The CBB :: View topic - Religious Spirit- Goes to It

This is probably me just being thick but I'm confused about how this relates to religious spirit - could someone please take pity on me and explain.

The other girls (including Daisy and I think also Primula) and staff came over on one of the main ferries, I assume.

will all be given a chance to learn it, so that you may use it every day.

I love the wartime making do stuff, the gardening and everyone cycling everywhere, and Simone's wedding which gets pulled together by everyone being generous and working together and saving coupons etc. And I love the description of Plas Howell and its grounds and rooms,

There's not all that much religious spirit that I can think of, apart from the rather splendid speech given by Hilda at the start of term about the war and the sufferings of members of the CS Peace League inside the Reich - that's very specifically Christian in its approach to war, hopes for peace, and references to the 'martyrdom' of old girls in occupied Europe.

This is probably me just being thick but I'm confused about how this relates to religious spirit - could someone please take pity on me and explain. :lol:

I just thought that it would be interesting to try and examine EBD's motives in not having more overt religion in a book where readers might come to it expecting such, if they are familiar with the series - sorry if other people disagree!

she guessed she could trust Chalet School girls to behave like Britons

'if we can't, our training here couldn't amount to much, could it?'

‘She was a schoolgirl in the last war, wasn’t she? Didn’t they have air-raids then, too? I expect she was through them and remembered them.’
‘What’s that?’ asked Cornelia, who had passed the pair closely enough to catch part of this talk. ‘Of course they had air-raids in the last war. But who d’you mean went through them?’
‘Madame. She did, didn’t she? I mean, she’d be about that age?’
‘Oh, yes. She told us about them during that time we were in Guernsey after our crowd escaped from the Nazis from Tirol. Jo asked her one night, and asked her if she thought the raids would be as bad or worse than those she’d been through.’

Her outrage that the Colonel inisists on asking the entire school and staff questions and her claims that he's not an Englishman but a secret Nazi trying to stir up discontent with the government are really silly, given that the man, while a buffoon, is just doing his job properly in the middle of a war!

I know there were bombing raids during WWI, and on strategic coastal towns as well as London (and other cities too..?) - though I don't think there were all that many, no more than about 100 German raids altogether - but I'd always vaguely assumed Madge went to school in Taverton, which seems an unlikely target. Does this suggest she went to school somewhere else during the war, somewhere where she's more likely to have had experience of air-raids?

But, if we assume Taverton is very unlikely to have been bombed, then Madge needs to have been either in London or in one of the coastal targets during WWI, which pulls up a whole new set of questions, like - as we're told she mothered Joey from the moment her parents died - where was Joey at this point, if Madge was at school somewhere away from Taverton? (I mean, if she was alive at this point - I'm a bit confused as to whether the dates work, and if Madge was schoolgirl age during WWI!) I suppose it's possible Madge was just on a visit to some of the mysterious relatives when an air-raid happened, so not a longterm absence from home...?

Cosimo's Jackal wrote:

Where Joey was probably depends on where you place the beginning of the series. If we take year of publication as the start date, Joey would have been a small child during the war. But if we work backward from the only period of the series to contain external dating references - the war - then Joey wasn't born until around 1918, the very end of the war, so where she was during air raids isn't an issue.

I'm slightly confused as to why anyone *would* expect there to be a whole load of religious spirit in this book...but I think that EBD was relatively light-handed with religion throughout the books.

By this point in the series, EBD is still very light-handed with religion; however it certainly crops up (especially with the odd approving reference to 'simple faith' etc). But Ariel's point about its absence is interesting, if only to highlight the shift we see when we get to the later Swiss books. If we transported the air-raid to the Platz (or time-traveled EBD from that period back, and got her to rewrite the episode), I think there would lots of group praying and some little speeches (made by blushing prefects who found it difficult talking about these deeper matters).

I guess the religious overtones of the first half or so of the series reflect more of my experiences at junior school where we had to sing hymns and had prayers every day so there was a Christian ethos but it wasn't a focus and I think I just presumed that all schools were like that and you had to put up with it whether you believed it or not!

