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#1: Girls: The Misfits Author: jennifer, Location: Taiwan

Posted: Wed Aug 15, 2007 6:04 am
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There are a handful of girls over the course of the series who never really fit in or manage to become 'Real Chalet Girls' (tm) - they're always on the outskirts of the goings on. Why do you think these girls never really adapt? Is it a character flaw in them, a weakness in the school or something else altogether? Is there any character trait they have in common?

This is a bit different than the 'bad girls' discussion, as some bad girls (like Joyce Linton or Grizel Cochrane) have no problem making friends and getting involved, in spite of their behaviour.

The perennial misfits include Joan Baker, Sue Meadows, Phil Craven, Mary Woodley and Yseult Pertwee - other examples are welcome.

#2: Author: Alison H, Location: Manchester

Posted: Wed Aug 15, 2007 8:05 am
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I feel very sorry for these girls: it's awful when someone doesn't fit in at school, and it must be even worse when it's a boarding school. It's realistic that there are people like this in the books, but I do feel that EBD's very unsympathetic towards them and so are the other characters in the books. Some of them, such as Phil Craven, are genuinely unpleasant, but others just don't seem to be given much of a chance.

It's hard when - as with Mary Woodley - you're in a year group that's dominated by a big gang, but the staff always seem to regard the way that "The Gang" dominate things as being a good thing. No-one seems to want to be friendly with Joan Baker even though she becomes quite a nice girl - for example, helping people across the flooded stream in Richenda despite the risk to her own safety. Odette Mercier, who is just unhappy, is virtually ignored by everyone except Con (and, for about five minutes, Len and Ricki). Yseult Pertwee, at 16, is put in a form where most of the girls are 14 or younger - admittedly it's because her work is poor, but from a social viewpoint it was bound to be hard - and is only given a minor part in the play even though we're told that she has a good speaking voice and it would've meant a lot to her to've been given more of a chance.

I know that in a big institution it's hard to take everyone's needs, especially those of people who don't quite conform, into account, but I still feel that some people got a very raw deal.

#3: Author: Jennie, Location: Cambridgeshire

Posted: Wed Aug 15, 2007 11:39 am
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I think that the problem was that EBD needed these characters to remain unassimilated so that we could see the superiority of the proper CS girl.

#4: Author: Caroline, Location: Manchester

Posted: Wed Aug 15, 2007 11:48 am
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Or just because it makes for a good plot to have some conflict / contrast amongst the girls...

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

Posted: Wed Aug 15, 2007 1:02 pm
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Jennie wrote:

I think that the problem was that EBD needed these characters to remain unassimilated so that we could see the superiority of the proper CS girl.

Caroline wrote:

Or just because it makes for a good plot to have some conflict / contrast amongst the girls...

Probably both actually - and it is very difficult to write a story where there is no conflict. I can remember reading that when Star Trek TNG (TM) started Gene Rodenberry's rule was that there should be no conflict between the main characters. It wasn't until his death that writers started to show some conflict and, therefore, some growth in those characters. EBD tries to do the same, especially in the later books. There must be no conflict between the main characters, because they are perfect, but she must have conflict and so she introduces characters just to act as fall guys. Unfortunately this means most of these characters have very little personality and probably as much life expectancy as the red shirted security men in the original Star Trek!

#6: Author: Jennie, Location: Cambridgeshire

Posted: Thu Aug 16, 2007 10:50 am
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Joan Baker lasted until the Sixth Form, but even when she was working hard and playing hockey with all her might, EBD still portrayed her as an outsider. And it couldn't have been because of her size.

#7: Author: Kathy_S, Location: midwestern US

Posted: Thu Aug 16, 2007 1:32 pm
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Lesley wrote:

as much life expectancy as the red shirted security men in the original Star Trek!

love the analogy Laughing

#8: Author: jennifer, Location: Taiwan

Posted: Thu Aug 16, 2007 4:12 pm
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The misfit who intruiges me the most is Sue Meadows. She's not unpleasant, or anti-social, or badly brought up or anything, but she never becomes part of the group, or makes friends, or anything. She's reserved, and quiet, and no-one seems to really make an effort to include her, or be friends with her. I'd like to have known more of her personal story.

I can't see Yseult really fitting in - as someone pointed out, she's a good two years older than the average age, and some of her classmates are nearly four years younger than she is. Sixteen to thirteen or fourteen is a huge difference, and she has a background and experience that would make socialising with the relatively unsophisticated Chalet kids even harder.

