The CBB :: View topic - Books: Althea Joins the Chalet School

they bounced out of their beds, grabbed their dressing-gowns, and giving vent to a series of yells that would have done credit to a band of Red Indians on the warpath, hurled themselves on him with all their might.

“That,” put in Con with a flashing smile, “is what its name means – ‘Happy Home’. Welcome to Freudesheim and don’t forget any of that.”
“You’ll soon realise it,” Len added

but does anyone else find it funny that Althea's brother's going to be spending his holidays at a place called Strangeways? Sorry, couldn't resist !

I never know whether to laugh or cry when we're told that Nancy Wilmot, she who stands 5'10" in her stockinged feet and is frequently described as plump, plonked all "ten stone and odd" of herself on top of the burglar. At 5'10" and under 11 stone she sounds in need of plenty of cakes and whipped cream, never mind being "plump"!

Perhaps calling Nancy "plump" is an EBD shorthand for "busty" :wink:

Sonsy is in the first line of Burns's To a Haggis - it refers to its 'honest, sonsy face'

I'd always assumed it meant 'hefty' or 'fleshy', but the online dictionary I just consulted renders it as 'busty', 'buxom', curvacious', 'big-bosomed'.

had been having a horrid nightmare about a Blackamoor with scarlet lips and armed with a huge sword, who was stalking her round Hall in order to cut her head off when he caught her and then her toes…

being out on Lake Zug in a long boat together with her mother, her brother Anthony, Val and Sam, with Len Maynard standing at least ten yards away, perched on the stern and waving a Union Jack, while climbing up the mast in the middle of the boat was a great monkey which was throwing roses at her.

Hacving studied Freud for two years, I could certainly talk to you a lot about swords, masts and big pink worms...

I think she might have been experimenting with surrealism, having done the thriller...

I would think that EBD envisioned Nancy as being a size 18 or 20, and that she just had no idea about what that would work out at in terms of actual weight. Maybe she didn't possess any bathroom scales ... lucky her!

...a discussion I've been reading on an unrelated board about 50s clothing (friend of mine buys vintage clothes and was discussing the way they fit)...

Quote:Sonsy is in the first line of Burns's To a Haggis - it refers to its 'honest, sonsy face'

and

Quote:I'd always assumed it meant 'hefty' or 'fleshy', but the online dictionary I just consulted renders it as 'busty', 'buxom', curvacious', 'big-bosomed'.

perhaps it means lumpy and/or round- it's the only way I can reconcile haggis and bosoms (bosoms being two round lumps, at a push!)

Cat C wrote:

...a discussion I've been reading on an unrelated board about 50s clothing (friend of mine buys vintage clothes and was discussing the way they fit)...

That sounds really interesting Cat C, -- can you tell us where to find that?

The girls were all in the late teens and regarded as sensible and steady-going. Tramps and good-for-nothings were rare on the Görnetz Platz. Nine girls together should be safe enough.
'Don’t forget to take all you’ll need, for once you set out you must keep more or less together. There can be no rushing back for the odd paintbrush or rag, or anything of that kind. Promise me, please.”
...
“And,” added the Head with a gurgle, “if Ted goes, she’s as keen on judo as Jack Lambert is, so they’ll have a most adequate guard with them. We certainly couldn’t send Jack off with that crowd of prefects. She would hate it and they wouldn’t like it either.”

Don't the Sixths tend to go for their walks by themselves in any case? We certainly see Len and other girls regularly going on errands by themselves on the Platz, and the gang of Audrey Everett and co used to wander about freely all the time. Is it that the CS ethos has changed since the days of free wandering around the lake shores in Tyrol because EBD is more aware of danger in the modern world, or is it just that Miss Annersley is still reeling from the drama of Redheads?

I think that everyone standing by the side of their chairs and all pulling them out at the same moment is going a bit OTT for a school dining room, though!

And I do think the not-using-the-front-stairs rule is silly. Back stairs are usually narrow and placed to give access to the kitchens, not the main part of a house, so not really suitable for use by the school.

I remember someone saying the rule was because it would look bad when visitors came if they saw lots of girls going up and down the front stairs. But it's a school, and most visitors would presumably be there on school related business. Wouldn't they expect to see girls? Why would it be very bad if they saw well behaved Chalet girls with their trim uniforms and well brushed hair going up and down the front stairs?

and especially the fact that they all step to the right of their chairs when they pull them out. Which might be about a lack of elbow room as much as anything else!

