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#1: Girls: Working Class Girls Author: Róisín, Location: Ireland

Posted: Wed Oct 03, 2007 1:57 pm
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...such as Biddy, Joan or Rosamund, among others. How do you feel about how these girls were portrayed? How high are the levels of snobbishness, and can they be explained by EBD being 'of her time' or by other reasons? Has EBD drawn an accurate picture of the working class life in the 1930s/1940s? What about how girls from this class are assimilated into the School?

Please join in Very Happy

#2: Author: Alison H, Location: Manchester

Posted: Wed Oct 03, 2007 2:33 pm
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This is something that really winds me up! We are repeatedly told that the CS girls are not snobs - e.g. that Vi Lucy has a friend whose father is a fisherman, that no-one will think any the worse of Ros Lilley because her family are working-class, and that the CS is not snobby compared to St Scholastika's - but they (although not unreasonably so for their time and background) so obviously are!

The triplets state that there's no way that Mary-Lou will go there (the village school), Polly and Lala say that all anyone learnt at the school near their old home was how to speak with a Yorkshire accent, and Joey and Phoebe refer to Reg's mother having married above her station. The worst thing of the lot is that we're told that Biddy and Rosamund have nice manners as their mothers were in service and learnt how to behave properly by watching their mistresses, whereas Joan, whose mother worked in a shop and therefore presumably never got the wonderful opportunity of watching how her "betters" conducted themselves, doesn't!]

The attitudes are not unreasonable given the background of those concerned and the time in which they lived, and prejudices work both ways so I don't mean that they were the bad guys (if that makes sense!), but I do wish they wouldn't keep making out that they don't have any prejudices against working-class girls when they so obviously do!

#3: Author: Simone, Location: Newton le Willows

Posted: Wed Oct 03, 2007 3:17 pm
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I can remember as a child thinking that I would have loved to have gone to the CS.

But - I felt that coming from a village school, with an 'unpleasant' Cheshire accent and having a very Joan Bakerish attitude to boys in my teens, that I wouldn't have been quite the CS girl they were looking for Wink

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

Posted: Wed Oct 03, 2007 5:54 pm
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The little digs annoy too - that Reg was clever enough to be a doctor because his father was of a higher class. As though the lower/working classes didn't have any brains themselves. Really a hold over from Victorian times when that was the actual thought.

I think EDB tried to portray them as very egalitarian and not snobbish - but it was only on their own terms.

#5: Author: Tara, Location: Malvern, Worcestershire

Posted: Wed Oct 03, 2007 10:42 pm
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Well, ok, I agree with all those comments, but compared to many of her contemporaries, EBD is very egalitarian. Again we're judging her from our own pov, many decades later. I think her heart was firmly in the right place and she couldn't, any more than the rest of us, avoid the tatters of social conditioning that inevitably clung to her. Not many authors would have dreamed of incuding in their texts girls who really did have 'working-class' origins. And, of course, EBD's writing life was so phenomenally long that by the end of the series some of her attitudes were very anachronistic - but she does pretty well, really.

#6: Author: Maeve, Location: Romania

Posted: Thu Oct 04, 2007 7:00 am
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I don't think that EBD was so much a total egalitarian, as that she envisaged a world where people would be considerate of each other no matter what their background and class. The books began in a period when servants were still the norm and and while EBD never suggests, say, that Marie Pfeiffen's younger sisters attend the CS, she does insist that Marie and her co-workers be treated with a consideration that borders on a kind of egalitarianism, IMHO. Marie

Quote:

liked all the girls at the Chalet, and adored Miss Bettany, who was such a kind mistress, and took such an interest in her younger brothers and sisters. ...What made it seem better was the fact that Madame also made Fraulein speak politely to her always, and they followed the head-mistress’s example, and were interested, as well as polite.

Marie, herself, seems quite aware of the class or behavioural distinctions, which is why the CS treatment seems so wonderful.

Similarly, in CS and the Oberland, Elma's snobbish response to one of the maid's interactions

Quote:

“I think they might have provided a better trained table-maid. The idea of joining in the conversation like that!”

is shown as being decidedly off-key in the CS world. But again, no one is going to suggest that a CS girl make her way around the world by charring in hotels, or that the girls and the kitchen staff get to know each other in their off hours!

