I can't understand anyone saying that it was a blessing that the man who'd been injured in the car accident with the Rutherfords (it was in one of the later Swiss books but I forget which) had died just because he had no close relatives living.

I find it interesting that no-one uses that argument for Naomi. She has no close family and no close friends, is lame, and will never pursue her dream of dancing, but no-one says that if she dies it will be for the best.

The prefects left their room in a body. They had kept together most of the time since the news had come, feeling comfort from each other. The Head was in her drawing-room, and when they arrived, she lifted a strained face which made Mary-Lou run forward to kneel beside her. “Miss Annersley! It wasn’t your fault!” she cried. “I know you’ve got the responsibility, but please, please don’t look like that! Naomi is stronger than she was when she first came, and—and we’ve all been praying that she may come through. And even—even if she—she doesn’t, she’ll have gone to join her father and mother, so it will be all right for her!”

I find the "it's for the best" and "it's God's will" arguments to very inappropriate in some cases. It's one thing if someone is permanently incapacitated and in pain, or very elderly, in which case death can be a release.

I think brain fever is the old-fashioned term for meningitis. It was the name given to the disease which caused Helen Keller's loss of sight and hearing even when I was a child in the sixties, which I've always assumed to be meningitis.

But don't get me started on the whole standing in a doorway in the cold for thirty seconds immediately causing bronchitis.

And, with the annals of the school being so well known, her fretting for Jo when they were stuck on the glacier was out of place, as a shepherds' hut always conveniently appears when the staff and girls need one.

And, with the annals of the school being so well known, her fretting for Jo when they were stuck on the glacier was out of place, as a shepherds' hut always conveniently appears when the staff and girls need one.

Yes but that fretting is unlikely to make you develop TB is it?

I wonder if Joey was perhaps asthmatic? Am I right that asthma attacks can be triggered by very cold air? That would fit with her doing better in less polluted air, and outgrowing her health problems in her teens.

One depiction of grief that I'm not sure how I feel about is Joey's reaction to Jack's reported death in Highland Twins. I first read the book as an adult, recognised it as being quite plausible, and found it quite well written. But I wonder now how it might affect someone reading it as a child.

I've heard that cold air can make asthma worse, but it's not been my personal experience.

Cold air makes my chest hurt and get tight, and I definitely find it harder to breathe - I also have difficulty breathing in high humidity.

Extra doses of vitamin C don't reduce the length or severity of the common cold,according to a new review of 30 studies involving 11,350 people conducted by the Cochrane library. However, this study did find that Vitamin C reduced risk of colds by half in patients exposed to short periods of extreme physical or cold stress or both.

I've always found the fascination with almost any minor illness or injury needing to turn into something far more serious rather odd. Its obviously (IMHO) part of EBD's way of injecting tension and drama into the books but it happens with such alarming regularity - particularly Joey in the early books - that it starts to become really unbelievable - in every book I think until she gets married Joey is involved in some adventure which ends with her falling in water, down a cliff, out all night and everyone ends up sitting by what is always then portrayed as her death bed only to find that 'the fever lifts' and she's right as rain again the next day. It does come as a bit of a relief in the later books to find these'accidents' although still fairly frequent (cos thats what adds the drama) don't result in all this death bed stuff.

Yup - me too - I have an extra Combined Preventive/Reliever for the winter months as the cold air tends to get to my chest...

JackieP

I am always surprised when reading about the difficulties caused by a sprained ankle!

Re-reading "Gay from China" this morning and there's a terribly odd bit at the beginning, where Jo (I think) is talking about an ex-mistress whose daughter fell out of a train aged four or so, struck her head and has been rather strange ever since, but is gradually beginning to get better and is eected to be fully cured aged 14 or so. (???and socially well-adjusted??)

So strange in fact that she has her own separate set of rooms, nurse and hasn't yet seen her 5 month old baby sister yet. Shades of Mrs Rochester anyone?

And they're the ones who never marry and provide really strong alternative role models, subliminally questioning all the 'marriage as the end for which God made woman' stuff. Could even be argued that they're the ones who live their own story, while Jo (despite the eleven kids!) can only create stories for others ... bit of a hobby horse of mine!

It's Carty's daughter, btw, who later vanishes (or does she actually die?) when Carty resurfaces in Theodora.

You remember Margaret and how ill she was after her accident? She’s quite fit now; engaged to an airman in B.O.A.C. so their home may be anywhere.

Ray wrote:

Carty's daughter improves over the years since Carty writes in Theodora:

Ray wrote:

Carty's daughter improves over the years since Carty writes in Theodora:

ML's probably the most tragic of the latter CS characters - she loses her father without ever really knowing him; loses her Gran just as she's hitting the most difficult stage of growing up; loses her step-father not all that long after and then finally loses her mother, all before the poor girl's 22 and unlike Verity {who obviously goes through much the same thing} hasn't found another support system.

As for Mary-Lou - she is not being punished, because every death brings her closer to Joey! Within ten years she loses all her relatives, step and otherwise, even the Barrasses who might have offered her a home. Her only home is Freudesheim at the end of the series. Jo was always besotted with her and so was EBD!