Families: The Bettanys
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#1: Families: The Bettanys Author: jenniferLocation: Taiwan PostPosted: Fri Jan 04, 2008 6:34 am
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Dick Bettany marries his bosses younger daughter, Mollie. They have four children close together, twins Peggy and Rix, Bride and Jackie, who are left with the Russells until Peggy and Rix are thirteen, as Dick and Mollie are in India, younger twins Maeve and Maurice who are rejoin their siblings at the age of eight, and 'afterthought' Daphne.

We see some of the family when Dick and Mollie are in Austria, plus some scenes in Bride Leads where the family is all together, and interactions among the girls at school. What do you think of the Bettany family? Did the long separation have an affect on the family dynamics? What about the roles the different children play?

#2:  Author: Alison HLocation: Manchester PostPosted: Fri Jan 04, 2008 7:47 am
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I wish we'd seen more of the Bettanys - we only really see them together at the beginning of Bride, and it would've been interesting a) to've heard more about the boys (especially Rix who sounds very interesting from the bit we see of him in Ruey) and b) to've seen how they coped when effectively 2 separate families started living together under one roof. They do all seem to become very close - the reactions when Mollie is ill show that.

I find the idea of leaving the children behind with Madge and Jem and not seeing them for years on end quite hard to get my head round, but I know that it wasn't all that unusual at the time (although Madge and Dick both stayed in India until they were 12). It must have had a big effect on them but we don't really hear much about it - just a bit about how much Peggy's missed her mother and how Maeve finds the older girls a bit bossy.

#3:  Author: JayBLocation: SE England PostPosted: Fri Jan 04, 2008 3:43 pm
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I think it was only because of the war that they were away for so long, wasn't it? In the Tyrol years they came home every three years or so (School At, Rivals and Jo Returns, IIRC) and stayed for weeks or months. And it was due to Jem's interference - sorry, advice - that they left Jackie behind when he was still so young.

Lots of children were in the Bettanys' situation in the war - separated from one or both parents because the parents were overseas, or because the father was away in the forces, or a prisoner of war, or because the children themselves had been evacuated. Compared to, for example, the Highland Twins and Lavender, who had no home or relatives available to look after them, the Bettany children were well provided for.

I like the Bettanys as a family. Dick is a less authoritarian character and his style of parenting seems far more easy going than Jem's or Jack's. The Bettany children don't seem to be so overburdened with expectations and responsibility as the Maynards. Bride in particular is a very intelligent, friendly, happy, normal girl.

#4:  Author: miss_maeveLocation: Buckinghamshire, UK PostPosted: Sat Jan 05, 2008 3:30 pm
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I'd have loved to have seen more of the Bettany clan in the books. It's a shame that some of the more interesting characters get shunted to the side as time goes by, but with a series as log as the CS is, I guess it's inevitable.
I have such clear pictures in my mind of the Russells and Maynards, but certainly some of the Bettanys are a bit ghostly to me. I personally think we don't ever see enough of Mollie. This is probably why I liked 'Two Chalet Girls in India' so much, as finally Mollie is fleshed out more as a character.

#5:  Author: jenniferLocation: Taiwan PostPosted: Sun Jan 06, 2008 4:30 am
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I like the view of the Bettanys we see in the beginning of Bride, and wish we could have seen more of their home life. They seem more relaxed and less autocratic than the Russells do, but not as frenetic and all over the place as the Maynards are - just a nice, relaxed family scene. Mollie seems to keep her cheerful youthfulness, unlike Madge, without being obsessive about it like Joey.

I also like the hints in Peggy of the CS that there have been teething pains when the family gets back together. If I were Maeve and Maurice, and had essentially been all of the family for a good eight years, I would be a bit rattled to suddenly have *four* older siblings, one of whom insisted on mothering me and keeping me in order.

I also wonder how Daphne fared, being so much the youngest of the family. Maeve and Maurice are about 14 years older than her and away at school, so she'd be essentially be an only child. In some sense Dick and Mollie had three families; the four eldest, who are raised until the age of 12-14 by relatives, Maeve and Maurice, who are only children until about age eight, and Daphne at the end.

Their family history is a bit muddled. They come back to England in Tom Tackles and settle at the round house, but in Three Go the younger ones are still abroad with Dick and Mollie, this time in Australia!

I also have to say that Bride is one of my favorites of the second generation. She's such a nice, normal, well balanced girl - friendly without being wildly popular and always in charge, academically talented and well rounded, practical, and not gorgeously pretty.