I do find the whole initial treatment of Biddy, especially the idea that she become a maid to the Robin, really jarring, but I guess that makes it even more amazing that Biddy ends up as such an integral part of the school, first as a pupil and then as staff. Given the norms of the period, that seems like a quiet, maybe unconscious, revolution on EBD's part.

#7: Author: Caroline, Location: Manchester

Posted: Thu Oct 04, 2007 7:33 am
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Maeve wrote:

I do find the whole initial treatment of Biddy, especially the idea that she become a maid to the Robin, really jarring, but I guess that makes it even more amazing that Biddy ends up as such an integral part of the school, first as a pupil and then as staff.

Doesn't EBD mean us to think that the maid thing was a bit of a daft suggestion on Vanna's part? Jo accuses her of reading toshy novels....

Reading that section again, I agree the treatment of Biddy is a bit wacky, but the prefects are having a random brainstorming session, just throwing out ideas - I wonder how many of their ideas we are supposed to take seriously? Jo certainly pours scorn on some of what the others say, and she is as near as we usually get to the Voice of the Author.

To me, the weirdest thing of all is that the prefects are left to decide what to do with Biddy at all - surely, once she is found, Mademoiselle and Madame should be making the decisions, not a bunch of 17 year olds.

Anyway.

Generally speaking, I quite like the ethos of the CS in respect of working class girls. Compared to a lot of other school story authors, EBD handles the arrival of The Scholarship Girl with relatively little hysteria, there are no whispering campaigns against them as Lowering the Tone of the school, no one accuses them of cheating if they come top of the class or frames them for some crime, and the author doesn't cop out at the end by having, say, Rosamund really be the daughter of a Duke or something.

So, whilst I don't think EBD is especially egalitarian by today's standards, compared to her peers I think she really is very even-handed, and what overt snobbishness and superiority we see is really rather tame, and often condemned by other characters (of course, there is an insidious class thing going on in the background - servants are the norm, people look down on the village school etc. - but it's really very little compared to e.g. the Abbey books).

#8: Author: Maeve, Location: Romania

Posted: Thu Oct 04, 2007 8:09 am
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Caroline asked

Quote:

Doesn't EBD mean us to think that the maid thing was a bit of a daft suggestion on Vanna's part? Jo accuses her of reading toshy novels....

That seemed like a more likely reading, but I just checked and they seem quite serious in their suggestions. The "toshy novels" remark is in answer to the idea that Biddy might work for free, in gratitude, but the idea of having her be a maid seems to be made in earnest.

Quote:

‘Where will she live?’ asked Simone. ‘Mademoiselle will settle that,’ said Vanna di Ricci, speaking for the first time. ‘Perhaps Madame would let her go up to the Sonnalpe. She would be company for the Robin. ‘She’d have to get rid of a good deal of her brogue, then,’ said Jo... ‘My sister would never hear of the Robin learning Irish-English.’ ‘Possibly she could do that if she were with people who did not use it,’ said Simone. ‘It’s pretty strongly rooted, I should say.’... ‘ Vanna spoke up again. ‘It would be a good idea, I think, to have her trained to be maid to the Robin,’ she said.
Jo stared at her. ‘My good girl, who’s going to pay? Uncle Ted hasn’t all that much money – little more than his salary, I believe.’ ‘But if we educated Bridget, and looked after her till she was grown-up, would she not be willing, from gratitude, to serve the Robin?’ ‘Vanna, you’ve been reading toshy novels!’ accused Jo. ‘Don’t be an idiot, my lamb! That sort of thing is all very well in a book, but it doesn’t happen very often in real life – if at all. No; we must think of something better than that. All the same,’ she went on thoughtfully, ‘to have her trained as a maid is rather an idea. Her mother seems to have been one to this Miss Honora, and the kid should know something about it. If we could hang on to her till she’s fifteen, and then have her taught hair-dressing, and so on, it might be the very ticket for her.’

