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#1: Relationships: Biddy and Eugen Author: jennifer, Location: Taiwan

Posted: Wed Sep 19, 2007 7:48 am
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This week we have Biddy (nee O'Ryan) and Eugen Courvosier.

Biddy has a classic Chalet history: she is rescued by the school at age ten, finishes as a prefect, does her university course and, after a brief digression, returns to teach. After moving to Switzerland, she meets a handsome doctor during a mishap on a school trip. He looks at her interestedly, and in quick order they are married, he gets a job at the San, and they have three children, twins Marie and Pat and a son, Eugen Jean.

What do you think of their relationship? It's interesting to note that of all the marriages shown during the series this is one of the only (if not the only) international couple (Biddy is Irish, Eugen Swiss). How do they compare to the other Mistress-Student/Doctor relationships? (i.e. Hilary and Phil Graves, Joey and Jack Maynard, Madge and Jem Russell, etc)

#2: Author: Mel, Location: UP NORTH

Posted: Wed Sep 19, 2007 9:33 am
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I think it is refreshing to have Biddy marry a local, but sadly we don't see much of them to form an opinion about their relationship. As an orphan with no home apart from the school, she was nicely settled.

#3: Author: Jennie, Location: Cambridgeshire

Posted: Wed Sep 19, 2007 11:35 am
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I always felt it was disappointing to see so little of Biddy after she married and had children.

#4: Author: Róisín, Location: Ireland

Posted: Wed Sep 19, 2007 1:40 pm
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How do they meet again? Now that I *want* to remember, all I can think of is every other school trip where a disaster leads to a mistress meeting a doctor (Gillian, Hilary...) except Biddy... Confused

#5: Author: Lottie, Location: Humphrey's Corner

Posted: Wed Sep 19, 2007 1:46 pm
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I think Margot falls into Lake Lucerne when Emerence bumps into her. Prunella dives in to rescue her, and Eugen Courvoisier turns up at just the right moment to take them all off and get them dry, and administer any necessary medical treatment. It's in Does It Again.

#6: Author: LizzieC, Location: Canterbury, UK

Posted: Wed Sep 19, 2007 1:49 pm
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Róisín wrote:

How do they meet again? Now that I *want* to remember, all I can think of is every other school trip where a disaster leads to a mistress meeting a doctor (Gillian, Hilary...) except Biddy... Confused

In Does It Again after Margot falls into the lake and Prunella goes in after her. Eugen is the doctor who comes to their rescue and I seem to remember that Biddy was in charge of the doomed party Wink

ETA: Someone beat me to it! Smile

#7: Author: Róisín, Location: Ireland

Posted: Wed Sep 19, 2007 1:55 pm
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Aaaah, thank you! Very Happy

Was Eugen the man walking the big dog then? Do we hear about the dog again? Laughing

#8: Author: Rosalin, Location: Swansea

Posted: Wed Sep 19, 2007 5:31 pm
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Róisín wrote:

Was Eugen the man walking the big dog then? Do we hear about the dog again? Laughing

I don't think we do. Perhaps it was one of the conditions attached to joining the san? Your family mustn't rival Joey's in size (I imagine most people would be quite glad) and your dog's size musn't rival Bruno?

Aside from the overdone Irish brogue I always liked Biddy, so I was glad she got to marry and have a family, particularly with her background. The fact it was the only mixed marriage in the series completely passed me by until I found the board, but it is a bit odd, considering how keen she was on not looking down on 'foreigners'.

I don't think we see enough of them together to say much about their relationship, other than that they are a fairly typical EBD husband/wife. I agree with Jennie that it's a shame we didn't see more of the married Biddy. As she was on the Platz it would have been possible, but I suppose not so relevant in a school story.

#9: Author: Kate, Location: Ireland

Posted: Wed Sep 19, 2007 5:36 pm
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Didn't Bette Rincini marry an Italian? Maybe that's my imagination though.

#10: Author: Róisín, Location: Ireland

Posted: Wed Sep 19, 2007 6:19 pm
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I thought the living arrangements might be a little strange - they share a chalet with Hilary and Phil Graves, don't they? I think one couple/family has the top floor and one has the bottom. Was this just due to a general housing shortage (and if so, why did Chalet people never build?) or was it because they wanted to live together (although they never seemed that close as students/teachers). I imagine it was great when there was a small baby and maybe Hilary could give Biddy a hand or viceversa, but also there should have been *some* tensions. Confused

#11: Author: Mrs Redboots, Location: London, UK

Posted: Wed Sep 19, 2007 6:55 pm
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Rosalin wrote:

Aside from the overdone Irish brogue I always liked Biddy, so I was glad she got to marry and have a family, particularly with her background.

So did I. I'm glad she married happily.

But the brogue was probably definitely cultivated - one of my husband's nephews was only about 6 when he moved to this country from his native Ireland, but has retained (on purpose) his accent - his sisters have long since discarded theirs. So for me, Biddy sounding as Irish as she dared most of the time is quite normal and - well, not sensible, but whatever the opposite of far-fetched is!

#12: Author: Katherine, Location: London, UK

Posted: Wed Sep 19, 2007 7:26 pm
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I always imagined the housing situation as being more like two flats, they just happened to share a building.

#13: Author: Tara, Location: Malvern, Worcestershire

Posted: Wed Sep 19, 2007 10:15 pm
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Me, too.

It always annoyed me mightily that EBD married off my favourite characters and they faded into the background, and I love Biddy, but I was quite touched by her gaining a family. There's a comment somewhere about the her baby being in a cradle that had rocked generations of Courvoisiers, and that seemed a nice ending to her lonely history.