#6:  Author: JoyceLocation: Hong Kong PostPosted: Sun Jan 06, 2008 6:49 am
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I love the part in Changes when Madge thinks that is Bride finally looking pretty and Dick and Molie would be able to boast of three pretty daughters rather than just two.

Did the Bettany's really introduce the girls as: "This is lovely Peggy and beautiful Mauve. And that's Bride - she's the ugly one." Smile

Cheers,
Joyce

#7:  Author: LesleyLocation: Allhallows, Kent PostPosted: Sun Jan 06, 2008 8:17 am
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Considering how much Sybil was castigated for her beauty it seems a bit much for Madge to be thinking that about Bride in that way. Rolling Eyes

#8:  Author: LottieLocation: Humphrey's Corner PostPosted: Sun Jan 06, 2008 8:41 am
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I think EBD herself, always rather resented being described as 'plain', although she doesn't strike me that way in the picture of her as a child in her biography. I'm sure that must have had something to do with her emphasis on descriptions of the prettiness of her characters.

#9:  Author: Fiona McLocation: Bendigo, Australia PostPosted: Sun Jan 06, 2008 11:31 am
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Lesley wrote:
Considering how much Sybil was castigated for her beauty it seems a bit much for Madge to be thinking that about Bride in that way. Rolling Eyes


Maybe Madge understood that Bride herself would like to be pretty rather than considered ugly or plain. It would be hard surrounded by a whole clan of beauties because she is the only one described like that in all three clans

#10:  Author: SunglassLocation: Usually London PostPosted: Sun Jan 06, 2008 12:46 pm
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I said the same thing in the childrearing practices thread, but I see the Bettanys as symptomatic of EBD trying to reconcile what she thinks of as the 'perfect' family (from her lower-middle class POV), and the not-unusual requirement for her time that some of the Bettany children spend enormous amounts of time on a different continent to their parents, from a very young age, because of Dick's Indian job. In the real world, the fact of Anglo-Indian children sent home for school and because of the climate, and not seeing their parents for years at a time, while it was common, would certainly have impacted on familial closeness, and on what we would think of today as 'normal' or spontaneous feelings of the child towards the parent.

You don't have to think of, say, Kipling's negative experiences when he and his three-year-old sister were sent 'home' from India - I see a version of the same kind of distancing in people I know who come of upper-class families and who were sent to boarding school aged six or so, and only saw their parents in the school holidays. The relation is more formal, because it doesn't have that day to day contact we tend to think of as normal now, and in the case of the CS presumably few or no phone calls. We'd think of leaving toddlers and a small baby with other people as hugely damaging, though it was as normal under the Raj as babies in Jane Austen's day being sent down to the village to be wet-nursed for the first year or so of their lives.

Now, presumably EBD needed to send Dick overseas in The School at the Chalet so that Madge didn't have a male protector and financial provider in situ, and had to go and open her school. But she still does insist on the unproblematic love all the Bettany children feel for their parents, even those who've seen their them least, and who presumably think of Madge and Jem as their 'parents'.

I think this contradiction is somewhere you can see her own utopian, and Christian view of the family - and maybe her own personal yearning for a close 'proper' family - come through.

#11:  Author: CBWLocation: Kent PostPosted: Sun Jan 06, 2008 1:34 pm
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I always wanted to see more of the the family interaction after Molllie and Dick came home.

I just can't see that 2 children who have grown up pretty much on thier own would have taken well to suddenly finding themselves the bottom of the pile with 4 older siblings who would want a share of their parents attention and who would probably be getting the lion's share of it as well, given their long absence

#12:  Author: AngelaLocation: Huddersfield PostPosted: Sat Jan 19, 2008 6:39 pm
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I always thought Mollie must have been incredibly tough - how long was it after her near fatal illness followed by a serious operation, before she became pregnant with Daphne?

She must have been approaching 40, I appreciate she was very young when her first twins were born.

I feel it's difficult to forgive Dick & Mollie for producing Prissy Peggy, although I do like Bride & Maeve, even though Jo Scott should have been head girl, not Maeve, as someone has previously suggested & written about.

#13:  Author: jenniferLocation: Taiwan PostPosted: Sun Jan 20, 2008 5:42 am
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I figured that Mollie's health problems had been interfering with fertility, so once she was reasonably recuperated from the operation, she was able to get pregnant.

She has four children in a little over two years, followed by twins again about two years later, then 15 years with no kids at all.