The pink worm incident sounds to me like an adaptation of one of those "stranger than fiction" articles from the newspaper, or perhaps Ripley's Believe It Or Not. It wouldn't at all surprise me if EBD mined everything she read or heard for possible plotlines.

Post subject: Re: Books: Althea Joins the Chalet School Reply with quote
To go back to the issue of marching and lots of rules about moving aorund the school in lines etc, I've wondered whether there isn't so much emphasis on the girls leaving Hall to a 'gay march tune' to slightly soften the feeling of military regimentation? I can underdtand why the girls leave the hall to music usually - the piano is there, for one thing.

a collection of solid young females weighing individually anything up to ten stones

I'm (apparently) Nancy's height and weight and don't think I could be described as overweight! I hope not anyway!

Now that I'm in the middle of marking RE exams, I wish I'd trained to be a maths or a science teacher. The answers are clearly right or wrong, no interpretation of pupils answers vs. markschemes required!

Clare wrote:

I don't know about that - in my maths classes we didn't get marks just for getting the right answer - there were also marks for using the right theory etc. So you'd get marks just for 'thinking along the right tracks' - I imagine there was a bit of interpretation needed by the teachers to work out what their students were actually trying to do!

I wouldn't be surprised if EBD forgot that Carlotta was a pupil but this description of Herr Mensch does seem an unlikely thing for her to have written when he and Gisela were such prominent characters in the early series. Perhaps an argument in favour of Phyllis Matthewman writing some of the book?

Author:	Róisín [ Mon Apr 06, 2009 11:47 am ]
Post subject:	Books: Althea Joins the Chalet School
Synopsis here. Do you like Althea? Is she an original character for you, or do you find her a mishmash of other EBD-style traits? What about her family situation? This is the book which introduces Margot's intention of becoming a nun, and Len's feelings for Reg... was this too early in their lives to introduce such plans - does this kind of planning belong to an earlier period in the series? Is Con somewhat left out? What about the motor boats?! Do you enjoy this episode! Overall - this is the second last book in the series proper - what 'last books syndrome' (currently described by AlisonH in Anything Else) features appear in Althea? Please join in the discussion below Next Sunday: Prefects of the Chalet School

Author:	Sunglass [ Mon Apr 06, 2009 7:39 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Books: Althea Joins the Chalet School
This for me is the most comical book of the lot - though I'm not entirely sure it was intended that way! There's just so much melodrama, often cooked up out of very little. The chewing gum on Mdlle's shoe incident! The Pink Worm Incident! Len and the Oil Paints! But the one that takes the cake as the archetypally EBD moment is the burglary where Althea somehow manages to wake up six girls in the same room as the burglar without him noticing, and Quote: they bounced out of their beds, grabbed their dressing-gowns, and giving vent to a series of yells that would have done credit to a band of Red Indians on the warpath, hurled themselves on him with all their might. It's the coordinated donning of dressing gowns that kills me - in case, presumably it might be thought indelicate to attack a burglar in just your nightie! Part of the reason for the melodrama must be that there's no real plot as such at all. Althea isn't a problem new girl in any way - we're told at the start she's delicate, but it never comes up after she gets to school - and though Val at one point accuses her of being prim, there's no evidence of that anywhere else at all. She's perfectly nice, but unmemorable - the aunt's sudden marriage is a retelling of Erica Standish's governess, and the primness is a retelling of Adrienne, apart from anything else... I must say I think Val Gardiner gets a rough deal. I know it's only a plot contrivance (as in so many of the late books) to set a new girl and another girl at odds, but she seems to me a perfectly adequate sheepdog. The fact that Althea hasn't sprung to attention in the first hour of her first German day asking people how to say things (has she even left her cubicle yet?) doesn't seem enough to warrant Flavia Ansell scolding Val for not telling her, then reporting her to Len, and Len reporting her to Miss Dene, who officially removes her as sheepdog! I like lots of the odd little background details, though, like hearing about the Maynards' different family legacies (do people think these are big?), and the first mention I can recall of the summer uniform of different coloured frocks all made in the same style, and even more of the CS policy of cancelling lessons for swimming, or pulling out several girls from games and study periods to clear up Sophie Hamel's cloth donation! The bit that drives me slightly mad is Len and Con welcoming Althea to Freudesheim - Quote: “That,” put in Con with a flashing smile, “is what its name means – ‘Happy Home’. Welcome to Freudesheim and don’t forget any of that.” “You’ll soon realise it,” Len added - do you think it's simply that they've done this so often they can't help sounding both bossy and smug, and rather as though they're advertising life insurance? Though maybe EBD is over-egging the pudding because she's just had Joey say for once that she'd rather not be saddled with a new girl when she's busy, and then be guilt-tripped into taking her by Hilda...