Author:	Fiona Mc [ Sun Apr 04, 2010 11:31 pm ]
Post subject:	Religious Spirit- Goes to It
The Chalet School Goes to It (It was called Goes to War, when it was republished with Armada) is the next one in the series after Exile. It is the second one in the War series (Exile being the first). It is described as only having minor changes in the Armada series, such as the odd word. It was first published in 1941. The story opens with a discussion amongst the staff about moving the school. Before the end of the discussion, the Rev Ernest Howell offers them the use of his mansion complete with a younger half sister Gwensi. Bothe Madge and Hilda agree to the terms and the school is moved to Plas Howell in Armshire on the Welsh boarder. Joey, Nell and Frieda have an exciting and dangerous journey across the channel. Before the school term starts again, Gwensi makes her feeling clear as to how she feels about the school and is persuaded to change her mind by Robin and then later through her friendships with Daisy and Beth. When the school resumes they have a number of new pupils from a Medbury school which closes at the same time (See Monica Turns up Trumps). The school is aware of the impending War and start gardening in earnest, and the Prefects have problems with the Fourths as they’ve decided to become updated and wear makeup. There are problems with lights at nights. Gwensi shows Beth and Daisy her secret hidey hole and the three girls find poachers (the cause of the night time lights). Finally there is an air raid where Karl Linders drops a message to the school from his aeroplane and Elizabeth and Betty have an irreconcilable argument about Gillian Linton. The book ends with Simone’s wedding. So what do people think of the book? Do people like it compared to the other War books? The main theme of focus is the religious spirit of the book, namely, how do the characters cope with the War? Are the mistresses suitably anxious/worried about the school being so close to the continent? How is the journey handled from Guernsey to England? We see both sides of this event- those who were travelling and those who were left behind. Was this handled well? How did the school handled the beginning of the War with things such as ‘Dig for Victory’ and the evacuees in the area? And finally, how well was Betty and Elizabeth’s argument handled with Elizabeth growing away from her friend and the pair’s close friendship ending after ten years? Please discuss this and anything else you can think of.

Author:	Pado [ Mon Apr 05, 2010 12:06 am ]
Post subject:	Re: Religious Spirit- Goes to It
I always thought the message dropped by Karl Linders was a bit of a stretch. Plus might it not have put the CS on some sort of "watch list"? Maybe that's why Frieda et al got interned? Gwensi's initial reluctance to embrace the school seems realistic, but of course, Joey easily converts her. And Elizabeth's maturing is a bit rapid, but ultimately mostly believable.

Author:	JB [ Mon Apr 05, 2010 10:16 am ]
Post subject:	Re: Religious Spirit- Goes to It
I like Goes to It and it has more of a war time feel than the other books, apart from the train journey at the start of Highland Twins. At the start of term, Hilda lists all the old girl who have joined up and, IIRC, it’s the last time that’s mentioned. I think the Karl Linders storyline is daft in so many ways, though. One of the strengths of the book, for me, is that is shows the day to day effect of the war. As I mentioned somewhere else on the Board recently, it amuses me that that staff are talking as though the plane crash at the end of Exile has just happened, although a whole term has passed since then. I do wonder why EBD didn’t set the book a term earlier. Apart from that, I think the staff are sensible about the risks and it’s interesting, from a 21st century perspective, that they also consider how safe various parts of England are. I could live without Joey arriving at the meeting and handing round the baby triplets, as I could later on in the book when she brings them to the assembly with Colonel Black. I find her particularly childish in the latter episode and I feel for Madge who’s trying to deal with a serious matter in a professional way. I think the journey to England shows us how self-centred Joey can be and I love Jem’s dry comment before she leaves Guernsey, which is along the lines of “how do you think I felt last week?” (ie when Madge and the children were travelling). To be more positive about Joey, I think she’s very sweet when she sees all her books on Gwensi’s bookshelf and I like the matter of fact way she helps Gwensi adjust. I really like the way the ending of Elizabeth and Betty’s friendship is handled and that we continue to see the impact of this in the following book. I think it’s one of EBD’s best portrayals of two girls who have been close but who then mature at different paces and grow apart. Most of the friendships seem to last throughout the girls’ time at school and beyond. I haven’t commented on the religious spirit aspect and that isn’t something which springs to mind when I think of the book.

Author:	ChubbyMonkey [ Mon Apr 05, 2010 11:07 am ]
Post subject:	Re: Religious Spirit- Goes to It
I've never really read this book much, despite it being our one and only hardback while growing up - it was a library book gone out of circulation, so half a page missing, plenty of scribbles/stains etc. It was never very nice to read it! I do like all the day-to-day aspects of the war in it, EBD deals with some of them very well; and, IMHO, that was quite a brave decision for a time when I would have guessed that most people turned to books for escapism. Betty and Elizabeth, too, are written very well, and like JB I like that it is continued into the following book.

