I think Miss Slater gets a raw deal. To beign with she's portrayed as jolly and well liked if too toung to take over the Headship - then by Barbara she's turned into someone widely detested. Unless she undergoes a visible personality change in Changes I think EBD just made a victim of her so that Nancy Wilmot would shine even more brightly by comparison.

BTW I am very impressed with Joey during the Pam Slater-baiting episode - she's the one that stops the teasing from the other mistresses.

Just as a slight aside, I think that what happens with Matron Webb is very realistic - both from a 1930s viewpoint and from a modern viewpoint - from Madge's side. An unnamed matron whom we never meet leaves suddenly. Madge is trying to deal with running the school - which at that time is expanding rapidly - and is also looking after Joey, Juliet and Robin and (presumably!) trying to find some time to spend with Jem. She just physically hasn't got the time to go to Britain (bearing in mind that at this point in the school's life it really has to have an English-speaking matron), so she has to take on someone whom she hasn't interviewed personally, and she ends up stuck with someone who just doesn't fit in at all and very rapidly puts everyone's backs up.

Matron Webb was only employed a very short time, but I bet if she was around now she'd get a few quid for unfair dismissal.

I actually think Miss Bubb was incompetent in a way. She may have been an excellent teacher but a terrible Head as she always drew the reins so tightly. I think what adds to the argument of her not being particularly good isn't just her time at the Chalet School but also the fact her own school was a flop afterwards.

Maybe the lack of job security at the time was another reason why there were not that many incidences of staff disagreeing with school policy, especially as I can't imagine any of the CS mistresses belonged to a union.

There's no suggestion that any of the mistresses ever felt uncomfortable or insecure - I only wish I worked in a place where the atmosphere was as good as it seems to've been there and the "office politics" seem to've been minimal.

Living under the same roof in a restricted environment must have added to that: it wasn't as if someone could just stomp off after a clash with a colleague knowing that they wouldn't see them again until the next morning by which time they'd both have had plenty of time to calm down, so maybe that made people more inclined to bite their tongues than they would have been otherwise.

People are saying that Pam Slater was ridiculed for leaving the CS. I don't remember that. I do remember the little 'misunderstanding' between herself and Biddy re the German,- funny thing is, I could understand why Pam was a tad cold towards one time pupil for the advice, however kindly it was meant. With regard to her decision not to go to Switzerland with the school was there that much negative comment or feelings of resentment towards her from anyone. Am I missing some episode in a book?

"You funk! Fancy missing the mountains and lakes for a silly reason like that! Oh, Slater, you are an idiot!"

"Thanks for the bouquet! ... Where I'm going, I shall be head of the maths department and can run it to suit myself and that'll be a change of all these years of just being an assistant mistress!"

"I say, you people, do you think we ought to be lounging around like this in the presence of anyone so important?"

Post subject: Re: Women: When Staff Go Bad Reply with quote
Pam Slater says that she isn't moving to Switzerland, and Ruth Derwent expresses surprise. Pam says that she doesn't like the idea of having to speak French and German all the time. It's a perfectly reasonable remark - how would most people feel if they were suddenly told that from now on they'd have to do their job in three languages - but Rosalie Dene - who's not usually outspoken or tactless - says:

Quote:
"You funk! Fancy missing the mountains and lakes for a silly reason like that! Oh, Slater, you are an idiot!"

And isn't it interesting that the male staff are allowed all sorts of idiosyncracies and really quite unreasonable and unpredictable behaviour at times - as, I suppose, is Grizel, in her way, though her circs are explained.

Maybe the male teachers' weird behaviour is excused on the grounds that they're "artistic" - male teachers only seem to be allowed if they teach either art or music.

That's a really good point. We aren't told much about Miss Browne, but it sounds as if a) she doesn't really want to be running a school but needs the money and can't think of any better alternative ways to earn a living and b) she doesn't have the necessary strength of character to be a headmistress. Unfortunately there must have been a lot of people like her at small schools in the early decades of the 20th century.

I think that to some extent, Mlle Lepattre is the same. She is a lovely person and very popular with all the girls, and there's nothing to suggest that she isn't good at teaching French, but I don't think that she was strong enough to be headmistress. I would think that EBD realised that Mlle wouldn't be able to cope once the school got larger and Madge's time was increasingly taken up by her family and that that's why she replaced her with Hilda - although I wish she'd let Mlle inherit enough money to retire on, like Miss Browne did, instead of making her get ill .

And yet it was such a good storyline. Some of the best scenes post Joey leaving involve Mademoiselle's illness. I think EBD handled it really well

I always wondered what Mademoiselle privately made of Madge's marriage, after they'd thrown in their lots together to start the CS not so very long before.