#9: Author: Róisín, Location: Ireland

Posted: Thu Oct 04, 2007 8:16 am
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Maeve wrote:

‘She’d have to get rid of a good deal of her brogue, then,’ said Jo... ‘My sister would never hear of the Robin learning Irish-English.’ ‘Possibly she could do that if she were with people who did not use it,’ said Simone. ‘It’s pretty strongly rooted, I should say.’... ‘

I find this quote interesting (thanks for typing it up Maeve Very Happy

) - overall in EBD's stuff there seems to be a hierarchy of acceptable accents. Top of the list is of course the clipped English tones of Joey, which she maintains as an expat from the age of 12. But without bringing this away off topic completely: the accents at the very bottom of the list are this Irish-English of Biddy's, and the Cheshire (?) accent of Jack Lambert at times, and Joan Baker's accent. It seems to be working-class based rather than geographically based. Because there is nothing wrong with exposing the Robin to, for example, Marie Pfeiffen's accent, which is presumably working class, but Austrian.

I'm not sure what the difference is here but thought it was interesting that for EBD, not all working-classes are the same. The Irish and English working class are worth less in social terms than the Austrian.

#10: Author: Maeve, Location: Romania

Posted: Thu Oct 04, 2007 8:32 am
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Róisín wrote:

Quote:

Because there is nothing wrong with exposing the Robin to, for example, Marie Pfeiffen's accent, which is presumably working class, but Austrian.

I think the difference is probably not based on nationality, but on peer groupings. Robin will never be under any illusion that Marie is a peer, no matter how much she interacts with her daily. But Biddy, if she comes as a "companion" and Joan and Jack if they are at the school as regular pupils, are all interacting as peers and thus have to speak like everyone else.

And staying slightly OT Smile

the other accents that EBD makes note of are Welsh and Scottish ones. I always found the treatment of the McDonald twins a bit off. On the one hand, they seem to get away with keeping their accent more than Biddy; on the other hand, the other girls seem to comment on it much more in a not quite unkind way, but still faintly off. I'm thinking of the scene where Clem comes to the CS and she's imitating the accent of the people on Erisay: "It iss like thisss," - something like that.

#11: Author: Róisín, Location: Ireland

Posted: Thu Oct 04, 2007 8:44 am
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Maeve wrote:

...the other accents that EBD makes note of are Welsh and Scottish ones.

Yes, it's interesting that Flor-iona and Gwensi are allowed to keep strong, national accents, but they are most definitely not working class. I would say the purpose was to introduce national diversity to her characters. Saying that though, the difference between Biddy's accent and Deira's accent is one of class yes, but also one of nationality: Joey calls Biddy's accent Irish-English, not 'badly-spoken' English.

On a slightly different note. I think EBD felt more comfortable describing what she knew to be working class, as working class. When it is outside of her experience, the way she describes the working class is more in line with a cookie-cutter peasant - all the peoples who are 'foreign' to her, including Welsh, Scottish, Austrian and Swiss. Maybe this is a factor in her confused approach to an example of the Irish working class, as above.

#12: Author: Katherine, Location: London, UK

Posted: Thu Oct 04, 2007 8:52 am
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Maeve wrote:

. . . But again, no one is going to suggest that a CS girl make her way around the world by charring in hotels, or that the girls and the kitchen staff get to know each other in their off hours!

However, Elisaveta does have to char to support herself and I think EBD sees that as a perfectly worthy effort to support herself and her children.
By the way, how does Elisaveta get back on her feet financially, does she have money squirrelled away from when she was Royal?

#13: Author: Carys, Location: London

Posted: Thu Oct 04, 2007 9:57 am
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It's interesting about Gwensi's strong Welsh accent as Plas Howell isn't suposed to be in Wales is it? But close to the border. And in Wales the closer you get to the border the more Englishfied accents become...

#14: Author: Alison H, Location: Manchester

Posted: Thu Oct 04, 2007 11:20 am
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Hereford's pretty close to the border but it's certainly in England! Yet all the local staff - given that the maids all seem to be called Olwen, Megan, etc, and the maintenance guys and other local men are all called Griffith Griffiths, Evan Evans etc - are presumably meant to be Welsh. (EBD seems to've had some wonderful ideas about Welsh names Rolling Eyes

.)