Author:	Alison H [ Mon Apr 05, 2010 7:18 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Religious Spirit- Goes to It
I find the Karl Linders thing very hard to believe, but I find a lot of the events in Highland Twins hard to believe too and just try to look at them as war stories rather than "normal" CS stories. I find the "Home Front" scenes - gardening, Enid talking about knitting socks, etc - interesting, and wish that we saw more of them in the other war books. And, as I keep on saying, I wish we saw Madge getting involved in the war effort! I think that this book marks a turning point in a couple of ways: 1. Having had to move from Austria and then move it again from Guernsey (poor EBD, she'd just got the school settled somewhere she thought was safe and then it had to move again!), the school at this point ends up minus the exotic location that set it apart from most other school stories. Herefordshire's a very nice area, but we don't get anyone falling in lakes or being stranded up mountains and being rescued by doctors, or any interesting-sounding foreign food, or anything like that, and even the trilingualism idea goes out of the window for several years. We don't even get the San being particularly close to the school. There aren't a lot of other examples in GO literature of such a complete change being forced on a fictional series by external circumstances. 2. I think there's a big change in the way Joey is presented too. Yes, we saw her clinging to Jack during the escape from Tyrol, but on the boat to England she completely collapses and Nell and Frieda are left literally holding the babies (& we get a lot of detail about how she's told that she's got to stop breastfeeding). That's a long way from the Joey who ran off to rescue Grizel and Elisaveta. & then we get that bizarre scene when she says the wrong thing to Colonel Black: I assume that this was EBD trying to show adult Joey as being zany, as she repeatedly tries to do in the Swiss books, but it's hardly the time or place for it. I'm not quite sure what she was trying to do with the character. & I really like Simone's wartime wedding, although I always feel sad that her family couldn't get there in time. The way that everyone rallies round to make things nice for her is lovely.

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Author:	emma t [ Mon Apr 05, 2010 7:51 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Religious Spirit- Goes to It
I really like this book; it's well-written, and EBD at her best, I think, she had alot to live up to 'Exile'; and 'Goes to it', does just that, especially as the things mentioned in it were actually happening as she wrote it. I was in Jersey a few years ago, and I think the one thing that is mising from this book, is the fact that the people of the Channel Islands were starving during the war, though I supose as it's only really the beginning, this may not have accured yet. The escape is well-written and realistic; though I do wonder why she allowed the three women and the babies to escape before anyone else had the chance (I do know that it was women and children first in these situations, but what about the rest of the school, and the authorities looking after them feeling a responsibilty?) Plus, how did the school get to the main land? I do not think it''s mentioned anywhere, I could be wrong! The dig for victory is well done in the Chalet School; I love the way that the girls take to it; it shows a real herroism in them though where do they get the sugar from, etc, to make jam and all? Likewise with Simone's wedding cake - I think I remember Joey saying that she had saved her coupons at one point. Simone's wedding was lovely; and a nice way to end the book, with the war going on around them

Author:	Lesley [ Mon Apr 05, 2010 8:01 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Religious Spirit- Goes to It
It wasn't specifically mentioned but could EBD's ideas on why Joey, Nell Wilson and Frieda went first have something to do with the escape from Austria (Joey and Nell) and the fact that Frieda was Austrian? They would have been at greatest risk had the Nazi's caught them.

Author:	andi [ Mon Apr 05, 2010 8:15 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Religious Spirit- Goes to It
I think it might have been specifically mentioned, actually, at least as far as Joey and Nell Wilson are concerned. I seem to remember a conversation between Joey and Jem where Joey says something along the lines of 'if I have to leave Guernsey asap because the Nazis might be after me, isn't Nell in as much danger from them as I am?' and Jem says, 'yes, she is and that's why she's going with you'.

Author:	Lesley [ Mon Apr 05, 2010 8:19 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Religious Spirit- Goes to It
Maybe that's where I got the idea then! Should have known - was too good to me mine!

Author:	Mia [ Mon Apr 05, 2010 9:36 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Religious Spirit- Goes to It
This is probably me just being thick but I'm confused about how this relates to religious spirit - could someone please take pity on me and explain.

