. But it would probably end up as some sort of Thelma and Louise/ Bonnie and Clyde bloodbath... Hmmm....

Author:  JayB [ Wed Feb 25, 2009 12:59 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: The friendship of Hilda and Kathie

Coming late to this discussion, but I agree with those who've said that an age difference doesn't preclude a close friendship. I think once a person gets to, say, the mid twenties, and has a bit of life experience, shared tastes and interests are more important.

I don't think there can be more than ten years or so between Nancy and Kathie, can there? Nancy is two or three years younger than Jo, who was 39 at the end of the series. Kathie was 22 in New Mistress, hence 27 by the end of the series.

I think it's believable that Kathie, who was rather young for her age at first, did initially gravitate to the other young mistresses, but once she'd matured a bit and got to know all the mistresses better, she made more lasting friendships.

The only thing I think might have caused a 'generation gap' between Nancy and Kathie is Nancy's war service in the WRNS. Nancy might have spent her time as a Wren filing in an office somewhere, but she might have seen service overseas somewhere close to the action and come under fire and seen death and serious injury, experiences that Kathie didn't have. But that would equally set Nancy apart from those of her own contemporaries who didn't do war work.

Author:  MJKB [ Wed Feb 25, 2009 7:09 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: The friendship of Hilda and Kathie

It's not so much Kathie gravitating towards Nancy, it's Nancy finding all that much in common with Kathie, at least in the first year of two. There's a pretty big difference between a young twenty two year old, fresh out of college, and a 32 or 3 year old with a fair amount of life experience behind her. I still think Nancy would find Biddy or Hilary more compatable.

Author:  JayB [ Wed Feb 25, 2009 8:46 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: The friendship of Hilda and Kathie

But Hilary, and later Biddy, were married with young children. They wouldn't have been free when Nancy wanted a friend for company on an afternoon or weekend away from the Platz, and maybe Nancy found that their interests had diverged.

And I don't think the friendship between Kathie and Nancy is apparent in Kathie's first year or two of teaching, is it? I think it's in Challenge, when Kathie has appendicitis, that we see that they're really close, more than just casual friends. By that time Kathie has been teaching for several years.

Author:  Torri [ Thu Feb 26, 2009 2:24 am ]
Post subject:  Re: The friendship of Hilda and Kathie

JayB wrote:
And I don't think the friendship between Kathie and Nancy is apparent in Kathie's first year or two of teaching, is it? I think it's in Challenge, when Kathie has appendicitis, that we see that they're really close, more than just casual friends. By that time Kathie has been teaching for several years.



Actually, in Excitements we have, "Kathie Ferrars and Nancy Wilmot were very good friends and it would certainly be more fun for the younger mistress to have one of her colleagues with her. "Come and sit down beside me.""

This was before the trip to Solothun, where she and Nancy had spent a weekend the previous semester, ie Kathie's first term. :)

Not that I've looked at all this extensively. Not at all!

Author:  MJKB [ Thu Feb 26, 2009 9:43 am ]
Post subject:  Re: The friendship of Hilda and Kathie

Sorry folks, I think I have a bit of a bee in my proverbial bonnet over this. It's just that in staff rooms that I've had anything to do with, fresh out of college teachers tend to look upon those with ten years or more experience as practically over the hill, certainly part of the furniture. I remember thinking that myself when I started first and one of the teachers told me she'd been teaching twelve years. Two or three years later perspective kicks in and the gap doesn't seem so great. It never seemed realistic to me that Nancy and Kathie clicked so quickly.

Author:  KathrynW [ Thu Feb 26, 2009 10:28 am ]
Post subject:  Re: The friendship of Hilda and Kathie

MJKB wrote:
Sorry folks, I think I have a bit of a bee in my proverbial bonnet over this. It's just that in staff rooms that I've had anything to do with, fresh out of college teachers tend to look upon those with ten years or more experience as practically over the hill, certainly part of the furniture. I remember thinking that myself when I started first and one of the teachers told me she'd been teaching twelve years. Two or three years later perspective kicks in and the gap doesn't seem so great. It never seemed realistic to me that Nancy and Kathie clicked so quickly.


Maybe it depends on the individual and the staff room? My best friend is a teacher and her two closest friends in her first school after qualifying were both in their 40s and had been teaching at the school for years. Even now that she's moved on to another school, she still sees them all the time.

Author:  Millie [ Thu Mar 12, 2009 10:39 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: The friendship of Hilda and Kathie

Regarding what the mistresses would have done in their spare time; I wonder how relevant our modern ideas are? If you go back far enough e.g. to the Bronte novels, the idea of free time, time away from the school, and a good social life for teachers were almost non-existent. Obviously, that's a long time before the era we're talking about with the CS but I still wonder how much of a 'outside' life a woman teaching at a boarding school during those years would have expected to have.

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