Author:	Alison H [ Mon Apr 06, 2009 10:16 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Books: Althea Joins the Chalet School
I do think that there's an "end of an era approaching" feeling to this one. There's an awful lot of talk about the triplets leaving school and leaving home. Joey's comment about wanting them to have everything she's had is interesting: whilst in one way it's incredibly annoying, especially when she starts harping on about grandchildren (and I could do without her remark about Con having no close friends), it's a reminder that on the face of it Joey is the woman who has everything - children, a happy marriage, a nice home and a successful career. Althea's welcome to Freudesheim is admittedly very odd, but a lot of people behave exceptionally normally for the CS world, if that makes sense! Rosalie says that she wants an assistant (although she never seems to get one!). Hilda says that it's time Joey grew up, and also that maybe the Maynards' family is quite large enough as it is (although Joey then starts dropping hints about wanting more kids, something else that's never followed up). Althea insists that she wants to be called by her full name, rather than cheerily accepting a "short" thought up by a complete stranger like Ted does. And Len says that Anna's one of the family, which is quite sweet. We even - OK, it's not "normal" as such, but never mind! - get Kathie Ferrars carrying out a dramatic rescue rather than waiting for a handsome doctor to come along - go girl, go . The main thing, though, is Joey turning round and saying that she really can't take on any more responsibilities because she's got enough on - although at that point Hilda starts with the emotional blackmail, which I really don't like. Some parts of this are just really silly, though, IMHO. What on earth was the bit about the large pink worm about?! The chapter heading sounds more like something out of a Noddy book or The Faraway Tree than something out of a CS. Why not just say that the coach had broken down due to engine trouble? The paint incident was silly too - and I feel very sorry for Len, how embarrassing to have paint all over your face just as someone who fancies you happens to drive past . I know that the general consensus is that EBD wasn't very clued up on weights and measures, but I never know whether to laugh or cry when we're told that Nancy Wilmot, she who stands 5'10" in her stockinged feet and is frequently described as plump, plonked all "ten stone and odd" of herself on top of the burglar. At 5'10" and under 11 stone she sounds in need of plenty of cakes and whipped cream, never mind being "plump"! One last bit of this essay (sorry!). I realise that this is probably just a local thing - I live about 3 miles from the prison! - but does anyone else find it funny that Althea's brother's going to be spending his holidays at a place called Strangeways? Sorry, couldn't resist !

Author:	JB [ Tue Apr 07, 2009 8:48 am ]
Post subject:	Re: Books: Althea Joins the Chalet School
Alison wrote: Quote: but does anyone else find it funny that Althea's brother's going to be spending his holidays at a place called Strangeways? Sorry, couldn't resist ! I think you could be onto something there, Alison. Perhaps the real reason for the Glenyon's sea voyage and sending Althea to school in Switzerland was to get away from the shame. This is such a silly book. I reread it a couple of weeks ago for this discussion but I had to skip a few chapters, including the one about the worm. I paused when I read Joey saying she didn't want to take on anything else. She's usually ready to take on responsibility for anything in the school and this is only having someone to stay for a couple of nights. I did wonder if she was hinting there was another baby on the way. And isn't the bit where she misses out one of the children from her list - I think it's Erica? Val Gardiner does seem to be a character EBD picks of the shelf when she needs someone to be a bad girl, without developing her. Should be older than this by now? Audrey ages and is in VA or VIB by this time but Val's stuck in the fourth. It's a book with lots of incidents but no real plot.

Author:	Tor [ Tue Apr 07, 2009 12:16 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Books: Althea Joins the Chalet School
Oh, I'd forgotten the Pink Worm! My copy of Althea is hidden somewhere and I can't find it... is it the bit where a pink worm is found in an engine? Given that the series (despite a few issues where the Powerful Men get called in to solve matters) focuses on female independence, I find it amusing that the interference of a pink worm causes calamity mighty amusing!