Author:	Alison H [ Mon Apr 05, 2010 10:07 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Religious Spirit- Goes to It
I can see that Joey and Nell and Frieda might have been in danger (although I'm not sure that the entire Nazi war machine would have been that well up on the incident in Spartz, in Joey and Nell's cases), but Anna was left behind to come over with the school, and Joey even had the nerve to say that Anna'd have to bring the pram because it wouldn't fit on Nigel's yacht. The other girls (including Daisy and I think also Primula) and staff came over on one of the main ferries, I assume. &, IIRC, Jem waited until the last minute, after everyone else from the school and San had gone, nearly left it too late, and ended up having to go some complicated roundabout route via Ireland.

Author:	Rob [ Mon Apr 05, 2010 11:37 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Religious Spirit- Goes to It
Mia wrote: This is probably me just being thick but I'm confused about how this relates to religious spirit - could someone please take pity on me and explain. Not at all Mia (unless I am too!) religious spirit doesn't seem an obvious theme to me ... Alison H wrote: The other girls (including Daisy and I think also Primula) and staff came over on one of the main ferries, I assume. I think this might have been another occasion when EBD forgot Primula. When Joey leaves she tells Daisy to look after Primula (Madge and the rest of the family have already gone), but then when the girls are helping pack up the school , there appears to be only Robin, Daisy, Polly and Cornelia there! Presumably the rest of the girls went home as normal after the end of term.

Author:	Pado [ Tue Apr 06, 2010 1:57 am ]
Post subject:	Re: Religious Spirit- Goes to It
While Simone's wedding was lovely (assuming she wanted all that help from Joey), I'm still a bit unclear as to why they couldn't wait a day for her family to arrive from Scotland. But then, her family always did seem to get short shrift...as they were going on a honeymoon anyway, couldn't they have waited a day or two?

Author:	Cosimo's Jackal [ Tue Apr 06, 2010 10:27 am ]
Post subject:	Re: Religious Spirit- Goes to It
I love the wartime making do stuff, the gardening and everyone cycling everywhere, and Simone's wedding which gets pulled together by everyone being generous and working together and saving coupons etc. And I love the description of Plas Howell and its grounds and rooms, although I'm always tickled by the fact that Joey looks 'anxious' when she's showing Hilda Annersley round for the first time - one of the very few times when breezy adult Joey seems overwrought for no reason! (The CS has just had to evacuate, in dangerous circumstances, for the second time in a short period, so surely the fact that they've found a half-way suitable place to relocate to matters more than whether Hilda finds it beautiful or not? And of course she does, and no one does wreck the antique silk wallpaper!) There's not all that much religious spirit that I can think of, apart from the rather splendid speech given by Hilda at the start of term about the war and the sufferings of members of the CS Peace League inside the Reich - that's very specifically Christian in its approach to war, hopes for peace, and references to the 'martyrdom' of old girls in occupied Europe. Actually, in view of what Bill says to Lavender Leigh's aunt later on about the older girls not being shielded from the horrors of war, but the younger ones getting very little, it did strike me that this speech, while admirable in its sentiments, was quite frightening, with the references to martyrdom Hilda prays that the UK will be spared and the CS old girl who may have 'paid dearly' for helping Bruno and Friedel to escape. It is the reverse of sugar-coated, and there's no naive 'God will solve everything, Amen' approach at all. The bit in that first assembly that does make me giggle slightly, because it's a sort of first step in Joey becoming Spirit of the School, is that Hilda transmits the Joey-authored prayer of the CS Peace League as solemnly as if it were Holy Writ. Everyone has to repeat it phrase by phrase after her, and she says that the school Quote: will all be given a chance to learn it, so that you may use it every day. Not that it's not a perfectly admirable prayer, but Hilda's extreme seriousness about Joey's authorship of it clashes amusingly (to my mind, anyway) with how completely juvenile Joey is in the same room when the Colonel comes to investigate the signalling! But of course it makes more sense of the way the League and Joey's relationship to it is talked about at the start of Lavender, where Joey is the only person besides the Head to know the names of the signatories and which girls, if any, have opted not to sign, and is now explicitly talked of at Prayers as the 'embodiment of what the CS stands for'. I suppose it's just that it interests me in relation to how Joey is a kind of transitional figure at this point in the books - she's both all wise and warm, helping Simone out with the wedding etc and a bit of an idiot. Her outrage that the Colonel inisists on asking the entire school and staff questions and her claims that he's not an Englishman but a secret Nazi trying to stir up discontent with the government are really silly, given that the man, while a buffoon, is just doing his job properly in the middle of a war! Thankfully Madge smacks her down sharpish.