#14: Author: KB, Location: Melbourne, Australia

Posted: Thu Sep 20, 2007 2:25 am
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Kate wrote:

Didn't Bette Rincini marry an Italian? Maybe that's my imagination though.

You're right - Dr di Bersetti. However I think most people are referring to English girls marrying non-English people. If we're thinking of 'foreigners' marrying 'foreigners', you also have Gisela and Gottfried, Marie and Eugen, Frieda and Bruno, Simone and Andre, etc.

*acknowledges nitpick that Biddy is in fact Iris and not English, but feels that the central issue of the argument stands*

#15: Author: Lesley, Location: Allhallows, Kent

Posted: Thu Sep 20, 2007 5:00 am
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I think the query was whether anyone else married someone not of their nationality - so Biddy (Irish) and Eugen (Swiss) would count as would Juliet(English) and Donal (Irish). Gottfried/Gisela, Marie/Eugen, Frieda/Bruno are all Austrian, while Simone/Andre are both French. Is Bette Rincine Austrian? She has an Italian sounding name. If she is then marrying Dr di Bersetti would also count as a mixed marriage.

#16: Author: Kate, Location: Ireland

Posted: Thu Sep 20, 2007 7:02 am
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Lesley wrote:

I think the query was whether anyone else married someone not of their nationality - so Biddy (Irish) and Eugen (Swiss) would count as would Juliet(English) and Donal (Irish). Gottfried/Gisela, Marie/Eugen, Frieda/Bruno are all Austrian, while Simone/Andre are both French.

Exactly.

Lesley wrote:

Is Bette Rincine Austrian? She has an Italian sounding name. If she is then marrying Dr di Bersetti would also count as a mixed marriage.

I thought she was Austrian, she definitely speaks German and is grouped with "the Tyrolese girls" in School At. Possibly she's at least half Italian though (which presumably means her parents had a mixed marriage!) And if we're including parents, there is also Robin's parents and Evadne's parents.

#17: Author: LizB, Location: Oxon, England

Posted: Thu Sep 20, 2007 7:06 am
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I think there's a mention of Bette being Italian and therefore having a hot temper - possibly somewhere around the time of the sherbeting the basins incident in School At. But she's also Gisela's cousin, so maybe not completely Italian - or maybe Gisela is partly Italian (she does have Italian handwriting, after all).

#18: Author: Jennie, Location: Cambridgeshire

Posted: Thu Sep 20, 2007 10:06 am
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The Italian handwriting isn't a clue, I'm afraid. It's just a style of handwriting.

#19: Author: JayB, Location: SE England

Posted: Thu Sep 20, 2007 12:46 pm
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The Austro-Italian border is one of those frontiers that's moved about over time, with consequent mixing up of people. Part of the southern Tyrol was taken from Austria and handed to Italy in 1918. So the Maranis, Rincinis, di Bersettis are Austrian citizens, but presumably of Italian origin. (The Maranis are dark, aren't they, in contrast to Frieda's supposedly typically Tyrolean 'apple blossom fairness').

#20: Author: Billie, Location: The south of England.

Posted: Thu Sep 20, 2007 2:19 pm
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I'm pretty sure it says in School at that Bette is half Italian. Unfortunately all my books are at my parents' house so I can't go and check.

#21: Author: Torri, Location: Connecticut

Posted: Thu Sep 20, 2007 9:33 pm
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Do we ever get a description of Eugen?

#22: Author: jennifer, Location: Taiwan

Posted: Fri Sep 21, 2007 1:57 am
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Either dark, or fair with grey eyes (it changes from one book to another)

He's described as pleasant looking (rather than handsome), in Theodora. In Reunion he's described as having fair hair and grey eyes, but in Challenge he is a dark, pleasant looking man.

His native language is Swiss German.

#23: Author: Mel, Location: UP NORTH

Posted: Fri Sep 21, 2007 9:55 am
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He must be fair. Don't dark girls always marry fair men in Chalet Land?

#24: Author: Alison H, Location: Manchester

Posted: Thu Sep 27, 2007 2:49 pm
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Bette is definitely half-Italian. Presumably that was quite common at the time, as South Tyrol only became part of Italy (rather than Austria) after the First World War, and Rincini's an Italian-sounding name (and for that matter so is Marani Confused

).

I wish we'd seen more of Biddy and Eugen after their marriage, especially as there are so few "international" couples in the books.

I love the bit just after they've first met, when Eugen expresses an interest in seeing the San and Jack tells Joey that he thinks Eugen just wants an excuse to go to the Platz because he fancies Biddy - it's a really sweet conversation, and very rare in CS-land where couples normally just get engaged without any prior hint that they're "interested" in each other!

#25: Author: Lesley, Location: Allhallows, Kent

Posted: Thu Sep 27, 2007 4:51 pm
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I especially like it as Joey completely dismisses the idea that Eugen is interested in Biddy - her powers of observation were clearly off that day! Laughing

#26: Author: Jennie, Location: Cambridgeshire

Posted: Fri Sep 28, 2007 11:33 am
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Perhaps she felt that Biddy didn't deserve a doctor, being a wild Irish scamp.

#27: Author: Caty, Location: New Zealand

Posted: Sat Oct 06, 2007 12:09 pm
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Róisín wrote:

I thought the living arrangements might be a little strange - they share a chalet with Hilary and Phil Graves, don't they? I think one couple/family has the top floor and one has the bottom. Was this just due to a general housing shortage (and if so, why did Chalet people never build?) or was it because they wanted to live together

I worked for a Summer in a little village in Bavaria. Most of the houses/chalets were split like this, so it wasn't uncommon. No stranger than the standard terraced housing at home.

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