Re Elisaveta, presumably her family had a Swiss bank account Wink

#15: Author: Rosalin, Location: Swansea

Posted: Thu Oct 04, 2007 11:30 am
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I find the Welsh aspect a bit odd as well. The set up is such that I always feel they should be quite well into Wales, certainly not in England Confused

This may have been asked before, but would Gwensi, a well off girl who didn't even live in Wales, actually have been fluent in Welsh? I can see her picking up some from her nurse or something, but surely the family would have only spoken English.

Back on topic, the treatment of working class girls vaguely annoys me, particularly the way they are looked down on and assumed to be less intelligent. It's odd because I never react like that while reading the Abbey books and they are much worse. I've noticed that especially trying to do a cross-over. Meshing the two attitudes has been causing me quite a few problems recently.

#16: Author: Jennie, Location: Cambridgeshire

Posted: Thu Oct 04, 2007 12:43 pm
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That was a common attitude, though. In 'Goodnight Mr Tom' whenoneof the twins gets a schoalrship, the other girls look down on her for having a village accent, and because she isn't paying fees the way their parents were, and they begin to accept her only when she comes fifth in the end of term exams.

At my school, one of the girls dared to address the caretaker as 'Wilson' instead of 'Mr. Wilson' and she was made to apologise in public.

#17: Author: Caroline, Location: Manchester

Posted: Thu Oct 04, 2007 2:33 pm
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Rosalin wrote:

Back on topic, the treatment of working class girls vaguely annoys me, particularly the way they are looked down on and assumed to be less intelligent. It's odd because I never react like that while reading the Abbey books and they are much worse. I've noticed that especially trying to do a cross-over. Meshing the two attitudes has been causing me quite a few problems recently.

Maybe that's becuase we expect EBD to be better than that - more egalitarian and etc. - whereas we don't have such expectations of the Abbey books?

Have to say, veering off in an Abbey direction, EJO's treatment of the working classes (e.g. Ann Watson) bugs me far more than anything in EBD. And what I particularly dislike about EJO is the way that people who are actually the equals of the Abbey girls, class-wise, are treated as social inferiors - all those Abbey Queens ending up as people's servants....

But I digress.... Laughing

#18: Author: Karry, Location: Stoke on Trent

Posted: Thu Oct 04, 2007 3:53 pm
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The unfairness of EJO that bugs me is the treatment of Susie Spindle(?) who gets castigated for daring to go and see her sick child, and then bringing measles back - how DARE she care for her child rather than the precious twinnies!

#19: Author: Rosalin, Location: Swansea

Posted: Thu Oct 04, 2007 4:14 pm
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Yes that bit really gets me too. Imagine Joy (also a widow) being forbidden to see her children like that, and with illness around too.

I think the difference between EBD and EJO is that EBD's are more realistic. I can imagine the Chalet School being a real place, so the treatment of the working class people bothers me because they are real people too (just like Joey, Hilda and co are, right Embarassed

). But the Abbey books almost take place in some parallel universe populated by monks, peers and folk dancers so it bothers me less because I know it isn't real.

Hmm, I'm now rather worried about how my mind works. Or I've been reading too much Terry Pratchett Rolling Eyes

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

Posted: Thu Oct 04, 2007 4:23 pm
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Makes perfect sense to me Rosalin. Laughing

#21: Author: JackieP, Location: Kingston upon Hull

Posted: Thu Oct 04, 2007 7:48 pm
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Rosalin wrote:

Hmm, I'm now rather worried about how my mind works. Or I've been reading too much Terry Pratchett Rolling Eyes

Yes - it's all real - fancy coming for a drink at the Bucket with Cheery, Angua and the girls....? Very Happy

Back more OT - on the accent thing. It does seem odd that those who don't have their accent interfered with are those girls who are not of the Working Classes. The one exception to this is Jack Lambert and I think EBD maybe implies by the fact that Jack has not come to the school until she was 11, and so has been at another school beforehand, is the reason for her less than perfect accent...