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Author:	MJKB [ Tue Apr 06, 2010 3:01 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Religious Spirit- Goes to It
Cosimo's Jackal wrote: I love the wartime making do stuff, the gardening and everyone cycling everywhere, and Simone's wedding which gets pulled together by everyone being generous and working together and saving coupons etc. And I love the description of Plas Howell and its grounds and rooms, I do so agree! I love this book. And I love the period of the School that follows, until they get to the Island. It marks a new departure for the series as the School loses alot of the international spirit that defines the Tryol days and becomes more like a typical English Public School, a sort of Malory Towers with a heart. The setting for the School is beautiful, a 17th Century mansion set in lovely parkland. And the description of the rooms really adds to the athmosphere and gives the reader a sense of actually being there. I love every last detail of that tour with Joey et al.

Author:	Mia [ Tue Apr 06, 2010 7:36 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Religious Spirit- Goes to It
Cosimo's Jackal wrote: There's not all that much religious spirit that I can think of, apart from the rather splendid speech given by Hilda at the start of term about the war and the sufferings of members of the CS Peace League inside the Reich - that's very specifically Christian in its approach to war, hopes for peace, and references to the 'martyrdom' of old girls in occupied Europe. Obviously the references to God's mercy, etc, can be taken at face value but I would venture to disagree that hopes for peace and knowledge of wartime suffering were uniquely Christian... Quite a lot of the "Germans aren't Nazis" ideologically that EBD uses is actually socialist in origin IIRC.

Author:	ChubbyMonkey [ Tue Apr 06, 2010 8:17 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Religious Spirit- Goes to It
Mia wrote: This is probably me just being thick but I'm confused about how this relates to religious spirit - could someone please take pity on me and explain. Sorry, it was me who suggested it originally! As others have noted, there isn't a lot of references to religion, and it seemed odd to me that in EBD's first war book set in Britain/England there aren't more references to religion, for example in the beginning when the boat is attacked by U-boats. In earlier books, like when Grizel and Joey are up the Tiernjoch, a catastrophe like that gives EBD the chance to bring in the "simple faith" that most of her characters display, but there doesn't seem to be the same reliance on it here as in earlier - or, indeed, later - books. Of course discussions are not limited merely to the topic in the title, and are open to any aspects of the book, it was just thought that this would be an interesting new way of starting the discussions and perhaps provide a fresh way of looking at certain aspects of the books. I just thought that it would be interesting to try and examine EBD's motives in not having more overt religion in a book where readers might come to it expecting such, if they are familiar with the series - sorry if other people disagree!

Author:	MJKB [ Tue Apr 06, 2010 8:47 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Religious Spirit- Goes to It
ChubbyMonkey wrote: I just thought that it would be interesting to try and examine EBD's motives in not having more overt religion in a book where readers might come to it expecting such, if they are familiar with the series - sorry if other people disagree! Perhaps like so many of her characters, the gravity of war made talking about religion too deep to discuss.

Author:	Alison H [ Tue Apr 06, 2010 9:09 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Religious Spirit- Goes to It
Statistics do show that attendance at religious services increased significantly in Britain during the War, presumably because people felt that praying was a way of doing something. Other people were affected in the opposite way: my grandad was brought up in quite a strictly religious household but didn't go back to that way of living after leaving the Army, because the things he saw during the War made him feel that regular attendance at religious services, Sabbath observance etc weren't really what it was all about. I'm not sure what EBD could have written about in terms of the effect of the War on religious views, though. CS characters all (presumably) attend religious services regularly anyway, and I don't think she'd have shown a character losing their faith or even having their faith tested because she doesn't seem to like the idea (as we see in Trials) that not everyone practises a form of organised religion. It would certainly have been interesting to see a non-believing character turn to God or a character lose their faith as a result of their wartime experiences, though.