The CBB http://www.the-cbb.co.uk/

Books: Althea Joins the Chalet School http://www.the-cbb.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=5917

Author:	Maeve [ Tue Apr 07, 2009 12:46 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Books: Althea Joins the Chalet School
Well -- everything that's been said is true -- there's lot's of funny and weird stuff in this book -- but I do like Althea -- she's such a nice, normal girl -- no great talents, no huge upset with her parents/guardian, no terribly sick relative -- I like the cheerful ordinariness of her. I think it's interesting that in the Len-painting episode, it's Con, the one who is always stereotyped as the moony dreamer, who goes on the warpath, hunting down all the girls who are spreading false rumors about what happened and putting everyone in their place. And I like the piece where Biddy loses her hat and all of her hair comes down -- it seems like such a possible, everyday happening (in contrast with the motorboat and the worm), -- I can imagine it happening in real life, and I like how the girls rally round and how Biddy threatens to get a bob -- sounds very real life to me.

Author:	Sunglass [ Tue Apr 07, 2009 1:15 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Books: Althea Joins the Chalet School
Alison H wrote: I never know whether to laugh or cry when we're told that Nancy Wilmot, she who stands 5'10" in her stockinged feet and is frequently described as plump, plonked all "ten stone and odd" of herself on top of the burglar. At 5'10" and under 11 stone she sounds in need of plenty of cakes and whipped cream, never mind being "plump"! I just happened to be reading Sylvia Plath's Letters Home, and she talks about a university medical check she's just had, at which her height and weight were measured. Plath is five foot nine and weighs 139 pounds, so just under ten stone - pretty much exactly Nancy Wilmot's height and weight. This is a photo of what she looks like at this time - a classic willowy 1950s beauty in a white bikini top and shorts: http://www.camdennewjournal.co.uk/archi ... plath3.jpg

Author:	Tor [ Tue Apr 07, 2009 1:32 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Books: Althea Joins the Chalet School
Quite. I'm 5'7" and just under 10 and a half stone (which puts me just at the top end of the acceptable BMI for my height, I can tell you, having just had a check-up for the pill). Thus, unless I happen to have very dense bones, I should be of a heavier build that Nancy Wilmot. I'm a size 12 (14 in shops that skimp a bit on fabric!), and so there is really no way Nancy can be considered fat in my book. EBD really couldn't do maths, but usually she is much better when dealing in imperial measures, so I'd have expected her to do better. Unless she is actually a body fascist... she certainly appears to have narrow limits of womanly perfection, what with the various commments about people being too scrawny as well!

Author:	Cat C [ Tue Apr 07, 2009 1:44 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Books: Althea Joins the Chalet School
The way people carry weight does vary quite a bit - I'm about 5'6 and at just over 10 stone, still fitting my size ten clothes. I put this down to developing chunky legs, which are fairly easy to disguise, rather than say a round tummy, which isn't. If someone has a round, plump face, and tends to be busty, it often gives the impression that they're bigger overall than they would be if things were distributed differently. There's someone I know who has legs to die for, and also really delicate wrists and hands, but she's always put into the category of 'big girl' because she's bigger where you tend to notice it.

Author:	JennieP [ Tue Apr 07, 2009 3:27 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Books: Althea Joins the Chalet School
I have exactly that problem - I'm an 8-10 on the bottom, have a BMI of 21.5, so well into the bottom half of healthy, have a 28-30 inch back but thanks to my, erm, endowments, people look at me and think, blimey, she's a big girl... I'm glad it's not just me that thinks Nancy sounds like she's a pretty normal weight rather than being chuuby, or plump, or whatever EBD calls her constantly - I was beginning to wonder if I had got the maths wrong!

Author:	Alison H [ Tue Apr 07, 2009 3:58 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Books: Althea Joins the Chalet School
This is totally OT, sorry, but maybe one of the reasons that Len doesn't work particularly well as a heroine is that she's one of the few characters whom EBD does seem to think is physically perfect! Joey and Mary-Lou are both interesting-looking (for lack of a better expression) but not pretty or beautiful, which puts them in line with Jo March, Anne Shirley, Dimsie et al. Being pretty/beautiful is usually something associated with the heroine's sister and or best friend, rather than with the heroine herself. Having said which, I suppose there's no reason why a heroine shouldn't be beautiful, other than GO convention.