Joan never lives down her cheap background. Her first term is abysmally bad, but no worse than Cornelia Flower's, for example (lying, cheating, destructive pranks, premeditated running away, defiance), but it's very clear that Joan is not the right stuff.

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

Posted: Thu Aug 16, 2007 10:47 pm
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I've sometimes wondered if the problem with Sue Meadows is that she has come to the school expecting to still be super-close friends with Richenda, only to find that Rikki has a very close-knit group of friends already and that Sue has to find her own place. Perhaps Sue finds that more difficult than she expected and does not try particularly hard, so she is left a bit on the outer.

#10: Author: tiffinata, Location: melbourne, australia

Posted: Fri Aug 17, 2007 12:17 am
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Could it just be EBD needed names? These girls are plot devices, never to be allowed to grow.

#11: Author: Fiona Mc, Location: Bendigo, Australia

Posted: Fri Aug 17, 2007 1:51 am
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KB wrote:

I've sometimes wondered if the problem with Sue Meadows is that she has come to the school expecting to still be super-close friends with Richenda, only to find that Rikki has a very close-knit group of friends already and that Sue has to find her own place. Perhaps Sue finds that more difficult than she expected and does not try particularly hard, so she is left a bit on the outer.

I think your thinking of Sue Mason. She's Richenda's friend while Sue Meadows was in Barbara Chester's form in Barbara of the CS. She's Leila Elstob's cousin and from all accounts Sue's purpose in life is to entertain her cousin whom is acknowledged is a spoilt brat and Hilda Annersley says in Mary Lou of the CS that she doen't have an easy time of it at all as her Aunt didn't even want her being a boarder during winter as she was there to keep Leila company.

I always felt sorry for her and think that in her case sometimes there are people that are on the outer and harder to get to know. You can't write about everyone in depth so I think there will always be characters whom we hardly know. And if we add Sue to the misfits then what about Mercy and Faith Barbour in Tyrol and people like that that we hardly know

Last edited by Fiona Mc on Fri Aug 17, 2007 7:36 am; edited 1 time in total

#12: Author: jennifer, Location: Taiwan

Posted: Fri Aug 17, 2007 1:51 am
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KB wrote:

That's Sue Mason - Sue Meadows is the girl who came out to be a companion to Leila Elstob. She's one of the only day girls in the first year at Switzerland.

From A CS Girl from Kenya

Quote:

But then, no one expected Sue to talk. She was a reserved creature and though she had been at the school for two terms, none of them knew her much better than they had at first.

So she's not just a background name (like Sue Mason), but is described as being a loner without many friends, but no real reason why, unlike the others. She's last mentioned in Richenda, so she's there for a while.

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

Posted: Fri Aug 17, 2007 2:45 am
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You're right, I am. Apologies.

I don't blame Sue Meadows for being the way she is. She was presumably torn from her own school and friends to come to Switzerland. She may have lived with her aunt and cousin before, in which case she would have been very much an unwanted member of the family (with mother paying all the attention to darling Leila) and as she is only at school for lessons, at least for the first term of two, so she has no chance to make friends.

#14: Author: Caroline, Location: Manchester

Posted: Fri Aug 17, 2007 8:03 am
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tiffinata wrote:

Could it just be EBD needed names? These girls are plot devices, never to be allowed to grow.

That's my feeling.

I do have to say, though, that I think it's one of the weaknesses of the later books that the villains / girls-Our-Heroine-has-trouble-with are often 1 dimensional plot devices rather than girls with their own character (Grizel, Thekla, Joyce, Betty etc.) who, to some extent at least, we care about.

I also frequently mix up Sue Mason and Sue Meadows. Which is pretty much indicative of the impact each girl has Rolling Eyes

#15: Author: Jennie, Location: Cambridgeshire

Posted: Fri Aug 17, 2007 11:01 am
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Perhaps Sue Meadows decided that it was easier not ot make friends, knowing that her aunt was paying the fees on sufferance as it were, and not being able to join in many activities because of Leila.

#16: Author: jennifer, Location: Taiwan

Posted: Sat Aug 18, 2007 3:48 am
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Caroline wrote:

I do have to say, though, that I think it's one of the weaknesses of the later books that the villains / girls-Our-Heroine-has-trouble-with are often 1 dimensional plot devices rather than girls with their own character (Grizel, Thekla, Joyce, Betty etc.) who, to some extent at least, we care about.