Author:	Cosimo's Jackal [ Wed Apr 07, 2010 8:22 am ]
Post subject:	Re: Religious Spirit- Goes to It
Now that I think about it, the relative absence of religious spirit where one might have expected it is interesting - even during the air raid where the girls are down in the shelter, there are only individual silent prayers from some girls when the bombing is at its height, not a collective official one, like we get after or during other CS disasters. And the girls sustain one another by talking about 'grit' and the need for courage and 'sticking things' - rather than talk of God taking care of us, the way you get so often in other CS books - and Plato makes them sing 'England' (of course, very beautifully and in a trained choral manner, rather than just a keeping your spirits up singalong! I do sometimes find Plato's insistence on excellence even in the middle of emergencies in air raid shelters in the early hours a bit much! ) It's a much more secular, even patriotic, rhetoric. Slightly oddly, in view of the CS's internationalism, Cornelia quotes Madge as saying Quote: she guessed she could trust Chalet School girls to behave like Britons and adds herself Quote: 'if we can't, our training here couldn't amount to much, could it?' which seems an odd thing for Madge to say to the CS (apparently early on in the Guernsey days) and an odd thing for a non-British CS girl to repeat as an unproblematic truth! I suppose it was just EBD responding to her publishers or public taste by doing 'British grit in wartime' rhetoric, but it always strikes me as not fitting very well with the international ethos of the CS in general, where up until now EBD has gently mocked people like Grizel for being rather John Bull-ish, (even if the school is now is much more British than in Tyrol). Plus it just doesn't fit stoical American Cornelia, or others like half-Polish Robin who comforts the younger girls but, who, despite her English father and passport, can't have spent any more than short holiday periods in the UK before now or feel particularly culturall British! All the stress on needing to behave 'like Britons' even feels weird to me in relation to that particular air raid, when three Germans, including a member of the Luftwaffe, express their abiding faith in the CS Peace League in the dropped message! The other thing that interests me in that air raid scene is something we learn about Madge's past that I have no recollection of coming across anywhere else. Cornelia, Betty Wynne Davies and Elizabeth Arnett are remembering something Madge said in Guernsey about air-raids: Quote: ‘She was a schoolgirl in the last war, wasn’t she? Didn’t they have air-raids then, too? I expect she was through them and remembered them.’ ‘What’s that?’ asked Cornelia, who had passed the pair closely enough to catch part of this talk. ‘Of course they had air-raids in the last war. But who d’you mean went through them?’ ‘Madame. She did, didn’t she? I mean, she’d be about that age?’ ‘Oh, yes. She told us about them during that time we were in Guernsey after our crowd escaped from the Nazis from Tirol. Jo asked her one night, and asked her if she thought the raids would be as bad or worse than those she’d been through.’ I know there were bombing raids during WWI, and on strategic coastal towns as well as London (and other cities too..?) - though I don't think there were all that many, no more than about 100 German raids altogether - but I'd always vaguely assumed Madge went to school in Taverton, which seems an unlikely target. Does this suggest she went to school somewhere else during the war, somewhere where she's more likely to have had experience of air-raids?

Author:	LizzieC [ Wed Apr 07, 2010 9:56 am ]
Post subject:	Re: Religious Spirit- Goes to It
Cosimo's Jackal wrote: Her outrage that the Colonel inisists on asking the entire school and staff questions and her claims that he's not an Englishman but a secret Nazi trying to stir up discontent with the government are really silly, given that the man, while a buffoon, is just doing his job properly in the middle of a war! I only read this book in my late teens, and it struck me that the Colonel in Goes To It is rather like Colonel Blimp (at least, the Blimp from the film, if not from the Low Cartoons) - a rather pompous, rather well meaning (and brave) man who perhaps had outlived most of his usefulness to the British Army (hence why he was harrasing a school rather than doing anything more). Of course, it's possible I'm just projecting, as I'd first seen that film just before I read that book, so the image was fresh in my mind.

Author:	Miss Di [ Thu Apr 08, 2010 1:22 am ]
Post subject:	Re: Religious Spirit- Goes to It
Cosimo's Jackal wrote: I know there were bombing raids during WWI, and on strategic coastal towns as well as London (and other cities too..?) - though I don't think there were all that many, no more than about 100 German raids altogether - but I'd always vaguely assumed Madge went to school in Taverton, which seems an unlikely target. Does this suggest she went to school somewhere else during the war, somewhere where she's more likely to have had experience of air-raids? From the BBC http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/trail/wars ... t_08.shtml " Britain’s experience of 1917-8 air raids had resulted in 1,500 killed in just over 100 raids (compared with 750,000 killed on active service), in the 1930s government estimates calculated that 600,000 would be killed and 1.2 million injured in air raids in a future war." So unless Madge was at school in London fairly unlikely I'd think.

