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Books: Judy the Guide
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Author:  JB [ Mon Jul 13, 2009 8:21 pm ]
Post subject:  Books: Judy the Guide
Judy Carey lives with her family on their farm in rural Canada, having emigrated there 13 years ago. The family are poor and but her godfather (whom she barely) pays to send her to school in England

At St Ronan’s, Judy makes friend and becomes a Guide. She also makes an enemy in Muriel, after Judy accidentally breaks a valuable vase belonging to Muriel. Judy is blamed for other unexplained breakages and ostracised by most of the pupils but at the end of the book, the true villain is revealed. Muriel apologises and Judy ends the term happy.

A few questions to get us started:

Did you enjoy this book? Why? Or why not?
Does it make sense for Judy to be sent all the way to England rather than a school in Canada?
Judy has travelled very little and has never even been to a city until she’s about to leave Canada. Do you think her transition to English boarding school girl is believable?
The other pupils bully Judy when they believe her responsible for the breakages and this is allowed to continue for some time. Why do you think Miss Carthew thought this would be easier to deal with a Guider than as a mistress?
How did you feel about the revelation of the real criminal?
I felt this was a pretty unpleasant school. What do others think?

There’s a transcript of this book on Raya’s site. PM me if you’re having problems getting hold of a copy.

Next week – Kennelmaid Nan.

Edited because I got next week's book wrong.
Author:  JS [ Wed Jul 15, 2009 12:07 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Judy the Guide
I've just read this on the transcripts website (which I've just found - what a wonderful resource).

I really enjoyed the book, actually, although perhaps this was enhanced the the 'recognition factor' of so many themes common in EBD books. For example, Judy's delight in folk dancing and in Guides would have meant she fitted in perfectly to the CS in the very early days - particularly in Jo of.

There were a number of characteristic elements. For example, there was a 'fat' pupil who was constantly teased (to the point of bullying), they had a (boring) description of an entertainment, complete with tableaux, and similarly boring sports matches. There was also a celebration for the head's birthday, with a giving of presents, and there were the girls who couldn't join guides for some reason. Also the descriptions of dormitories and the head girl's rooms were very EBD and very nice - and they had splasheries!

Where I felt it was less typical was in the use of slang (with sanctions inconsistently applied - why is it so awful to call someone an ape, whereas goat is okay?) and in the really awful degree of bullying. Miss A or, more likely the prefects, would have stepped in much earlier although we are privy to discussions among them saying that as Judy seems to have some friends, it's okay to leave it to them. I found it a bit confusing as well that some of the main characters had the same or similar names. And who would call their child Nancibel, for goodness sake (apologies to any Nancibels on the board)?

I was totally surprised by the revelation of the true culprit, so will say no more in case someone else is inspired to read it.

In answer to JB's point about why it was dealt with as a Guide matter, I think she basically had thought of the title so had to put references to Guides and 'Guidiness' in to make it work!

I didn't think it odd that Judy came to school in Britain, rather than Canada - her brother was at Oxford, after all - but thought that the racism expressed towards her was awful - and so rude. Similarly, the casual assumption that Highlanders and Irish people would be superstitious was annoying but fitted with attitudes at the time. Also, it was almost inevitable that there were a few titles splashed about - particularly showing that proper posh people appreciated Judy while Muriel and her mother were hideously snobbish and racist (cf Class discussion in FD).

Would I have wanted to go to the school? No, but then it wasn't the CS, was it??
Author:  JellySheep [ Wed Jul 15, 2009 4:10 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Judy the Guide
I read this book years ago and have always had a bit of a soft spot for it. Though the authorities should have stepped in a bit earlier to sort out the bullying, it seems that the school itself isn't such a bad place, just that it gets hijacked by some strong and less than pleasant characters. I was surprised by the solution to the mystery, but it is just a bit convenient for me. While it is rather a long way to send one's offspring to school, I suppose that it would seem more obvious a thing to do back then when Britain was the centre of the Empire than it would nowadays. I was always intrigued as to whether this Miss Carthew was the same one as in the early CS!
Author:  Kathy_S [ Wed Jul 15, 2009 5:42 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Judy the Guide
It did strike me as a little odd that recent Irish immigrants would send their children off to England. Of course it's the godfather choosing his sister's old school in the case of Judy, and I suppose if you win a scholarship to Oxford -- is this common in Canada?* -- you're going to take it....

