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#1: Debate: Representations of Reality Author: Róisín, Location: Gaillimh

Posted: Tue Oct 31, 2006 3:38 pm
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This house believes that the post-wartime Chalet School books reflect pre-wartime/earlier fashions, ideas and trends, more accurately than they reflect contemporary, or post-wartime, fashions, ideas and trends. As an example - the practice of girls (particularly the triplets) putting their hair up when they reached maturity.

Please join in Very Happy

#2: Author: Pat, Location: Doncaster

Posted: Tue Oct 31, 2006 7:45 pm
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The hair business was way out of date by then. A lot of very respectable people had perms - and EBD was very down on them. The books written in the 60s didn't reflect anything of a teenagers life then. i was at boarding school for 3 years between 1959 and 1962 and we had record players in our common rooms and listened to pop music. We jived too, though only in the common room - Saturday evening dancing was of the ballroom variety, which is why I tended to smuggle a book over and hide in the loo!

#3: Author: Clare, Location: Liverpool

Posted: Tue Oct 31, 2006 7:50 pm
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I think EBD had established the CS as such a "different" type of school (focus on health above all else, lots of arts subjects) that she felt justified in keeping her school the way she had always portrayed it. There's such an emphasis in the books about the traditions of the CS and how they are upheld - firstly through the sheepdog explaining how things are 'done', secondly throught the plot device of making x a true member of the Chalet School.

I also think she wished to keep her school traditions rooted in the past because she felt it was what her readers wanted and enjoyed.

Or she just didn't have contact with young people and had lost touch with the times.

#4: Author: Alison H, Location: Manchester

Posted: Tue Oct 31, 2006 9:33 pm
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Some of the things she mentions in the later books are plain inaacurate in respect of the time period in which they're set - e.g. "putting your name down" for university instead of going through an application process. Many others seem very outdated, e.g. Len and Reg getting engaged without ever even going on a date, Joan Baker being regarded as common because she was interested in boys, and servants being doggedly devoted to their masters/mistresses.

However, the attempts to make the books seem more "modern" don't really work - such as people making their own spaceships and then blasting off into space in them Shocked

! I think that the war/immediate post-war era saw so much social change that it would've been difficult to keep up with it all without totally changing the ethos of the school, and I suppose EBD didn't want to do that.

We do see some changes though, e.g. more and more girls going on to higher education/further training. I can't imagine Marie von Eschenau saying that her fiancé'd have to wait for them to get married until after she'd done her degree as Len Maynard does, or one of the early mistresses carrying on working after their marriage as Biddy O'Ryan/Courvoisier does at first.

Not entirely sure about the "accuracy" of the pre-war stuff - the way the treat "delicate" Robin seems very Victorian to me! I certainly agree that the portrayal of the pre-war era is more true to life than the portrayal of the post war era, though.

*Stops waffling and shuts up Wink

#5: Author: skye,

Posted: Wed Nov 01, 2006 11:40 am
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I don't think that Reg and Len got engaged without a date. They seemed to spend time together, socially, prior to the engagement and EBD doesn't necessarily have to describe the finer points of their relationship. She was writing for children and has a previous history of skirting over the 'romantic' side of life. She didn't even describe Joey's wedding!

#6: Author: Cath V-P, Location: Newcastle NSW

Posted: Wed Nov 01, 2006 11:09 pm
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It's always seemed to me that the war marked a definite alteration in the sort of school that the CS was - it's definitely larger, there are references to things such as public exams, sport with other schools - and it loses some of the "small school" ethos, for want of a better way of putting it. And as the series progresses, I do think that EBD - herself out of teaching by 1948 - gradually loses her sense of awareness of the educational world at least.

#7: Author: Jennie, Location: Cambridgeshire

Posted: Sat Nov 11, 2006 4:43 pm
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I've always thought of the later books, the Swiss ones, as fighting a rearguard action against the modern world.

Take 'Problem' for example. So Rosamund didn't get to take her 11+. She'd have got in to the High School on the 12+ or 13+.

Our county accepted girls from local sec.mod schools at the beginning of Form 1, 2, 3, & 4, and then the Lower Sixth. Any new girls in the fifth Form and Upper Sixth were transfers form other grammar/high schools.