Author:	Alison H [ Thu Apr 08, 2010 7:41 am ]
Post subject:	Re: Religious Spirit- Goes to It
The bombers couldn't "get" very far then, so the raids were mainly on London with a few on parts of the east coast. EBD lived through the First World War so she must have been well aware of that, so I've no idea why she put that bit in . I never get the impression that Madge went to school anywhere but Taverton.

Author:	Cel [ Thu Apr 08, 2010 8:55 am ]
Post subject:	Re: Religious Spirit- Goes to It
Maybe they meant 'went through them' in the general sense of being a young person during the War and being aware of air raids going on, rather than actually being directly involved herself. Hmm, that sounds like a weak excuse even as I write it...

Author:	2nd Gen Fan [ Thu Apr 08, 2010 9:49 am ]
Post subject:	Re: Religious Spirit- Goes to It
I did read somewher that the terror they caused was out of all proportion to the numbers killed - the Zeppelins were known as 'baby-killers'. Of course in WW1 manned flight was still very new and risky - people were not used to idea of manned flight at all, so being bombed was like something out of a scence fiction novel.

Author:	Cosimo's Jackal [ Thu Apr 08, 2010 10:07 am ]
Post subject:	Re: Religious Spirit- Goes to It
I'm still intrigued by it, and puzzled that for some reason I never noticed it before, while reading Goes To It! I did consider whether Madge just meant she'd been alive during the bombing raids of WWI, but the implication is strongly that she herself actually experienced air-raids personally - also, it's Joey (who would of course already know the story from Madge) who asks her in Guernsey whether she thinks the the air-raids of WWII will be worse than the ones she herself 'went through' in the first war, and Madge says she fears they will be worse. But, if we assume Taverton is very unlikely to have been bombed, then Madge needs to have been either in London or in one of the coastal targets during WWI, which pulls up a whole new set of questions, like - as we're told she mothered Joey from the moment her parents died - where was Joey at this point, if Madge was at school somewhere away from Taverton? (I mean, if she was alive at this point - I'm a bit confused as to whether the dates work, and if Madge was schoolgirl age during WWI!) I suppose it's possible Madge was just on a visit to some of the mysterious relatives when an air-raid happened, so not a longterm absence from home...?

Author:	ChubbyMonkey [ Thu Apr 08, 2010 10:27 am ]
Post subject:	Re: Religious Spirit- Goes to It
Don't the Aunts live in London? In which case, Madge and Joey could have been staying with them so that they could look after Joey during term time while Madge and Dick were at school, and thus Madge would have been around to experience the air raids.

Author:	Llywela [ Thu Apr 08, 2010 12:09 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Religious Spirit- Goes to It
Cosimo's Jackal wrote: But, if we assume Taverton is very unlikely to have been bombed, then Madge needs to have been either in London or in one of the coastal targets during WWI, which pulls up a whole new set of questions, like - as we're told she mothered Joey from the moment her parents died - where was Joey at this point, if Madge was at school somewhere away from Taverton? (I mean, if she was alive at this point - I'm a bit confused as to whether the dates work, and if Madge was schoolgirl age during WWI!) I suppose it's possible Madge was just on a visit to some of the mysterious relatives when an air-raid happened, so not a longterm absence from home...? Where Joey was probably depends on where you place the beginning of the series. If we take year of publication as the start date, Joey would have been a small child during the war. But if we work backward from the only period of the series to contain external dating references - the war - then Joey wasn't born until around 1918, the very end of the war, so where she was during air raids isn't an issue.

Author:	abbeybufo [ Thu Apr 08, 2010 12:11 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Religious Spirit- Goes to It
Llywela wrote: Cosimo's Jackal wrote: But, if we assume Taverton is very unlikely to have been bombed, then Madge needs to have been either in London or in one of the coastal targets during WWI, which pulls up a whole new set of questions, like - as we're told she mothered Joey from the moment her parents died - where was Joey at this point, if Madge was at school somewhere away from Taverton? (I mean, if she was alive at this point - I'm a bit confused as to whether the dates work, and if Madge was schoolgirl age during WWI!) I suppose it's possible Madge was just on a visit to some of the mysterious relatives when an air-raid happened, so not a longterm absence from home...? Where Joey was probably depends on where you place the beginning of the series. If we take year of publication as the start date, Joey would have been a small child during the war. But if we work backward from the only period of the series to contain external dating references - the war - then Joey wasn't born until around 1918, the very end of the war, so where she was during air raids isn't an issue. In which case when did Madge come back from India ...