*or possibly just the only acceptable place in EBD-land, though I notice it's also a source of scholarships in Charlotte Yonge's Daisy Chain.
Author:  Jenefer [ Wed Jul 15, 2009 5:56 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Judy the Guide
This was the first EBD book I read. I have a rather battered copy which my mother bought at a church sale many years ago. I had just joined the Brownies so enjoyed the Guiding bits. I have reread the book many times and continue to enjoy it.
Sending someone from Canada to school in England seems unrealistic. Judy has quite a difficult transition from living on a farm in western Canada to boarding school in the Home Counties. This is not helped by the series of accidents for which Judy gets the blame. The school is divided over this - although some feel she is guilty and are nasty to her, her friends stick by her. The actual culprit seems a bit far fetched.
Despite the behaviour of some of the girls and the folkdancing, I liked the school. I think I would be happy with Judy, Nancy, Marjory and the rest of the Fourth Form. The Bird Room is my ideal dorm.
Author:  Emma A [ Wed Jul 15, 2009 6:00 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Judy the Guide
Kathy_S wrote:
...and I suppose if you win a scholarship to Oxford -- is this common in Canada?* -- you're going to take it....

*or possibly just the only acceptable place in EBD-land, though I notice it's also a source of scholarships in Charlotte Yonge's Daisy Chain.

There were a number of Rhodes Scholarships endowed by Cecil Rhodes for study at Oxford, his alma mater, open to students from British colonies (so, including Canada), the USA and Germany. It was considered a very prestigious award.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhodes_scholar

The (Australian) narrator of Nevil Shute's Requiem for a Wren was a Rhodes scholar.
Author:  JB [ Wed Jul 15, 2009 6:04 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Judy the Guide
JS wrote:

Quote:
And who would call their child Nancibel, for goodness sake (apologies to any Nancibels on the board)?


I found Nancy and Nanciebel were confusing.

Elsie Oxenham has characters called Nancibel. They all belong to one family beginning with one in a historical novel (can't remember the name, sorry) and then continuing with her descendants in the present day.
Author:  abbeybufo [ Wed Jul 15, 2009 8:42 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Judy the Guide
EJO's Mistress Nanciebel was published in 1910. She then wrote about the descendants of that character, one of whom was called Nancybell, in Elsa Puts Things Right, published in 1944. There was by tradition at least one Nancybell in every generation.
Author:  JB [ Wed Jul 15, 2009 9:28 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Judy the Guide
Thanks, Ruth. I knew you'd have the proper answer. :oops:
Author:  Alison H [ Wed Jul 15, 2009 9:45 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Judy the Guide
I assumed EBD nicked the name Nanciebel from Mistress Nanciebel: I've never heard the name anywhere else.

Aren't the Rhodes Scholarships for students from all English-speaking countries still going? I've an idea Bill Clinton came to Oxford on one, although what EBD would've made of him I'm not quite sure :lol: .
I don't find the idea of sending someone from Canada to school in England very realistic, though.

I didn't like the school, but the girls' behaviour was no worse than that in some of Enid Blyton's books, and to some extent in the Dimsie books. Reminds me just what a nice place the CS was :D .
Author:  Fiona Mc [ Thu Jul 16, 2009 12:49 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Judy the Guide
I was horrified by the girls behavious and poor Judy. I don't think I would be as forgiving especially after the half term. She is basically alone with no one to turn to in a foreign country. I think the teachers, guiders and headmistress should have stepped in sooner. At the very least Muriel and the child Peggy who started the ball rolling should have been punished and suspended or removed from guides as a result of their behaviour. Overall I did like the book but I didn't like how Judy was treated
Author:  Sunglass [ Thu Jul 23, 2009 3:54 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Judy the Guide
I just read this for the first time and quite liked it - especially the descriptions of the various expeditions and the countryside, and the extremely fanciful-sounding dormitories, and Judy is likeable and sticks up for herself. (I agree the authorities should have intervened much earlier, and that the plump girl was appallingly bullied by everyone, without anyone in authority appearing to feel the need to intervene at all, which to me is even more shocking than Judy's treatment, which at least gets resolved by a deus ex machina at the end.)