I think that EBD didn't know how to modernise, or how to concentrate solely on the school and its pupils, that's why we get so much about Jo Maynard, and the doings of the MBR clan.

#8: Author: skye,

Posted: Sat Nov 11, 2006 5:59 pm
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I think that maybe we are forgetting the school was not in this country, nor did it only have British pupils.

Britain was setting the standard of behaviour from the 1960's and other countries were only following.

As EBD died at the end of the 60's and probably did not write the last couple of books it seems unfair to castigate her for not being more with-it! Two Sams was published in 1967 so was probably written either that year, or during 1966, which is still fairly early on in the 1960's and certainly I can't remember very much free love and hippiness from that time in the north.

And maybe we are thinking that things were more free and easy than they actually were outside of the home counties and London.

#9: Author: janetbrown23, Location: Colchester

Posted: Sat Nov 11, 2006 6:36 pm
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In the early 1960s at my selective school, you could get into the school via the 13+exam, but the pupils who did were restricted to the Commercial streams for the girls and the Technical streams for boys. They did not get into the more academic streams , those were only for the 11+ people.

Jan

#10: Author: Pat, Location: Doncaster

Posted: Sat Nov 11, 2006 8:13 pm
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And of course there were comps around then too. My Grammar School went conprehensive in September 1962.

#11: Author: Tiffany, Location: Is this a duck I see behind me?

Posted: Mon Nov 13, 2006 9:05 pm
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As a matter of interest, I wonder what the appeal of the Chalet books was for contemporary readers? The main appeal to me is the, for want of a better word, old-fashionedness. I like the insight into a different way of life, the constant comparison the reader has to make between Chalet ways and current ways. Is it possible that readers in the fifties and sixties wanted to read about pre-war things, and the books were tailored to meet this desire?

#12: Author: Róisín, Location: Gaillimh

Posted: Mon Nov 13, 2006 9:56 pm
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I think the books might have appeared glamorous to contemporary readers - the exotic location, the details about lives of girls slightly older than the reader herself, etc.

#13: Author: JayB, Location: SE England

Posted: Mon Nov 13, 2006 10:26 pm
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Tiffany wrote:

As a matter of interest, I wonder what the appeal of the Chalet books was for contemporary readers?... Is it possible that readers in the fifties and sixties wanted to read about pre-war things, and the books were tailored to meet this desire?

I read them in the sixties, and to me the main appeal was that there were a lot of them, and they were still being published. I used to get through books very quickly, but I knew there were enough books CS books to keep me going for a long time. There was the thrill of finding one in the library I hadn't read before. And being such a long series, it was like watching a soap opera, following the stories of the same characters over years.

I probably would have hated boarding school in real life, but at the age of ten, the descriptions of the school in Switzerland, and the muinute details of their daily routine, made it all sound very attractive.

As I got into my teens, I knew the Swinging Sixties were happening out there, but it didn't really have anything to do with my life so I didn't think of it as having anything to do with the CS either.

Really, much of the more-or-less contemporary fiction we read as children then, be it Enid Blyton, Malcolm Saville, or whoever, bore little resemblance to our day to day lives. I didn't find the CS any less realistic than any other author I read. And why should it be realistic? Don't most of us read for escapism?

Jay B.

#14: Author: Pat, Location: Doncaster

Posted: Mon Nov 13, 2006 11:46 pm
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I think I just loved boarding school stories, and the CS was more believable than Mallory Towers or St Clare's! And having been to a boarding school from 1959 to 1962, she wasn't that far out. There was a good deal of discipline, and compulsory dancing on a Saturday night - ballroom dancing mainly, which I hated. I hid in the loos with a book! We did have access to radios, record players and pop music though!

#15: Author: lizarfau, Location: Melbourne

Posted: Tue Nov 14, 2006 12:54 am
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[quote="JayB"]

Tiffany wrote:

Really, much of the more-or-less contemporary fiction we read as children then, be it Enid Blyton, Malcolm Saville, or whoever, bore little resemblance to our day to day lives. I didn't find the CS any less realistic than any other author I read. And why should it be realistic? Don't most of us read for escapism?