JackieP

#22: Author: Dawn, Location: Leeds, West Yorks

Posted: Sun Oct 07, 2007 9:44 pm
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Have moved my post to the split off thread (Religion Classes) in Anything Else

#23: Author: macyrose, Location: Great White North (Canada)

Posted: Sun Oct 07, 2007 10:12 pm
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In Theodora Jo and Rosalie are talking about why the Chalet School hasn't made much of a difference in Joan Baker and Jo says that while Joan has improved, in her case they have to deal with heredity as well as evironment. What has heredity got to do with it, and why is it, as far as I know, ever only applied to Joan?

#24: Author: Jennie, Location: Cambridgeshire

Posted: Mon Oct 08, 2007 11:15 am
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In the early part of the the 20th Century, there was a lot of babble about Eugenics and improving the race. This also dealt with the 'inferiority' of non-white races, and how some people never got out of poverty, bad behaviour, etc, never mind whether they had been given a decent education, social housing, childcare information and help, no they were just condemned. The Eugenics Movement came to a halt when the Nazis claimed that they had based their theories of racial purity on the American model for categorising people.

That said, Jo was going a lot too far when she said that. She didn't know Joan's mother, and we are told that her mother would never have allowed her to use the language that she did, and Joan's grandfather seemed to have some ideas of how to behave properly, so Jo was completely out of order.

I think that we have to bear in mind that India was used as the dumping ground for the black sheep of families for many, many years. Some made good, some didn't. It was the same with Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Some of them were called remittance men, their families paid them to stay on the other side of the world.

#25: Author: Rosalin, Location: Swansea

Posted: Mon Oct 08, 2007 6:08 pm
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Jennie wrote:

I think that we have to bear in mind that India was used as the dumping ground for the black sheep of families for many, many years.

So were Dick Bettany and/or the Bettany father (David?) black sheep then?

#26: Author: Jennie, Location: Cambridgeshire

Posted: Mon Oct 08, 2007 7:33 pm
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Possibly, in RL, but not in EBDland.

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

Posted: Wed Oct 10, 2007 3:57 am
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One thing I do find interesting is the girls who are very clearly from aristocracy are the least snobbish. Elisaveta and Marie Von Eschenau are extremely friendly with everyone and on a social scale are well above everyone else in the school (Elisaveta is a daughter of a King and Marie the daughter of a Count).
That said I would never believe Joan so called cheapness to be as a result of her class but who she is. So many parents at her old school didn't like their daughters to associate with her given her behaviour and the boys she runs around with which I find completely understandable. If I were her parents I would have been worried she would fall pregnant or something.
I also find it interesting that there were mini-classes within what is obviously working class. Joan looks down on Rosamund because of her parents job.
I also think EBD hints at something in regards to Diana Skelton. Her common accent is picked up on by Bride and Nancy especially when she is upset and it becomes more pronounced. This despite Diana is from a wealthy family but does have working class origins. I know a couple of the mistresses admire her father from where he's come from but Hilda does tell them not to let it slip because girls can be cruel. Obviously Hilda doesn't see the pupils themselves as being as egalitarian as she would like

#28: Author: Loryat,

Posted: Thu Oct 25, 2007 8:18 pm
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That's something that annoys me in CS; the way the 'well bred' eg upper class girls are never snobbish (not in their eyes anyway) and all the snobbishness comes from the lower class girls, eg Joan Baker, Vera Smithers and (IIRC) Diana Skelton. In a way this corroborates with practically every other book written in this period, where the newly middle class are the most snobbish of all, but I think we could have done with some snobbishness from the 'well bred' girls too.

I think everyone judges Joan Baker's mother for the way Joan is dressed when she first arrives at school, eg wearing too adult clothes, make up, and with a perm. From that and the way the Bakers behave when they get their win, I think we're supposed to see that they're very 'ill bred'. Maybe that's what Jo means when she refers to heritage? (Though it was still an unacceptable thing to say). I don't think we can put it down to class since there's no problems with Ros's heritage.