I think the difference is that with those examples we see them develop after their big crisis. In the ten or so Swiss books, we get girl+problem as a story line, but then the girl fades completely into the background.

Grizel we see all the way through to middle age, Thekla is there for two books, Joyce reappears for years afterwards, and we have her connection to Gilliian as well, Betty and Elizabeth are tracked from age eleven or so to seniors. We see a lot more than badgirl-reform-disappear

With the later books there are so many more characters that the bad girls seem to show up more as plot devices for the more regular characters, rather than in their own right. The series then ends, so we don't a chance for a gradual progression.

I think the worst two examples are Evelyn Ross, who gets a book devoted to her and is never mentioned again, and Emilia Casabon whose only mention is a detailed paragraph about her background.

#17: Author: Fiona Mc, Location: Bendigo, Australia

Posted: Sat Aug 18, 2007 11:26 am
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jennifer wrote:

I think the worst two examples are Evelyn Ross, who gets a book devoted to her and is never mentioned again, and Emilia Casabon whose only mention is a detailed paragraph about her background.

Who's Emilia Casabon? Surprised

#18: Author: jennifer, Location: Taiwan

Posted: Sat Aug 18, 2007 12:08 pm
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Fiona Mc wrote:

jennifer wrote:

I think the worst two examples are Evelyn Ross, who gets a book devoted to her and is never mentioned again, and Emilia Casabon whose only mention is a detailed paragraph about her background.

Who's Emilia Casabon? Surprised

She gets a detailed description in Summer Term

Quote:

They all had except a new girl, Emilia Casabon who had arrived the previous week. The prefects knew that she was here because her mother was at the big Gornetz Sanatorium at the other end of the Platz. What none of them, not even Emilia herself, knew, was that Mme Casabon was not expected to live through the summer. Emilia was thirteen, small for her age, and very dark. She was also, as Upper IVa, in which form she had been placed had speedily discovered, brilliantly clever. Her maths was excellent; she wrote English with style and her other languages were fluent. In short she had an amazing number of gifts. Only one seemed to have been left out - the gift of making friends. The girls, obeying the school's unwritten law, had done their best, but she remained aloof and chilly.

And that's the only mention of her in any of the books. It's like she's being set up for a story line that never happens.

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

Posted: Sat Aug 18, 2007 12:56 pm
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Poor kid - perhaps one of us might be bitten with a plot...

#20: Author: brie, Location: Glasgow, aka the land of boredom

Posted: Sat Aug 18, 2007 4:03 pm
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Lesley wrote:

Poor kid - perhaps one of us might be bitten with a plot...

Don't even start Lesley- unless it's you who will be doing the writing!! Razz

I just saw this too and I was soooooooo tempted to start something, but I already have drabbles coming out of me ears Laughing

#21: Joan Baker as misfit Author: Sunglass, Location: Usually London

Posted: Sun Aug 19, 2007 3:24 pm
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I always see Joan Baker as something of a special case among the misfits, because in her you can see something of EBD's own class anxieties. I'm sure her portrayal of Joan's combination of working-class/very lower-middle class origins and sexual awareness (in relative terms!) has been discussed on here before countless times, but it came to mind again when I happened to be reading an old discussion on whether we can reliably gather things about EBD's own worldview from her fiction.

One of the things I do think we can intuit in many places in the CS books is an uneasiness about class, despite Joey's conventional little sermon to Rosamund Lilley about Jesus being a carpenter etc etc. I only skimmed a library copy of Helen McClellend's biography years ago, but from what I remember, EBD came from a not very prosperous lower-middle class household whose 'respectability' also had a knockback in the visible absence of a father who was inconveneniently not dead or in the Amazon but shacked up with another woman. Definitely aspirational and an achiever herself, she's humane on the fate of impoverished Tyrolean peasants in the early CS books, and characters like Margot Venables and Elisaveta who are well-born but down on their luck. Rosamund Lilley passes because her mother is an ex-servant who's passed on niceties from her employer (like Biddy O'Ryan's mother) - even if said mother entertains Mrs Gay in the kitchen using a metal teapot.

But I think she's visibly less sure about the 'undeserving' working-class, like Joan, and she's frankly judgemental about her 'cheap' ideas (and doesn't she also 'wolf' 'cheap cake' somewhere?), poor personal hygiene, lack of interest in religion and her knowing self-presentation - and this seems to be ineradicable. Joan never quite becomes acceptably middle-class, even though we keep being told she is quite a 'nice girl' really - and there are relatively few characters EBD doesn't show eventually becoming true CS girls. I think Joan is the invention of someone trying to distance herself from that kind of social background, and also cross at someone who doesn't care that her manners etc are 'wrong'.