I don't think a lot of contemporary children's fiction is any more realistic than it was back when EBD, Saville, Blyton et al. were writing. How many kids go to schools for witchcraft and wizardry or schools for espionage, work for MI6 or suddenly discover they're really a princess of a country in Eastern Europe?

And, like you say, who wants kitchen-sink reality? I figure if I want to read about real life, I might as well just read a decent quality newspaper.

#16: Author: JustJen, Location: sitting on the steps

Posted: Thu Nov 16, 2006 3:10 pm
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When I started reading the Chalet book back in the 80's I loved them because they gave a wonder glimpse into a world that has almost completely diappearred and I found the characters much more believible than the Mallory Towers/St.Calres girls and the books had good plotlines.

Quote:

And, like you say, who wants kitchen-sink reality? I figure if I want to read about real life, I might as well just read a decent quality newspaper.

Exactly!

#17: Author: MaryR, Location: Cheshire

Posted: Thu Nov 16, 2006 4:19 pm
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Like Pat and JayB I loved the books in the late fifties and early sixties because I was an avid reader and there were lots of them. I also loved the whole idea of boarding school - plus the chance to keep meeting the same interesting characters again and again. And certainly the swinging sixties left me far behind, Laughing

as I was brought up by strict Catholics and went to a Convent Grammar School - the Catholics didn't go comprehensive till much later than the rest of you, Pat. Laughing

So the life in the school mirrored pretty exactly the life most of my friends and I were leading. We didn't, for example, have a TV at home till the early sixties, so not having one in the CS doesn't seem to me so bad. Nor indeed did we have a car. We WERE more interested in school things than in boys and going out.

We didn't question things so much in those days, so the authority invested in the elders at the school seemed quite normal - and all the other behaviour as well, which is now mulled over on the board. It really WAS a completely different way of life from today. And one in which I personally was very happy on the whole. Yes, we were very young compared to children of the same age today - but is that necessarily a bad thing?

Last edited by MaryR on Thu Nov 16, 2006 4:35 pm; edited 1 time in total

#18: Author: Loryat,

Posted: Thu Nov 16, 2006 4:33 pm
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Weren't the books also set earlier than they were actually written? I know that at some point EBD started writing about every term (plus holiday books) and unless she had an output of 3 per year she must have fallen a but behind the times!

Also, the school is in Switzerland and in the middle of nowhere. Girls didn't really have the option of going to see films or going into town as they would in a more urban setting, and they wouldn't have understood half of the things on TV or radio (assuming such things were available in mountainous Switzerland).

And in Malory Towers and St Clares girls who talk about film stars are also regarded as silly.

#19: Author: Pat, Location: Doncaster

Posted: Thu Nov 16, 2006 8:50 pm
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On the other hand, some of us snuck into town to the cinema instead of going for our Saturday afternoon walk. I don't remeber getting caught either!

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

Posted: Thu Nov 16, 2006 9:13 pm
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Tut tut, naughty Pat! Laughing

#21: Author: Caroline58, Location: St Albans

Posted: Mon Nov 27, 2006 3:44 pm
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Just popping back to the original question - I've just re-read Althea, which was first published in 1969 when I was about 11, and starting secondary school. I certainly don't remember 17-18 year olds wearing chic hats, as Len does when she meets Althea at the station - or maybe they did if they went to smart Swiss boarding schools?

#22: Author: Caroline58, Location: St Albans

#23: Author: Mel, Location: UP NORTH

Posted: Mon Nov 27, 2006 9:47 pm
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I remember that and isn't it gentian blue and therefore her school uniform in the holidays?

#24: Author: Róisín, Location: Gaillimh

Posted: Mon Dec 04, 2006 11:38 am
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Mel wrote:

I remember that and isn't it gentian blue and therefore her school uniform in the holidays?

Isn't wearing school uniform in the holidays a very pre-WW2 thing? I'm thinking of the tennis dresses (just white dresses) and the gymslips that Joey, Juliet etc live in even though it's school holidays, in the early books. Also, didn't people then have just a few 'outfits'? In Girls of the Hamlet Club, Cicely's father chooses her winter outfit so that he can picture what she's wearing while he's away. She's 14, so he's not allowed to choose every article of clothing, but he does buy the hat and coat.