#14:  Author: Fiona McLocation: Bendigo, Australia PostPosted: Mon Jan 21, 2008 9:38 am
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jennifer wrote:
I figured that Mollie's health problems had been interfering with fertility, so once she was reasonably recuperated from the operation, she was able to get pregnant.

She has four children in a little over two years, followed by twins again about two years later, then 15 years with no kids at all.


If she had a goitre in her thyroid which is what I think she had then her thyroid would have been under active and falling pregnant would have been more difficult though not impossible

#15:  Author: RóisínLocation: Ireland PostPosted: Mon Jan 21, 2008 11:31 am
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The main issue that comes to mind when thinking about this family is the leaving behind of the children, of course. I see that it was normal for the time, and expected of a certain class; however I don’t think that this meant that it wasn’t hugely upsetting for Mollie at least. Imagine giving birth to those four children, and then returning to an empty house for the next decade or so. It must have had an enormous effect on her.

When Mollie gets sick later on, the emotions of the Bettany girls (at school) are so heartrendingly realistic. For me, it’s on a par with reading Jacynth’s Aunt’s letter, for making me cry Laughing

I never feel as if Joey and Dick are brother and sister at all. I do sense that Madge and Dick are twins, and they share a relationship that balances that, but Joey is so much younger, and she practically loses Dick from the age of twelve too. I can’t imagine her, say, writing letters to him from Freudesheim, for some reason (although I’m sure she did).

I wasn’t happy at all with the way the at-home-in-India Bettanys were portrayed in the CS-in-India filler, tbh. I could never see Mollie hanging around clubs drinking and playing cards, or doing makeovers on her young sisters-in-law Laughing There is definitely a gap for showing how Dick and Mollie lived while they were separated from their children, but I don’t think that book did it.

#16:  Author: PatLocation: Doncaster PostPosted: Mon Jan 21, 2008 2:22 pm
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Róisín wrote:


I wasn’t happy at all with the way the at-home-in-India Bettanys were portrayed in the CS-in-India filler, tbh. I could never see Mollie hanging around clubs drinking and playing cards, or doing makeovers on her young sisters-in-law Laughing There is definitely a gap for showing how Dick and Mollie lived while they were separated from their children, but I don’t think that book did it.


I don't either! I have a feeling that I've heard that someone is doing a version for GGB. That will be interesting to read.

#17:  Author: Liz KLocation: Bedfordshire PostPosted: Mon Jan 21, 2008 3:01 pm
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[quote="Angela"]
She must have been approaching 40, I appreciate she was very young when her first twins were born.
[quote]

She was 18 or 19 when they were born wasn't she? Surprised Shocked

#18:  Author: KBLocation: Melbourne, Australia PostPosted: Mon Jan 21, 2008 9:05 pm
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Pat wrote:
I don't either! I have a feeling that I've heard that someone is doing a version for GGB. That will be interesting to read.


Yes, you're right, Pat. And she does have quite a different version of Mollie, at least in the early drafts. However it will be quite a while before that book appears on the website. I'll keep you all posted.

#19:  Author: Mrs RedbootsLocation: London, UK PostPosted: Wed Jan 23, 2008 3:49 pm
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Róisín wrote:
The main issue that comes to mind when thinking about this family is the leaving behind of the children, of course. I see that it was normal for the time, and expected of a certain class; however I don’t think that this meant that it wasn’t hugely upsetting for Mollie at least. Imagine giving birth to those four children, and then returning to an empty house for the next decade or so. It must have had an enormous effect on her.


Almost definitely why she had Second Twins - she wasn't ready to be an empty-nester. I tease my mother about that; as we went to boarding-school when I was 10 and my brother not quite 8 - eighteen months later, along came my little sister!

Daphne, however, was probably a bit unexpected!

#20:  Author: DawnLocation: Leeds, West Yorks PostPosted: Thu Jan 24, 2008 11:48 pm
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KB wrote:
Pat wrote:
I don't either! I have a feeling that I've heard that someone is doing a version for GGB. That will be interesting to read.


Yes, you're right, Pat. And she does have quite a different version of Mollie, at least in the early drafts. However it will be quite a while before that book appears on the website. I'll keep you all posted.



Oh good - cos I really didn't like the published one

#21:  Author: PatLocation: Doncaster PostPosted: Fri Jan 25, 2008 8:10 pm
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I liked it as a book, but not as a CS story. There were too many inconsistencies, especially with characterisation.



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