Besides Joan, I think you can see evidence of the same kind of class anxiety in EBD's obsession with everyone continually looking 'fresh' and 'dainty' - words she also often uses about rooms and houses to a nearly obsessive extent. She has an absolute horror of dirt and dinginess - it also explains (to me at least) something of the spirit in which she has the Maynard triplets outrageously criticise Ruey Richardson for not making the chalet pretty with rugs and tableloths!

#22: Author: JayB, Location: SE England

Posted: Sun Aug 19, 2007 3:43 pm
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Well, cleanliness and personal hygiene were important, and more difficult to achieve, in the '20s and '30s, when infectious diseases were more common and more serious than they are now. Many people would have a horror of dirt because of the associated possibility of disease. This wasn't necessarily a class-related thing - Prince Albert died of typhoid due to bad sanitation, and the Prince of Wales nearly died of it. What did EBD's brother die of, do we know?

But it was a bit overdone and outdated by the time of her later books - and yes I agree, the triplets were plain rude and interfering towards Ruey. And nowadays their attitude would be seen as sexist too. Why should the housekeeping be solely Ruey's responsibility?

#23: Author: Sunglass, Location: Usually London

Posted: Sun Aug 19, 2007 4:05 pm
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Oh, I realise that poor sanitation (certainly in times past) wasn't confined to the poor, but it's definitely easier to be 'fresh' and 'dainty' etc with a bathroom, rather than, say, everyone using the kitchen sink - which is all we had at home when I was a small child - or having to boil kettles for washing water. And I'm not suggesting any kind of historical thesis here, just what I genuinely think is one of the minor obsessions in the CS books from which we can intuit that EBD was marked, understandably enough, by some of the differences between her childhood environment and the idealised one she creates in the CS. Ruey Richardson (despite of her Professor father) is initially ragged and doesn't know to brush her hair at night to keep her pillow case clean (another thing that sounds odd to us, but I suppose makes sense in a era of less frequent hair-washing) but doesn't resist changing her ways once she's been enlightened by Len - whereas Joan actively and specifically dislikes the emphasis on washing, and at one point turns off the bathwater and feels satisfied because she's 'done' the school. Which I think is significant in terms of her resistance to middle-class/school ways, and interesting in terms of her continued misfit status.

The FOCS biog. says Henzell died of 'cerebro-spinal fever', whatever that may be.

#24: Author: Alison H, Location: Manchester

Posted: Sun Aug 19, 2007 4:34 pm
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(From Behind the CS)

Quote:

[Cerebro-spinal fever] was a killer disease: sometimes known as Spotted Fever, or cerebro-spinal meninigitis, it had been rife during previous centuries, but by 1912 the disease was becoming less and less common.

I didn't like the way that the triplets criticised poor Ruey - who was only 14 and trying to do the housekeeping for 4 people - for not making the place (and it wasn't even their permanent home) look pretty! There's a lot in the books about how pretty the chairs, the tablecloths, etc, are - I hope I keep my house looking nice but it'd never occur to me to worry particularly about having "pretty" chairs Rolling Eyes

, and I'm not sure that you'd really want fancy tablecloths for 100+ schoolgirls to spill things on either Laughing

#25: Author: Mel, Location: UP NORTH

Posted: Sun Aug 19, 2007 4:39 pm
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I agree with you Sunglass that EBD was always trying to distance herself from her origins in that she makes so many of her characters 'upper-middle' with servants and a private income. I don't think she met many people like this in her life. But what she says isn't always what she does! In Behind the Chalet School we are told that EBD had a rather raucous unlady-like voice and (my favourite) that she was known to use safety pins rather than mend her underwear!

#26: Author: jennifer, Location: Taiwan

Posted: Sun Aug 19, 2007 4:48 pm
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There's a mention made of the fact that Rosamund's family bathes regularly, even though they don't have running hot water, so I think there was definitely a class idea behind it.

With more money a family would have easier access to wash water (or the money to send laundry out), would be much more likely to have a servant or two to do housekeeping and laundry, would have more changes of clothing, making having a clean change much easier. If you only have one or two sets of clothing, and laundry is done once a week, you spend a lot more time grubby.