The whole Empire theme running through it - kind of bound up with the Guides apparently teaching girls to 'think imperially' (?!) rather than 'smally' - is interesting, although a bit strained, as though EBD felt it was a theme she should tackle. Judy has so few adjustment difficulties she could have been from the Home Counties, other than the way the nastier girls refer to her as a 'Colonial'. And it seems as though EBD wasn't all that sure about writing her as purely Canadian anyway, by making her the Irish-born child of fairly recent Irish immigrants. But she doesn't seem to have entirely thought this through either, as it would be likely to have an effect on Judy's attitude to all the Union Jack/obey the King/National Anthem stuff EBD dwells on in the Guide ceremonies - not to mention the Empire tableau at the concert.

I did wonder whether EBD was responding to other representations of girls from Empire/Commonwealth countries in other school stories - like Angela Brazil's For the Sake of the School, where the New Zealand girl is an uncouth bumpkin stereotype, who has grown up on a far-flung farm with no 'ladies' around, and who is mercilessly teased by all her schoolmates and is licked fairly brutally into shape.

It seemed that EBD was trying to make a point by making Judy have so few adjustment difficulties, other than those caused by other people's nastiness - and by having her made over as rather chic before she arrives at the school, and making Judy's prairie home relatively genteel, if shabby. (EBD tells us her bedroom lacks the 'daintinesses' of an English girl's bedroom, but in fact it has the usual EBD gay chintz, wicker chairs and a copy of a 'good' picture hung over the crammed bookshelves...)

I think I was a bit puzzled by some the 'Guide spirit' stuff - surely it indicates a failing (by CS standards) in school spirit/honour if girls have to be put on their Guide honour or called to a Court of Honour in order to behave well or tell the truth...?

The fact that the St Ronan's Head had an interdiction on staff having their hair shingled made me giggle! Also the senior girls' special manner of walking around with a
Quote:
strong, very-sure-of-herself swing that was characteristic of all the elder girls at St. Ronan’s.
Author:  JB [ Thu Jul 23, 2009 4:35 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Judy the Guide
Sunglass wrote:

Quote:
I think I was a bit puzzled by some the 'Guide spirit' stuff - surely it indicates a failing (by CS standards) in school spirit/honour if girls have to be put on their Guide honour or called to a Court of Honour in order to behave well or tell the truth...?


This is just what I thought. I simply couldn't understand why a school matter, which had no connection to Guides was dealt with in this way. Nor could I understand why Miss Carthew felt it would be easier to deal with as a guider rather than a mistress unless, as you say, there is something lacking in the school. I've been trying to think if the CS is unusual in this way but most schools (in fiction) have their own code of behaviour which is enforced by staff and prefects.

There are examples where this is a problem eg the division between town girls and country girls in EJO's Girls of the Hamlet Club, although how the girls deal with this is the plot of the book.

Portayals of colonial girls are fascinating (have been thinking about this lately). EBD has a New Zealander in Jesanne Gillibrand who, far from being uncouth, is portrayed as more mature and independent than English girls of her age.
Author:  Sunglass [ Mon Jul 27, 2009 1:43 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Judy the Guide
JB wrote:
This is just what I thought. I simply couldn't understand why a school matter, which had no connection to Guides was dealt with in this way. Nor could I understand why Miss Carthew felt it would be easier to deal with as a guider rather than a mistress unless, as you say, there is something lacking in the school. I've been trying to think if the CS is unusual in this way but most schools (in fiction) have their own code of behaviour which is enforced by staff and prefects.


On the other hand, it does clarify a bit for me what EBD means in various CS books where she talks about a particular girl 'needing what Guides could give her' - not CS girls, of course, but Audrey Everett before she joins the school, and Elaine Gilling, who is at St Scholastika's, which EBD suggests has a less stringent code of honour. In the CS books, she never really explains what she means by that, but she's more explicit here, especially in terms of a kind of code of almost military honour giving a directionless girl standards and goals. (Though that's why I find the role of Guides rather perplexing at the CS, as religion really supplies that role of 'something higher to live up to' there...?)