Author:	Emma A [ Tue Apr 07, 2009 4:01 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Books: Althea Joins the Chalet School
Perhaps calling Nancy "plump" is an EBD shorthand for "busty"

Author:	Sunglass [ Tue Apr 07, 2009 4:21 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Books: Althea Joins the Chalet School
Emma A wrote: Perhaps calling Nancy "plump" is an EBD shorthand for "busty" There's also 'sonsy', which, for some reason EBD only ever uses of various peasant women in Tyrol and Switzerland, and 'big' Sophie Hamel - not that I can ever recall for any English characters...? I'd always assumed it meant 'hefty' or 'fleshy', but the online dictionary I just consulted renders it as 'busty', 'buxom', curvacious', 'big-bosomed'. Which makes sense in terms of Sophie who manages to clear the Freudesheim tea table with her bosom at the reunion, but doesn't seem to be used of Nancy, at least that I can think of... (Just wondering, entirely OT, whether 'sonsy' is used of Winnie Embury, or any other potentially big-breasted women who aren't from continental Europe....?) Though my mind is now trying to reconcile EBD's depiction of Nancy as 'plump' with the weight and height she actually gives her, which would make her rather slim for her height - which means she is now shrinking and expanding in my head in a very disconcerting way.

Author:	Alison H [ Tue Apr 07, 2009 4:32 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Books: Althea Joins the Chalet School
It's Scottish/North Eastern English dialect AFAIK. It's not a very nice sounding word (I don't know why, but I don't like the sound of it !) so it never sounds very nice, but I think that it's meant to be complimentary - in the "fine figure of a woman" sense. The way EBD uses it makes it sound like a criticism, though - more along the lines of "hefty", or when people say she's a big woman and really drag out the word "big"! I would think that EBD envisioned Nancy as being a size 18 or 20, and that she just had no idea about what that would work out at in terms of actual weight. Maybe she didn't possess any bathroom scales ... lucky her!

Author:	JS [ Tue Apr 07, 2009 4:45 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Books: Althea Joins the Chalet School
Sonsy is in the first line of Burns's To a Haggis - it refers to its 'honest, sonsy face' but given that the next line is 'great chieftan o' the pudding race' then maybe it's not that flattering!

Author:	Tor [ Tue Apr 07, 2009 4:49 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Books: Althea Joins the Chalet School
Quote: Sonsy is in the first line of Burns's To a Haggis - it refers to its 'honest, sonsy face' and Quote: I'd always assumed it meant 'hefty' or 'fleshy', but the online dictionary I just consulted renders it as 'busty', 'buxom', curvacious', 'big-bosomed'. perhaps it means lumpy and/or round- it's the only way I can reconcile haggis and bosoms (bosoms being two round lumps, at a push!)

Author:	Sunglass [ Tue Apr 07, 2009 5:05 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Books: Althea Joins the Chalet School
I never made the connection! Oh lord - to my Incredible Growing and Shrinking Nancy is now added the image of her having a haggis-shaped bosom. Which is just what the CS wants in a Headmistress... As I seem to have derailed all discussion of Althea, I'll make a gesture towards going back OT and say that some of the dreams in this one suggest EBD had been at the magic mushrooms. Lucy Peters Quote: had been having a horrid nightmare about a Blackamoor with scarlet lips and armed with a huge sword, who was stalking her round Hall in order to cut her head off when he caught her and then her toes… And then Althea, when she wakes up to find the burglar, had been dreaming about Quote: being out on Lake Zug in a long boat together with her mother, her brother Anthony, Val and Sam, with Len Maynard standing at least ten yards away, perched on the stern and waving a Union Jack, while climbing up the mast in the middle of the boat was a great monkey which was throwing roses at her. Any thoughts, armchair psychoanalysts? Especially when you add in Strangeways, the appearance of the burglar going through the girls' drawers (though the only element of their clothing he finds, mysteriously, is their shoes - who keeps shoes in a drawer? - and the mad thing is that he actually plans to steal them, putting them into his swag bag!) and the mysterious pink worm to the mix? I think she might have been experimenting with surrealism, having done the thriller...

Author:	ChubbyMonkey [ Tue Apr 07, 2009 5:44 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Books: Althea Joins the Chalet School
Having studied Freud for two years, I could certainly talk to you a lot about swords, masts and big pink worms... In fact, now you have me wanting to psychoanalyse that. Thankyou!