Plus, the upper classes would be much less likely to do work that would make them filthy. Compare doctor/barrister/estate manager to manual laborer, miner, factory worker, small farmer, etc. Up until the tanning boom of the 20th century, fair skin was seen as a desirable thing in women, and a sign of ladylike status, because if you could keep your skin pale and unblemished, it meant you weren't out working in the fields all day with the common people.

The idea of the deserving poor is one that was very strong then, and persists today. I'm not up on the British slang, but a phrase like 'trailer trash' implies someone who is not only poor, but inferior socially and intellectually.

Joan and Rosamund really highlight EBD's class predjudices. Rosamund is ladylike. She speaks with a pretty accent, she bathes and prays regularly, she's modest and shy and dresses in pretty, girlish dresses, her mother picked up ladylike habits from her employer, and passed them on to her daughter, she eats freshly made leafy cakes and doesn't wear makeup or think about boys.

Joan has a distinctly lowerclass accent. She doesn't wash at night, she's not religious, she likes makeup and boys and fancy clothes, she swears, she eats cheap storebought cake, and is mouthy and impudent.

If I were Ruey, I'd have been inclined to kick the triplets out. She's fourteen, and is carrying more responsibility than even Len, the uber-contientious, has ever had to handle. She's in charge of the household management of a family of four, and is the only one who cares about the state of the house. Her brother is injured, possibly badly, and her father MIA, and the triplets decide to carp on the fact that she hasn't made their rental cottage look pretty, in between cleaning and cooking and watching after her younger brother and father.

#27: Author: Sunglass, Location: Usually London

Posted: Sun Aug 19, 2007 6:21 pm
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In terms of current UK slang, Joan is a sort of proto-chav - forgive the term, it's one I hate and find discriminatory, but it expresses a similar sense of class superiority to people who are unapologetically working class in their self-presentation. I suppose Joan's perm, make-up and heavily-braided red dress are a kind of equivalent to modern head-to-toe Burberry and hair extensions, if that's not too mind-boggling to think of confronting Elinor Pennell over the paper games... But even though she presumably looks superficially like the rest after Matey weeds out her wardrobe, she's never allowed to fit in, in a series of books where even fairly odd upbringings/educations by the standards of the CS universe - Eustacia, Lavender Leigh, Ted Grantley - are allowed to become real CS girls.

I'm delighted to hear of EBD's safety-pinned underwear and raucous voice - I have absolutely no sense of her whatsoever as a human being.

#28: Author: Jennie, Location: Cambridgeshire

Posted: Sun Aug 19, 2007 7:15 pm
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It does make me wonder if EBD was so emphatic about daintiness, good manners and the good family backgrounds of most of her pupils because she was desperate to be considered well-bred from a good familyherself, and so stressed it to extremes.

Personally, I thought Joan was right to keep some of her mannerisms, as it was a way of sticking up for her family.

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

Posted: Mon Aug 20, 2007 9:00 am
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Alison H wrote:

and I'm not sure that you'd really want fancy tablecloths for 100+ schoolgirls to spill things on either Laughing

I do wonder whether the Margaret Roper school actually provided tablecloths! My place just had wipe-clean rubber mats at each place, tablecloths were unknown (except at home in the holidays). Mind you, my school table-napkins (we provided our own, but they lived at school and were only returned when we left), were wonderful pale green Irish linen. I wonder what happened to them....

#30: Author: Kathy_S, Location: midwestern US

Posted: Mon Aug 20, 2007 1:04 pm
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I have a hard time seeing cleanliness ('next to godliness') and disapproving of make-up, etc. as class issues. Obviously the amounts of time, money and water available would vary, but plenty of 'lower class' people still valued and pursued cleanliness to the extent possible. Likewise, getting oneself labeled 'fast' or as 'keeping bad company' would be just as frowned upon in any class, and the extent to which make-up was permitted for 'nice girls' might depend as much on religious views as on local fashions.

#31: Author: Sunglass, Location: Usually London

Posted: Mon Aug 20, 2007 1:32 pm
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Yes, of course they did - EBD even specifically shows this in relation to the Lilleys, who are 'deserving' or aspirational working class, as shown by Rosamund's speech, manners, dress and cleanliness. In fact, I see precisely what you are talking about in my own obsessively tidy mother, who grew up desperately poor and clinging to the edges of 'respectability', and who would still rather die than, say, enter a corner shop to buy the paper with muddy boots on her way back from a walk. Sixty years on, she still associates dirt with 'letting the side down', and thinks she will be judged on her grubby shoes.