Also, my knowledge of what goes on at a Guide Court of Honour is based entirely on Antonia Forest's Autumn Term, where it seemed like a disciplinary hearing with the Guiders deciding on penalties. Is EBD's version accurate, with the patrol leaders and seconds withdrawing to discuss whether they accept Judy saying on her Guide honour that she didn't break the vase and coming back with a majority verdict, but not all prepared to accept her Guide's word of honour? It seemed to me slightly strange that, even after a lecture on sisterliness among Guides/the Guiding spirit etc, that some Guides refused to accept Judy's word at a Court of Honour, and that the slightly dubious verdict of 'not all of us believe you' was allowed to stand...?

Also - this bit was also illuminating as regards CS references to various girls born in the colonies, like Daisy Venables, as 'British':

Quote:
“I think our young people down’t always realise that the British Empire consists of more than the British Isles, with Canada, India, Australia, and New Zealand thrown in. Don’t you think, Miss Carthew, that we are apt to encourage them to think far too smally?”

Miss Carthew nodded. “Yes; it’s quite true,” she said. “As a matter of fact, it’s worse than that. I have heard of girls in this very school speaking of Canadians as ‘foreigners,’ and that is a horribly little way of looking at matters.”

“As bad as the Cornish idea of any one who comes even from Devon, which is just next door, as belonging to a totally different people,” added Miss Miles. “Still, I must admit that Guides seem to make the girls think imperially.”
Author:  JB [ Mon Jul 27, 2009 2:15 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Judy the Guide
There's a reference to empire which surprised me in Shocks. When Miss Dene is arranging to collect Emerence, she refers to the girl's journey "home", ie to England.

I can see how England could be "home" to Daisy as her parents are both English but Emerence isn't shown as having any English connections at all.
Author:  Nightwing [ Mon Jul 27, 2009 10:08 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Judy the Guide
JB wrote:
There's a reference to empire which surprised me in Shocks. When Miss Dene is arranging to collect Emerence, she refers to the girl's journey "home", ie to England.

I can see how England could be "home" to Daisy as her parents are both English but Emerence isn't shown as having any English connections at all.


I know in New Zealand Britain was still seen as the Motherland well into the 50's and beyond, particularly in more rural areas. Artists, writers, scientists - anyone with talent headed to the UK, and there's still a bit of a 'hangover' in a way; people my age generally head for England to work and travel until they're ready to settle down, at which point most come back again.

The close alignment with Britain did start to deteriorate after WWII, though - Australia and NZ realised that Britain was no longer a superpower and began to seek relationships with the USA, instead. The loosening of political ties with Britain was definitely instrumental in both countries being able to assert their own, separate national identities as more than just British outposts.

[/potted history]

So it is believable that both Emerence and Daisy would refer to England as home, even if it seems bizarre for someone who was born and grew up on the other side of the world to do so!
Author:  JS [ Tue Jul 28, 2009 6:33 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Judy the Guide
Quote:
So it is believable that both Emerence and Daisy would refer to England as home, even if it seems bizarre for someone who was born and grew up on the other side of the world to do so!



I've just finished reading Top Secret on Reya's wonderful site (and what a cracking read it was, by the way) and the people in Auckland are quoted as referring to England as Home. The actual quote is 'the eldest of their many great nieces, who was a trained nurse newly come out from Home, as Hawk noted they all called England.' The capital letter in 'home' is EBD's.
Author:  Loryat [ Wed Jul 29, 2009 5:26 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Judy the Guide
I think I quite liked this book though I read it in transcript (which is never the same). But I do remember disliking all the talk of empire, and found the book more politicised than most EBD, mentioning 'bolishies' and so on. Also felt that EBD harps on a lot more about race than she does normally (and she is quite prone to it).

When the empire and its peoples are referred to as all one (and Guides helping girls feel this) is EBD including the actual natives of the colonised countries in this, or just the expats/immigrants? For example, would it be at all conceivable that Judy could have been an Indian girl?

This book is also very prone to EBDisms.

ETA: It seemed to me that crushes (on a suitable older girl) are seen as acceptable and even expected at this school, which surprised me as I'd always been under the impression that in the CS they were de rigeur, and therefore that EBD frowned upon them.
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