Author:	Tor [ Tue Apr 07, 2009 6:10 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Books: Althea Joins the Chalet School
Oh heavens! Quote: Hacving studied Freud for two years, I could certainly talk to you a lot about swords, masts and big pink worms... I think one word will do, don't you! Quote: I think she might have been experimenting with surrealism, having done the thriller...

Author:	Cat C [ Tue Apr 07, 2009 6:43 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Books: Althea Joins the Chalet School
Alison H wrote: I would think that EBD envisioned Nancy as being a size 18 or 20, and that she just had no idea about what that would work out at in terms of actual weight. Maybe she didn't possess any bathroom scales ... lucky her! Given the well-documented changes (well, increases really) in terms of the size women were in post-war, post-rationing Britain* and the size they are now - and also a discussion I've been reading on an unrelated board about 50s clothing (friend of mine buys vintage clothes and was discussing the way they fit), I would amazed if EBD intended us to envision Nancy as any larger than a modern day size 14-16. And on the busty thing, what underwear fitters and M&S say (and I can't think when I heard/read this) the big cup sizes always used to be for older, matronly women, whereas now D cups and bigger are relatively ordinary in even teenagers (lucky them, hey?) *Well, Europe generally, really - Audrey Hepburn's figure was likely as much a product of starvation in occupied Holland as it was of good genes.

Author:	Maeve [ Wed Apr 08, 2009 7:23 am ]
Post subject:	Re: Books: Althea Joins the Chalet School
Cat C wrote: ...a discussion I've been reading on an unrelated board about 50s clothing (friend of mine buys vintage clothes and was discussing the way they fit)... That sounds really interesting Cat C, -- can you tell us where to find that?

Author:	JS [ Wed Apr 08, 2009 8:20 am ]
Post subject:	Re: Books: Althea Joins the Chalet School
Tor wrote: Quote: Quote:Sonsy is in the first line of Burns's To a Haggis - it refers to its 'honest, sonsy face' and Quote:I'd always assumed it meant 'hefty' or 'fleshy', but the online dictionary I just consulted renders it as 'busty', 'buxom', curvacious', 'big-bosomed'. perhaps it means lumpy and/or round- it's the only way I can reconcile haggis and bosoms (bosoms being two round lumps, at a push!) I think of 'sonsy' more as being hearty and healthy - think of the stereotypical rosy-faced farmer's wife. I also think it could be used to describe a baby (male or female) or an almost shiny-faced healthy-looking lad or lass. Having written that, I've just checked in my Scots dictionary, and it's defined as 'lucky, fortunate, happy, thriving, plump, buxom, stout, jolly, comely, good-looking, cheerful, pleasant, sensible, tractable, good-tempered, plentiful, comfortable and cordial. So take your pick! It seems to come from the noun 'sonse' meaning luck or prosperity. A 'sonsy-folk', by the way, is a lucky first foot at New Year. As a completely OT aside, I came across the word 'sparrow-blastit' during the search. It means 'dumbfounded' - isn't it fabulous? Back on topic, on the subject of the dreams in the book (and yes, I think Dr Freud would have a field day with both these and the large pink worm - plus, if you think about it, the plastic snake that laid out Miss Andrews earlier in the series?) do we know if EBD was actually very ill when she wrote it, because she might have been on some powerful drugs. Or she might have been reading about Freud and decided to play with her adult readers a little...

Author:	JennieP [ Wed Apr 08, 2009 10:00 am ]
Post subject:	Re: Books: Althea Joins the Chalet School
Oooh, I love the idea of EBD messing with her readers' minds in a "did she mean it that way or didn't she" kind of way - a drabble about her second career as a successful "adult" novelist, anyone?

Author:	Cat C [ Wed Apr 08, 2009 11:06 am ]
Post subject:	Re: Books: Althea Joins the Chalet School
Maeve wrote: Cat C wrote: ...a discussion I've been reading on an unrelated board about 50s clothing (friend of mine buys vintage clothes and was discussing the way they fit)... That sounds really interesting Cat C, -- can you tell us where to find that? It's here - although it's not a particularly long or in depth discussion. Let me know if the link doesn't work and I'll write some 'directions'.