Author:	Alison H [ Thu Apr 08, 2010 12:23 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Religious Spirit- Goes to It
The dates don't work very well! The three children travelled to England shortly after their parents died. School At was published in 1926, meaning that Joey would have been born in November 1913, so they could have got home before war broke out ... but then the Bettanys would have been holidaying in Austria in 1921, which seems very soon after the end of the War. If we go by Exile, then Joey would have been born in November 1917, meaning that a baby and two 12-year-olds were voyaging halfway round the world during the Great War.

Author:	KathrynW [ Fri Apr 09, 2010 10:14 am ]
Post subject:	Re: Religious Spirit- Goes to It
I'm slightly confused as to why anyone would expect there to be a whole load of religious spirit in this book...obviously it's set during the war and Alison makes a good point about more people going to church and turning to religion etc but I think that EBD was relatively light-handed with religion throughout the books. Obviously it's there but it's not normally too 'preachy' or overt otherwise I doubt I would have bothered reading the books.

Author:	Tor [ Fri Apr 09, 2010 10:41 am ]
Post subject:	Re: Religious Spirit- Goes to It
Quote: I'm slightly confused as to why anyone would expect there to be a whole load of religious spirit in this book...but I think that EBD was relatively light-handed with religion throughout the books. I partly agree, and partly disagree (yes I am conflicted ) By this point in the series, EBD is still very light-handed with religion; however it certainly crops up (especially with the odd approving reference to 'simple faith' etc). But Ariel's point about its absence is interesting, if only to highlight the shift we see when we get to the later Swiss books. If we transported the air-raid to the Platz (or time-traveled EBD from that period back, and got her to rewrite the episode), I think there would lots of group praying and some little speeches (made by blushing prefects who found it difficult talking about these deeper matters). But this is more of interest to discussions of EBDs writing developlment than Goes To It specifically, and so that is why I agree with you Kathryn! All I can say is, thank goodness EBD hadn't found her Sunday School Groove by this point. I much prefer the Tirol and British books, and I really love Goes To It (well, At War, as I only have the paper back). I think the the back-ground role of religion stengthens the feeling of stoicism and silent strength that I associate with WW2. I think anything more in-your-face would feel a bit hysterical. Whether this was deliberate on the part of EBD, or just that she hadn't become quite so evangelical in her approach to life/writing by this point, is pretty much impossible to say. But I suspect it is a mixture of the two, plus some sound business sense.

Author:	KathrynW [ Fri Apr 09, 2010 10:48 am ]
Post subject:	Re: Religious Spirit- Goes to It
Tor wrote: By this point in the series, EBD is still very light-handed with religion; however it certainly crops up (especially with the odd approving reference to 'simple faith' etc). But Ariel's point about its absence is interesting, if only to highlight the shift we see when we get to the later Swiss books. If we transported the air-raid to the Platz (or time-traveled EBD from that period back, and got her to rewrite the episode), I think there would lots of group praying and some little speeches (made by blushing prefects who found it difficult talking about these deeper matters). This is a good point actually...I guess I tend to think of the CS series as the books I read when I was younger (the first 20 or so then a couple of random ones from later on) so my main impressions come from them. Whilst I've read all the later ones, I read them as an adult and so was able to stomach the religious stuff with a bit more patience and could just skip the parts that I found objectionable without it putting me off reading the series as it would have done if I was younger. I guess the religious overtones of the first half or so of the series reflect more of my experiences at junior school where we had to sing hymns and had prayers every day so there was a Christian ethos but it wasn't a focus and I think I just presumed that all schools were like that and you had to put up with it whether you believed it or not!

Author:	MJKB [ Fri Apr 09, 2010 2:00 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Religious Spirit- Goes to It
KathrynW wrote: I guess the religious overtones of the first half or so of the series reflect more of my experiences at junior school where we had to sing hymns and had prayers every day so there was a Christian ethos but it wasn't a focus and I think I just presumed that all schools were like that and you had to put up with it whether you believed it or not! Lucky you! My Junior school was a convent boarding school which was strictly pre V2 Irish Catholic, even though V2 had been closed a few years. We had Mass every morning, except Thursday when we had a lie in until 7.45, the rosary every evening with Benediction - which I loved, still do - twice a week, and a two hour religious 'talk' on Sunday afternoon.