I'm not saying it's an absolute class issue - some of the poshest people I know have also been the least given to frequent baths. All I am saying is that it seems to be a class issue for EBD. Where she approves of Rosamund, who moves gratefully from respectable working class into middle-class speech and behaviour, after a couple of little wobbles with grammar etc (as when she says 'have a lend of' rather than 'borrow' on her first day at the CS), she actively associates Joan, the ungrateful, unaspirant working-class girl, with poor personal hygiene (and godlessness!)

I think the makeup is a slightly different issue - at least, unlike cleanliness, it has come up before with other characters. Didn't Betty Wynne-Davies or Elizabeth Arnott also get into trouble for wearing it at school, in one of the war books?

#32: Author: Jennie, Location: Cambridgeshire

Posted: Mon Aug 20, 2007 2:16 pm
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I certainly think cleanliness was an odd post-war phenomenon in that we were always told to wear clean underwear in case we got knocked down by a bus or car, leaving a lot of us with the impression that it was all right to be seriously injured, but our mothers couldn't stand the shame of our underwear being dirty when we were being undressed in hospital.

#33: Author: Ray, Location: Bristol, England

Posted: Mon Aug 20, 2007 2:40 pm
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Sunglass wrote:

I think the makeup is a slightly different issue - at least, unlike cleanliness, it has come up before with other characters. Didn't Betty Wynne-Davies or Elizabeth Arnott also get into trouble for wearing it at school, in one of the war books?

Yes they did (it's in Goes To It).

The problem with makeup - and it's one that applies now as much as it applied in EBD's time - is that it's so easy to apply badly and thus actually make yourself look worse. Just think of the girls going clubbing on a Friday night with orange faces! That's certainly what Joan did in Problem.

I also suspect that in the EA/BWD scene they too had applied it badly (EBD actually speaks quite well of the WAFFs Sheena and the twins meet on the train in Highland Twins and talks of Sheena being envious of their carefully made-up faces).

Ray *has vivid memories of a taxi customer with an all-too-obvious tide line...*

#34: Author: Sunglass, Location: Usually London

Posted: Mon Aug 20, 2007 3:04 pm
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We're told that the older girls are allowed to wear some discreet make-up on 'state occasions' at the school during the Swiss period, but that it has to be 'properly applied' - I always wonder how they are supposed to have learned to apply it properly. One has visions of, I don't know, Matey, or one of the younger mistresses (?) having strict little make-up application lessons with the Sixths. 'No, no, girls, make sure you keep inside the line of your lips.' Or are we to imagine that this was definitely a mother's responsibility?

(Mind you, given Joey's resistance to letting Len wear a pony-tail, this may have been a minefield in either case.) And what constitutes the kind of occasion for which the girls would have worn make-up at school - too special for the ordinary Saturday night dancing and paper games? I have difficulty imagining the girls putting on lipstick to attend a sheets and pillow cases party, or to get chased around the school by teachers dressed up as St Nicholas's demons!

#35: Author: Ray, Location: Bristol, England

Posted: Mon Aug 20, 2007 3:29 pm
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Actually, they DID apply powder/lippie for an evening's entertainment - it's in the prelude to the St Nick's fun in CS In the Oberland that Peggy instructs Edna in how to apply makeup (and in THERE, it says that Molly had taught both Peggy and, presumably, Bride how to do it).

I suspect that's actually how the knowledge got passed around - heck, that's how I learned! - you get a couple of forward-thinking mothers who're willing to teach their daughters who then show everyone else...

Ray *learning by word-of-mouth*

#36: Author: jennifer, Location: Taiwan

Posted: Tue Aug 21, 2007 2:46 am
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And then Peggy berates her classmate for *not* wearing any makeup on the grounds that it in unfair for other people to have to see her looking unattractive with shiny skin and pale lips. Rolling Eyes

I think it was in application. Seniors at the Chalet School, and I'm guessing that it was sixth form only, would be allow to wear neutral powder and a bit of very pale lipstick - no scarlet or plum lips, no blush, no nail polish, no eyeshadow, no eyeliner - the effect was to be pretty and demure rather than sexy.

#37: Author: JayB, Location: SE England

Posted: Tue Aug 21, 2007 1:22 pm
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Ray wrote:

The problem with makeup - and it's one that applies now as much as it applied in EBD's time - is that it's so easy to apply badly and thus actually make yourself look worse. Just think of the girls going clubbing on a Friday night with orange faces! That's certainly what Joan did in Problem.