Author:	Sunglass [ Wed Apr 08, 2009 5:27 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Books: Althea Joins the Chalet School
Just thinking about relative freedom and lack of it at various points in the CS's existence , and as compared to other school stories - I was just reading Antonia Forest's Attic Term, where seniors are allowed to go to the sea out of lesson time as long as there are three of them, and in Enid Bylton's school stories, the girls can go to the local town in pairs or groups, or for nature walks. I've always found it a bit odd that there's a lot of ringfencing of allowing a large group (it ends up being twelve) of the Sixths to go sketching unsupervised on the Platz in Althea: Quote: The girls were all in the late teens and regarded as sensible and steady-going. Tramps and good-for-nothings were rare on the Görnetz Platz. Nine girls together should be safe enough. 'Don’t forget to take all you’ll need, for once you set out you must keep more or less together. There can be no rushing back for the odd paintbrush or rag, or anything of that kind. Promise me, please.” ... “And,” added the Head with a gurgle, “if Ted goes, she’s as keen on judo as Jack Lambert is, so they’ll have a most adequate guard with them. We certainly couldn’t send Jack off with that crowd of prefects. She would hate it and they wouldn’t like it either.” I mean, the Head is joking to some extent about the judo, but in the context, she's still thinking very much in terms of guarding and sef-defence in a way that seems a bit extreme. Don't the Sixths tend to go for their walks by themselves in any case? We certainly see Len and other girls regularly going on errands by themselves on the Platz, and the gang of Audrey Everett and co used to wander about freely all the time. Is it that the CS ethos has changed since the days of free wandering around the lake shores in Tyrol because EBD is more aware of danger in the modern world, or is it just that Miss Annersley is still reeling from the drama of Redheads?

Author:	MJKB [ Wed Apr 08, 2009 9:16 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Books: Althea Joins the Chalet School
Sunglass wrote: Don't the Sixths tend to go for their walks by themselves in any case? We certainly see Len and other girls regularly going on errands by themselves on the Platz, and the gang of Audrey Everett and co used to wander about freely all the time. Is it that the CS ethos has changed since the days of free wandering around the lake shores in Tyrol because EBD is more aware of danger in the modern world, or is it just that Miss Annersley is still reeling from the drama of Redheads? I don't think they ever go much further than Freudsheim, and that's almost in the grounds of the School. Their lack of freedom relative to other GO schools makes them more realistic imho. Nowadays it's a serious risk to leave sixth years unsupervised in a classroom due to insurance implications.

Author:	Alison H [ Thu Apr 09, 2009 12:05 am ]
Post subject:	Re: Books: Althea Joins the Chalet School
Given the number of accidents, kidnappings and incidences of running away that resulted from the freedom given to the girls in Tyrol, I'm surprised that they didn't have guards on the doors at all times!

Author:	Tor [ Thu Apr 09, 2009 7:16 am ]
Post subject:	Re: Books: Althea Joins the Chalet School
...chuckling at AlisonH's comment It is a bit weird though, as the girs do wander about the platz quite frequently in the charge of just the prefects, or running errands. So it seems to me to be a wholly new fear of Miss Annersely, and the tramp comment seems rather unnecessarily detailed. I'd say it could be chalked down to the general weirdness of the last few books. AS someone else asked, was she (EBD) ill? It seems like the worries of a much frailer old women - my Grandma got rather like that in her last few years. However, the freedom of the girls in the Swiss books is much reduced, which adds the more oppressive feel of the series. When they do go out unsupervised, it is for a particualr reason - they are going to the San or to see Joey, or one of the other ex-mistresses living locally. They aren't just popping down to post a letter, or going for a random wander around the lake. It all feels much more regimented - which makes sense given the large number of girls, but as Sunglass says, 'town' privileges are a big part of other boarding school stories and a key aspect of the various coming-of-age markers. Given the emphasis of on CS girls becoming strong, independent young women, I see this closeted hot-housing as poor preparation for just that. But it might just be a factor scale: not just for the working of the school , but in EBD being able to range over a large number of pupil and staff characters. She had to limit the scope somewhere, and locale seems to where she did.

Author:	CBW [ Thu Apr 09, 2009 9:43 am ]
Post subject:	Re: Books: Althea Joins the Chalet School
The restrictions on movement aren't just when they are out. They don't even seem to be able to move from room to room without lining up and marching.