So I suppose I'm saying that even though it's the 60s at this stage, and clothing is massproduced and cheaper, EBD is still treating Len as if she was a young Joey, with only 3 or 4 outfits in her wardrobe, that were worn at school and at home.

#25: Author: skye,

Posted: Mon Dec 04, 2006 1:36 pm
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Róisín wrote:

Mel wrote:

I remember that and isn't it gentian blue and therefore her school uniform in the holidays?

So I suppose I'm saying that even though it's the 60s at this stage, and clothing is massproduced and cheaper, EBD is still treating Len as if she was a young Joey, with only 3 or 4 outfits in her wardrobe, that were worn at school and at home.

I don't remember having loads of clothes in the 1960s. Certainly nowhere near as many as my daughter had at the same age. It was more of an occasion to buy clothes then rather than just picking up something every time you go shopping as we do now.

In fact, thinking about it, I don't remember there being any clothes shops in my small town until around 1974, so you would have to make a special trip to the nearest large town to buy clothing and home furnishings. It was different world really.

#26: Author: Kathy_S, Location: midwestern US

Posted: Mon Dec 04, 2006 1:50 pm
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I wouldn't say it was just pre-WWII, given how long after the war clothing coupons were required. Although wearing uniform rather than taking it off to "save" it still seems odd to me, the CS uniform had pieces for all occasions, and I can see wearing them when they fit the bill.

In Joey & Co., Joey takes Ruey out to buy a "decent frock or two" and some more shorts & shirts. That seemed reasonable to me for a summer wardrobe, as we pretty much did the same: a few sets of shorts & shirts plus something for church.

#27: Author: JayB, Location: SE England

Posted: Mon Dec 04, 2006 2:07 pm
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Isn't it just her school coat that Len's wearing? That's a big item - I don't suppose the girls would have others for home wear when they spend most of their time at school. There were times when my school raincoat was the only one I had. Len was probably wearing ordinary clothes underneath. Although I do agree that in the past people had fewer clothes generally. And we know that Felicity was expected to wear the triplets' castoffs.

Jay B.

#28: Author: Caroline, Location: Manchester

Posted: Mon Dec 04, 2006 2:52 pm
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I wonder if, in the particular circumstances in Althea, Len is wearing her uniform coat and hat in order that Althea and her nanny might find her more easily in the Gare de l'Est. IIRC, Althea's wearing uniform too.

Mind you, that doesn't explain why Len took her uniform coat etc on holiday with her to Simone's in the first place....

#29: Author: Mel, Location: UP NORTH

Posted: Mon Dec 04, 2006 7:37 pm
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To be honest I think it is Elinor being out of touch. She dreamed up the uniform and therefore I don't think she could envisage that Len would want to wear anything different.

#30: Author: Pat, Location: Doncaster

Posted: Mon Dec 04, 2006 8:13 pm
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I'm trying to picture EBD allowing her girls to wear minis, which were definitely around when Althea was written - I was wearing them! I got married in 1970 and my Going Away Outfit came halfway down my thighs! The kids used to laugh until minis came back into fashion again! But can you see a CS girl wearing one?! Or backcombing their hair? Laughing

#31: Author: Róisín, Location: Gaillimh

Posted: Mon Dec 04, 2006 8:22 pm
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In the earlier books though, the girls' skirts are constantly described as 'very brief'. And in one scene, I can't put my finger on it now though, Madge is cleaning up after some natural disaster (what's new Laughing

) and her skirt is 'very very short'. I have always wondered what this meant in EBDlanguage. She surely doesn't mean mini-short? Sometimes she says that a girl's skirt was like a 'frill around her waist, she had grown so tall'.

#32: Author: Kathy_S, Location: midwestern US

Posted: Mon Dec 04, 2006 9:12 pm
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Based on book illustrations, surprisingly short dresses were normal attire for young girls well before the advent of the 60s version* of the miniskirt. Mind you, the skirts were lengthened as the girls got older.