Madge and Mademoiselle are business partners as well as friends, and as Mademoiselle has sunk all her capital into the CS, Madge's withdrawal from running the school on a daily basis will potentially have a big impact on her own life and on the success of the enterprise.

I agree with the comments about the overall standards of the teachers being very high - but then we rarely see much in the way of discord within the staffroom - so much so that the few episodes that are seen stand out - one being Pam Slater when she announces she'll not be going to Switzerland and another when I think Hilary Burn or Peggy Burnett annoy an older member of staff who can remember her as a Middle.

In the staffroom there were repercussions. Miss Charlesworth meeting Miss Burnett in the doorway, demanded to be told why the latter had made Althea Glenyon late for history. Miss Burnett apologised somewhat flippantly.
“Was she late? Sorry, I’m sure, but it’s hard enough to fit everything in and I have to do things like fittings when I can. You can be thankful you don’t have extra bits and pieces in your day’s work as I do.”
“And you be thankful you don’t have to spend half your evenings correcting essays as I do!” Miss Charlesworth lashed back, before going on to deposit an armful of the said essays on her table and catch up another bundle waiting to be given back to Va before swinging out of the room, her nose in the air.
Altogether, Althea’s shoes were responsible for more than one unpleasant feeling.

“ Why were you late, Althea?”
“Miss Burnett was fitting me with new game shoes,” Althea mumbled.
“Yes. Then that is explained.” It also explained to the Head why the two mistresses had seemed to be so chilly to each other during Mittagessen. She knew Miss Charlesworth’s idiosyncrasy and also Peggy Burnett’s casual ways. Well, that was something the two must get over between themselves, thank goodness!

As for Hilda, I suppose she's in the same awkward position as any other boss is when two staff members have had a disagreement - sometimes these things can blow over very quickly, but sometimes they can escalate in which case it might've been better to've intervened earlier on, but it's hard to know which way any one case is going to go. The "thank goodness" comment is interesting, though ...

I'm with Miss Charlesworth there - Peggy shouldn't have made Althea late for another lesson unless it was because of something urgent.

...or was just trying to make her presence felt as some sort of power trip because she felt that a matron might be seen as being less important than a teacher!

I could see the various matrons disrupting classes as a petty way at getting back at teachers for not giving them the respect they deserve!

I would love to see someone try and be disresepctful to Matey

... but do we ever actually see a situation where someone says 'OK, it's snowing, so extra lessons all round'?

I would have been furious, either as a mistress or a pupil-victim, about Matey dragging people out of lessons to tidy their drawers.

I would have been furious, either as a mistress or a pupil-victim, about Matey dragging people out of lessons to tidy their drawers.

Alison H wrote:
I'm with Miss Charlesworth there - Peggy shouldn't have made Althea late for another lesson unless it was because of something urgent.

I would have thought it was as effective (if not more so) for the pupil to lose some of their free time.

I think part of the reason for calling people out of classes was to make the offense a public embarrassment -- rather like the Untidy Badge given the saintly Helen in Jane Eyre. Not that it seems to have been the most effective deterrent in the world, though the culprits do blush now and then....

Doesn't it say in one (or possibly more) of the books that they get called away from whatever they are doing - so presuming that it takes Matey at least a couple of hours to go around and inspect every single dormitory thoroughly, surely that could mean lessons, break or possibly even prep?

I realise that it was just a plot device to leave Jocelyn and co unsupervised (although saying that there was a phone call for Len would have done just as well), but it was absolutely appalling that the Head Girl was humiliated in front of a group of younger girls like that. Everyone has it dinned into them from day one that the prefects are Very Important People who represent the Head and must be treated with the utmost respect, and then Len gets hauled out of a room full of naughty Middles because she's put her hairbrush in the wrong place or not lined her socks up neatly!

If prefects are supposed to be the Head's representatives, I'm just trying to imagine Miss Annersley being called away from a lesson because her room isn't tidy

It's not Miss Annersley, ChubbyMonkey, but I did once write a short drabble entitled *Adjusting One's Drawers* on much the same theme, which is in the archives. I've been trying to post a link to it, but the thing won't open when I do that!

I think Mademoiselle was a good Head, and I really like that EBD had a Frenchwoman as head at a time when foreigners were widely despised (just look at Miss Browne's attitude).

EBD seemed to be setting Nancy Wilmot up as Hilda's successor, so maybe we'd have seen Kathie stay on so that she and Nancy could form a kind of double act in the way that Hilda and Nell did. Most of the other mistresses who stayed on long term seemed to be fairly minor characters - Rosalie and Matey featured much more than people like Miss Derwent did.