Author:	Sunglass [ Thu Apr 09, 2009 10:17 am ]
Post subject:	Re: Books: Althea Joins the Chalet School
You're right, Cat C - it hadn't really occurred to me think of freedom of movement within the school building compared to that of other school stories, but it's true that there is always one specific correct place each girl is supposed to be at any point, and if she's anywhere else, other than marching between places in the correct order, she's breaking rules. Again, comparing it to Attic Term - even leaving aside the central plot point that a girl is able to make illicit phone calls from the secretary's office almost every night without being caught - out of lesson times, girls seem to have a lot of free time in the evenings when they play table tennis in the gym or watch films/TV or hold rehearsals. When Ginty makes her first phone call and sneaks back to her common room, there are only three other girls in there, doing hobbies-club type things, the rest are all off elsewhere. (And those three are considered dull....) And, rather than lining up in the correct order so they can sit in pre-assigned places at table and all standing to the right of their chairs to pull them out, at tea time, at least, the Kingscote girls collect their own tea and food and carry it to the table, because their Head thinks it's 'valuable social training', even when the odd accident happens. Which sounds a bit nuts to me (training in carrying a plate and cup?), but she might have a point general point, if you think of the restrictions on the CS girls. I have a vision of Len at Oxford being shocked that undergraduates don't queue up in their junior common room before marching to Hall meals.

Author:	JayB [ Thu Apr 09, 2009 11:05 am ]
Post subject:	Re: Books: Althea Joins the Chalet School
I can see that when a large number of girls are all converging on the same place, it is more efficient to have them them doing it in an orderly fashion - remembering the scrums that used to occur at my school when everyone was trying to get to the same place at the same time, or worse, when one crowd of people was trying to go upstairs as another crowd was going down. But some things do seem unnecessarily regimented, such as when all the dormitories have to line up and march downstairs one by one in the mornings. Presumably that meant that if one girl in the first dormitory was late, then everyone was held up. And I do think the not-using-the-front-stairs rule is silly. Back stairs are usually narrow and placed to give access to the kitchens, not the main part of a house, so not really suitable for use by the school. I remember someone saying the rule was because it would look bad when visitors came if they saw lots of girls going up and down the front stairs. But it's a school, and most visitors would presumably be there on school related business. Wouldn't they expect to see girls? Why would it be very bad if they saw well behaved Chalet girls with their trim uniforms and well brushed hair going up and down the front stairs?

Author:	MJKB [ Thu Apr 09, 2009 11:11 am ]
Post subject:	Re: Books: Althea Joins the Chalet School
When I left boarding school I brought quite a bit of the regimentation with me. On one occasion in a Dublin restuaurant, I absent mindedly starting piling up the cups and plates of perfect strangers who were sitting at the same table. It took me ages too to stop bowing to nuns and muttering " g'morining Mother ". whenever I met them, and there were still a few about in 70's and 80's Dublin. I know the CS girls get into literally unbelievable adventures in blizzards and peasants' huts, but the regularity and regimentation of their day to day life is very similar to my experience as a boarder at a later date.

Author:	Alison H [ Thu Apr 09, 2009 11:34 am ]
Post subject:	Re: Books: Althea Joins the Chalet School
At our school, there were certain times - it must just have been the way the timetable worked out - at which hundreds of people would be trying to charge up or down the stairs at once and we'd all end up being late for our next lesson because the stairs were so crowded that we just couldn't move quickly enough! Not to mention the scrums in the dinner queue (we had to have school dinners for the first two years): like with the Gang and their seat-bagging, there'd sometimes be some annoying git who'd try to let all their friends push in . Usually the teacher on duty'd see what was happening and stop it, but there was one really stupid teacher who didn't seem to realise that people were pushing in and'd just tell everyone to move back and stay in single file! I think that everyone standing by the side of their chairs and all pulling them out at the same moment is going a bit OTT for a school dining room, though!

Author:	Emma A [ Thu Apr 09, 2009 1:06 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Books: Althea Joins the Chalet School
Alison H wrote: I think that everyone standing by the side of their chairs and all pulling them out at the same moment is going a bit OTT for a school dining room, though! They would have grace said prior to eating, I guess. Certainly that's what used to happen at formal meals at my hall of residence at university: everyone standing tidily by their chairs, sing grace (in Latin), massive clatter as chairs are dragged back and students sit down.