I also suspect that in the EA/BWD scene they too had applied it badly (EBD actually speaks quite well of the WAFFs Sheena and the twins meet on the train in Highland Twins and talks of Sheena being envious of their carefully made-up faces).

It would be especially true in EBD's time, I would think, as the light and discreet foundations, blushers etc that we have today weren't available then. Heavy powder and the thick red lipsticks that were fashionable and available in the 1940s weren't suitable for fourteen year old girls, whereas they could be attractive on an older woman if properly applied. Nowadays it's much easier for young girls to wear discreet makeup successfully.

#38: Author: Pado, Location: Connecticut, USA

Posted: Tue Aug 21, 2007 8:19 pm
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In re Rosamond

Quote:

she eats freshly made leafy cakes

could someone enlighten me: what is a leafy cake? Thanks!

#39: Author: Alison H, Location: Manchester

Posted: Tue Aug 21, 2007 8:24 pm
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Pado wrote:

In re Rosamond

Quote:

she eats freshly made leafy cakes

could someone enlighten me: what is a leafy cake? Thanks!

I'd like to know that too! I googled it once and got no answers Confused

#40: Author: Holly,

Posted: Sat Aug 25, 2007 6:21 pm
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Is it just me or did EBD seem to have her pet bad girls, who could be counted on to cause trouble, upset the apple cart and generally act as examples of not-Chalet girls? Not the bad girls who are good by the end of their first book, the long term bad girls.

Sybil seems to have been stuck with the role of brat as a child but then ended up fading into the background a lot as she got older. As a child, she was shown as vain, selfish, jealous and rude - at times, it seemed as though little Sybil didn't actually possess any good qualities. I seem to remember that even her report cards weren't great.

Margot and her "devil" provided another bad girl.

Grizel was a trouble-making element even as a teacher.

#41: Author: Sunglass, Location: Usually London

Posted: Fri Aug 31, 2007 12:50 pm
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To follow up on the CS and makeup issue, the other day I read with amusement an article called ‘Beauty for the Teenager’ in The Chalet Book for Girls (1947), which was interesting both on late 1940s attitudes to girls' appearances and on EBD's own quirks as shown in the CS. EBD recommends brushing your hair every night 'with a stiff clean brush' (as Len demonstrates to Ruey) and 'washing it every two to three weeks' - which shows why so much brushing was necessary. She also suggests that a 'really good complexion powder' does protect the skin, 'especially when travelling', but advises that the teenager only wears it when travelling or at a party.

As well as clothes that suit you, but are not necessarily fashionable, she says that ‘shoes, stockings, gloves, hats and underwear matter also – and in that order.'

So far, so standard middle-class 1940s. But this bit made me smile, and reminded me of one of the CS books, whose name currently escapes me, which opens with Joey and the Robin, and possibly Grizel, visiting Pretty Maids with Miss Maynard, and people looking at them on the street because of the easy swing of their walk which was learned from continual practice of the English folk dances.

This is EBD in 'Beauty for the Teenager': 'Acquire an easy swing and walk from your hips, not your knees. This is the great fault of the town girl and must be overcome, or, in later life, she will waddle!'

I was mildly baffled by why town girls were less likely to walk from the hips than their country equivalents. Is she referring to high heels being more likely to be worn in town? Or is the town girl likely to be accustomed to the Wrong Kind of Dancing?

#42: Author: Ray, Location: Bristol, England

Posted: Fri Aug 31, 2007 1:03 pm
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My guess is she's talking about short, cramped strides. If you think about it, swinging from the hip suggests you're talking nice, comfortable strides; whereas swinging from the knee suggests you're trying to move through a crowd and don't have much room.

Ray *tossing some small change into the thread*

#43: Author: Mel, Location: UP NORTH

Posted: Fri Aug 31, 2007 5:08 pm
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I remember reading that beauty article too and thinking that hair washing every two to three weeks sounded very infrequent even for the 1940s. EBD was probably the kind of lady who went for a set every three weeks.

#44: Author: Mona, Location: Hertfordshire

Posted: Fri Aug 31, 2007 6:21 pm
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Quote:

But this bit made me smile, and reminded me of one of the CS books, whose name currently escapes me, which opens with Joey and the Robin, and possibly Grizel, visiting Pretty Maids with Miss Maynard, and people looking at them on the street because of the easy swing of their walk which was learned from continual practice of the English folk dances.

