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#1: Girls: Runaways Author: jennifer, Location: Taiwan

Posted: Wed Jan 30, 2008 6:17 am
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The runaway is a frequent plot element in the Chalet series. We have girls who attempt to run away permanently (Eustacia Benson, Joan Baker) as well as girls who run away for specific reasons (Gay Lambert, Grizel Cochrane, Joey Bettany, Val Pertwee, Jocelyn Marvell). Are these exploits realistic? Does the school do enough to prevent runaways, and are they dealt with appropriately when they return?

#2: Author: Alison H, Location: Manchester

Posted: Wed Jan 30, 2008 9:04 am
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Given the number of times people left school premises in Tyrol without permission (including the ice carnival gang, Elisaveta, Joey going to rescue Rufus/everyone else, Corney, Robin et al as well as the actual "runaways" like Eustacia) I'm surprised they didn't post guards on every door 24/7! Joey in particular should have been under permanent surveillance! Other than that, there probably wasn't much they could've done physically to stop people going off - it's easy enough to sneak out of most schools (the pub near our school was usually full of Sixth Formers at dinner!), and Joan wasn't even at the school when she did a runner.

Arguably someone should've realised how unhappy both Joan and Eustacia were, and Miss Bubb should've let Gay go to see her brother, but presumably they expected the girls to have more sense than to run off on their own. We're told that it didn't even occur to Eustacia that she'd need her passport to get from Austria to Britain; Robin must have been told not to go off with strangers; and Grizel should certainly have realised that going up a mountain on her own would be dangerous.

The kidnappings are a bit OTT, but some of the other cases aren't - sadly unhappy teenagers running away isn't uncommon, and some of the reasons are understandable, e.g. Gay wanting to see her brother. They're lucky nothing worse happened to them - it still makes me nervous reading about Gay wandering about on her own in total darkness Shocked

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No-one seems to get punished very severely - given that they always meet with mishaps whilst on the run, the powers that be seem to go for the "she's punished herself enough" line.

#3: Author: Liz K, Location: Bedfordshire

Posted: Wed Jan 30, 2008 9:16 am
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Alison H wrote:

They're lucky nothing worse happened to them - it still makes me nervous reading about Gay wandering about on her own in total darkness Shocked

Especially during wartime but, then, wandering around in total darkness anytime nowadays is bad enough!

#4: Author: JayB, Location: SE England

Posted: Wed Jan 30, 2008 10:35 am
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Liz K wrote:

Alison H wrote:

They're lucky nothing worse happened to them - it still makes me nervous reading about Gay wandering about on her own in total darkness Shocked

Especially during wartime but, then, wandering around in total darkness anytime nowadays is bad enough!

My mother had to do something similar, in wartime, when she was about the same age as Gay (only she wasn't running away!) She was travelling from London to Staffordshire to visit the family she had been evacuated to earlier in the war. Somehow got on the wrong train and ended up at Crewe.

By the time she got back to Lichfield, the last bus to her destination had gone and she ended up walking about five miles over fields and lanes in darkness. She met a miner (it was a minig district) who carried her suitcase for her.

She says that by present day standards, it probably wasn't a very sensible thing to do, but she thought nothing of it at the time. Her only alternative would have been to spend the night at the station, since she had no money for a taxi or a hotel, and probably wouldn't have thought of using either anyway.

I think our perceptions of what is or isn't dangerous have changed enormously over the years, to the point that I know people who won't even walk to their local shops in the evening. (Wants to slap Home Secretary.) I think the worst that might have happend to Gay was falling over in the dark and spraining an ankle. It was England, the weather was good, she knew exactly where she was going, she was accustomed to travelling alone, and she had plenty of money.

I think once a girl was determined to run away, theere wasn't much to school could do to prevent it - they couldn't be locked up 24/7. And Val and Jocelyn's running away was naughtiness and thoughtlessness, so I don't think that could have been foreseen.

Certainly more could have been done to help Eustacia before she reached that point. And Joan's running away was down to Mary Lou. If she had to talk about Joan behind her back, she could at least have shut the door so Joan couldn't overhear! If I'd been invited to spend the weekend somewhere and overheard my hostess talking about me like that, I'd want to run away too.

#5: Author: Sunglass, Location: Usually London

Posted: Fri Feb 01, 2008 6:18 pm
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My only real gripe with any of the runaways is with Grizel's running off to the Falls in Headgirl of the CS. Generally one can see the motivation for a CS character's act if not in realistic terms then at least in terms of the logic of EBD's world. Her earlier escapade up the Tiernjoch makes total sense in terms of the way her character has been set up by EBD. She's younger, still adjusting to school life after spoiling from her grandmother and ill treatment from her stepmother, and in disgrace, and she feels like making a statement. On the other hand, I find all of Grizel's actions in her second running away moment both out of character and weirdly unmotivated.

I mean, she's been told several times by Miss Maynard (who has just been hosting them at her home for Christmas - which should presumably make Grizel feel she's under a particular duty towards Miss Maynard as friend and hostess as well as mistress) why they can't go to the Falls on this visit, and that she'll make a point of taking Grizel there later in the year, and Grizel complains that it won't be with Robin and Joey.

However, despite the fact that R and J don't come with her when she runs off either - obviously - and even though she's 17 or 18 AND as a nervous, proud new head girl she has everything to lose and a lot to live up to AND the School thinks she is worthy of being head girl - the ultimate CS accolade AND even though Joey has plainly pointed out what a mean thing to do it would be, Grizel still goes. All she says to Madge afterwards is 'I didn't think', which is the perennial EBD Get Out of Jail Free card for girls she wants to reclaim for the good - she did think, she just didn't care at the time.

Have you noticed that nearly all the good girls who do bad things or silly things say 'I didn't think' afterwards? Grizel here, Mary-Lou when she gets stuck on the cupboard, Polly Heriot ringing the alarm bell, Blossom Willoughby when she gets locked in the art room - which I've always found unfair. If she believed she was being summoned there by a teacher, it's surely not up to her to 'think' around the message until she figures out it might be a hoax...? Whereas a bad girl like Thekla tells authority figures why she did something bad...

#6: Author: jennifer, Location: Taiwan

Posted: Mon Feb 04, 2008 5:21 am
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I think it's partially motivation, and thoughtlessness is seen as less of a sin than maliciousness - the difference between trying a mad prank without thinking of its consequences to other people, and deliberately trying to hurt someone.

Grizel was certainly old enough to know better about the falls of the Rhine, but I see that as being part of her rebellion against her future life and her fundamental unhappiness, as well as not thinking. She's subconsciously thinking of her life after school - concentrating on something she dislikes, away from her only friends, with her fate and the purse strings held by two people who actively dislike her.

I agree that she shouldn't have lost her headgirl status, though, as her escapade wasn't done during the school term, or on an official school trip.

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