(*My grandmother used the term "miniskirt" to refer to something she'd worn in the 20s.)

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

Posted: Mon Dec 04, 2006 9:30 pm
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Róisín wrote:

In the earlier books though, the girls' skirts are constantly described as 'very brief'. And in one scene, I can't put my finger on it now though, Madge is cleaning up after some natural disaster (what's new Laughing

I think that short skirts in this context meant something just below the knees, and not full length and touching the ground.

#34: Author: Pat, Location: Doncaster

Posted: Mon Dec 04, 2006 10:04 pm
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Skirts were never as short as they were in the 60s. That was why tights came in - so that you didn't see the stocking tops! And what a relief they were too! So much more comfortable.

#35: Author: Mel, Location: UP NORTH

Posted: Mon Dec 04, 2006 10:10 pm
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I think in New Mistress the staff are wearing old clothes for a Staff Evening. One of them is wearing a dress-sorry-frock that has shrunk and excites a comment to the effect that "It's almost up to your knees!" So short or brief for the girls would be nothing worse than knee length, but 'ladies' would wear mid-calf, whatever the fashion. EBD's circle in the 1960s would probably be very conservative middle-aged ladies.

#36: Author: Jennie, Location: Cambridgeshire

Posted: Mon Dec 04, 2006 10:31 pm
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And no sleeveless or low-cut dresses.

#37: Author: Róisín, Location: Gaillimh

Posted: Mon Dec 04, 2006 10:34 pm
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I think I would take Kathy S's advice and look at the accompanying illustrations & dustwrappers.

School: Madge's (23) is mid-calf; Joey's (12) is just above knee.
Jo of: Joey's (14) is resting above her knee.
Princess: Admittedly in gymknickers, Joey's is mid-thigh. Were gymknickers the same as gymslips and therefore wearable outside?
Rivals: Both girls (Frieda & Joey, 15ish?) skirt is resting above knee.
And Jo: Joey's (16ish) is above the knee. Robin's (10) is mid-thigh.
Exploits: the Prefects are wearing skirts to just below the knee.
Lintons: Joyce's (15) is on the knee, Joey's (17?) is just below the knee.
New House: Daisy's (9) is mid-thigh; Joey & Frieda (1 Cool

are mid-calf.
Exile: Robin (15?) and Joey (19?) are wearing same length skirts at just below the knee.
Goes To It: the Triumvirate (12) are wearing skirts about an inch above the knee.
Highland Twins: Jo (22?) is wearing the skirt just resting on her knee.
Lavender: both Prefect and Lavender (13?) are wearing same length skirts that rest on their knees.
Gay: Gay's (15?) skirt is a good two inches or so above her knees - they are clearly visible.
Rescue: Jo (24?) is wearing a skirt about 2 inches below her knee.
Rosalie: Tom and Rosalie (13? can't remember...) have skirts resting about 2 inches above their knees.
3 go: Same, all three (13/14ish) have skirts about 2 inches above the knee.
Peggy: Peggy and Dickie - both Prefects - 2" above knee.
Carola: (15?) on the knee
Wrong: Blossom (15?) in a tennis dress. Very high on her thigh.
Bride: Prefects wearing skirts a good 3" below the knee.

So there doesn't seem to be any clear lengthening of the skirt hem according to age or status in the school, ie being a Prefect. They are depicted as often as not wearing the same length as their juniors. However there are a couple of examples where their skirts are an inch or two longer - but never longer than about 3" below the knee. It's far more common for all the girls to wear their skirts about 2" above the knee.

Therefore that is the norm - about 2" above the knee - and EBD's comparatives all relate to that. When she says 'short', I would take it as roughly 4" above the knee, and when she says very short, I think she means the girl is wearing sports wear - ie tennis dresses/ gym slips. This sports wear is very, very short, definitely mini-sized, only about six inches long, going by the pictures. And even though it is sportswear, there are examples of the girls wearing this length skirt in public (with gym knickers underneath and no stockings).

Edited to add: for the younger girls (below the age of 10ish) 'very brief' and 'a frill around her waist' seem to me now to be accurate in the extreme...

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