It's just made me smile too! The book is Head Girl (I'm re-reading it just now).

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

Posted: Sat Sep 15, 2007 10:44 pm
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One thing that has always puzzled me is just why Joey is so against the ponytail?

#46: Author: Fiona Mc, Location: Bendigo, Australia

Posted: Sun Sep 16, 2007 7:45 am
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Billie wrote:

One thing that has always puzzled me is just why Joey is so against the ponytail?

I wondered that too and started a discussion on that in Anything Else. It's now archived under All for a different hairstyle in the section about Hair and Makeup. Basically it was considered fast and Joan Bakerish etc etc. There was about 3 pages worth of comments and discusses when putting ones hair up stopped and all that sort of stuff. Very Happy

#47: Author: Holly,

Posted: Sun Sep 16, 2007 8:13 pm
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Billie wrote:

One thing that has always puzzled me is just why Joey is so against the ponytail?

When did she say that? What on Earth could be offensive about a ponytail?

#48: Author: Mia, Location: London

Posted: Sun Sep 16, 2007 8:45 pm
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Holly wrote:

Billie wrote:

One thing that has always puzzled me is just why Joey is so against the ponytail?

When did she say that? What on Earth could be offensive about a ponytail?

In the 1950s when the 'teenager' came into being, it was considered very new and racy and not altogether respectable. Something that a girl who hung out in coffee shops with Teddy Boys would wear. Very Happy

#49: Author: Ray, Location: Bristol, England

Posted: Sun Sep 16, 2007 9:11 pm
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Holly wrote:

Billie wrote:

One thing that has always puzzled me is just why Joey is so against the ponytail?

When did she say that? What on Earth could be offensive about a ponytail?

She says it in Joey and Co In the Tirol - Len asks if she may put her hair into one and Joey basically says a grudging yes but points out it won't be permitted at school and the tangles will be Len's own affair to deal with!

I THINK it also gets brought up in Mary-Lou when she suddenly comes down to breakfast (sorry, too tired to try the German!) with her hair in one plat rather than two.

I've got a feeling there are a couple of other mentions of it being a frowned-upon hairstyle during the Swiss books, but I'm fluffed if I can remember where else.

Ray *procrastinating again!*

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

Posted: Sun Sep 16, 2007 9:52 pm
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Yes, Mary Lou suggests it to Vi, I believe, and adds words to the effect of "I can imagine Matey would have a few words to say on the subject." I was never quite sure what was the difference between a "ponytail" and the "tail of curls" Vi wore. Is the traditional ponytail tied higher up or something?

I believe in one of the Famous Five books Dick tells Anne off for wearing her hair in a ponytail too.

Also I guess it does get more tangled than a plait. I had longer hair than my sister when I was little so my mum used to give me kenwigses or single plait, and my sister bunches or a ponytail.

#51: Author: Kate, Location: Ireland

Posted: Sun Sep 16, 2007 10:23 pm
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I think when EBD says a "tail" or a "tail of curls", she means one tied at the nape of the neck, but a ponytail is tied at the back of the head.

#52: Author: Loryat,

Posted: Tue Sep 25, 2007 4:44 pm
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Billie wrote:

I believe in one of the Famous Five books Dick tells Anne off for wearing her hair in a ponytail too.

I never liked Dick Evil or Very Mad

.

I think EBD put the outsiders there for realism. Even in a haven such as the CS seemingly is, there are bound to be some girls who don't find their way into a fold. It's just a shame EBd didn't write about some of these girls - Sue Mason in particular, as I think her story would be very interesting.

#53: Author: Joyce, Location: Hong Kong

Posted: Thu Sep 27, 2007 6:56 am
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Quote:

KB said:
I don't blame Sue Meadows for being the way she is. She was presumably torn from her own school and friends to come to Switzerland. She may have lived with her aunt and cousin before, in which case she would have been very much an unwanted member of the family (with mother paying all the attention to darling Leila) and as she is only at school for lessons, at least for the first term of two, so she has no chance to make friends.

I always wondered what Sue's parents - if indeed she has any - thought of it. Presumably Leila's mother can't just take Sue away without her parents say so. Yet we are never told that Sue is an orphan.

Or maybe she told them "This is a really good school and I'll pay the fees" and never told them the ulterior motive about why she really wanted Sue around.

I always liked the part when Claire suggests writing notes to Sue to cheer her up when she is snowed in and can't get to school.

The CBB -> Formal Discussions

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