The whole Biddy maid thing, while it looks appalling to our 21st century eyes, actually makes a lot of sense. They're planning to have Biddy be taught a trade, which (other than properly educating her) is the best thing they could do. While we would all expect them to take Biddy into the school, such an idea simply wouldn't have occurred to people of that period. After all in that period the high school leaving age (for the lowe classes) was twelve (IIRC). When they realise that Biddy's brilliantly clever, they quickly change their tune, which is better than nothing.

#29: Author: Kathy_S, Location: midwestern US

Posted: Fri Oct 26, 2007 2:38 am
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I think that EBD consciously tries to show that snobbishness can turn up everywhere, from the upper class Thekla, through Juliet's reluctant sister-in-law, to Joan. It's my opinion that Rosamund is portrayed as the daughter of a servant not because EBD believed only servants had an opportunity to learn manners -- I don't believe that for one second -- but to emphasize that snobbishness and true manners, as described so eloquently by Rosamund's mother, are character issues rather than class issues. Remember that even before the windfall Joan rubs it in that "Your mum was only a servant and mine was a young lady in a shop." Considering the times, I think EBD handles the class issue remarkably well.

I do agree that the books portray the school as attempting to inculcate a particular set of standards for ladylike dress, behavior, and speech, but think that real schools were expected to do likewise. Certainly the standards evolved over time, and towards the end EBD may have been a bit behind, but my own school made it very clear what would happen to our reputations if we dressed as Joan did. Our parent handbook even advised mothers that it was inappropriate to wear *gasp* shorts when picking up their offspring. The school likewise cautioned against language or pronunciation that might mark us as "ignorant." It wasn't just lectures on using "ain't" or slang, but what might have been called elocution. My besetting sin, according to the teachers, was that I didn't enunciate mid-word "t" properly, so that "little" came out "liddle," a la lower class Judy in L.M. Montgomery's Pat of Silver Bush. Pride in one's regional accent wasn't yet politically correct, and I get the impression that developing a "proper" accent was even more a sign of "education" in EBD-era English schools.

What did differ in real life was the extent to which peer pressure was in agreement with the official line. For EBD, the main recognized divergence was in slang, which, despite fines, showed up in the mouths of girls and staff alike. However, there didn't seem to be much difference in how the two groups viewed dress -- perhaps since EBD wanted to portray CS mistresses as very up-to-date. I'm afraid we automatically considered teachers somewhat old-fashioned. However, peer pressure still had recognized standards for how far a "nice girl" might go in dress, make-up or cussing, that made the CS version ring true. Judging from overheard student conversations about who does and doesn't dress like a "slut," I suspect that only the boundaries have changed. On the other hand, by the time I was at school, developing a "proper" accent never really made it outside the classroom. For example, playground wisdom continued to hold that to "spit" one's t's rather than use the "liddle" pronunciation was stuck-up. I gather that there may likewise be circumstances in which the British received pronunciation has snobbish connotations, but can't begin to guess whether they would have been current in EBD's social circles, or at a school like the CS.

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

Posted: Fri Oct 26, 2007 3:06 pm
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Kathy_S wrote:

I gather that there may likewise be circumstances in which the British received pronunciation has snobbish connotations, but can't begin to guess whether they would have been current in EBD's social circles, or at a school like the CS.

I apparently speak with a very "received pronunciation" voice, and I do think it's my greatest handicap. Unlike my daughter, I'm not "bilingual" - I can't adjust my voice to suit my company, and that can be a serious pain at times.

#31: Author: LizzieC, Location: Canterbury, UK

Posted: Tue Oct 30, 2007 2:28 pm
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Lesley wrote:

The little digs annoy too

Rereading Problem the other day I noticed another little dig - in discussing the possible admission of Joan to the school it is mentioned how much of a problem Rosamund is having come to the school knowing no languages. This seemed to me rather unfair, that they single out what a problem Rosamund is because of it, when several of the later books (and some earlier books) show girls who come to the school, are placed in similar level forms and need to be intensively coached because they know little or nothing of either one or both other languages. I felt almost a burning sense of injustice that Rosamund was picked out as a problem because of it and felt that it was at least partly because she was of a lower class than most of the other CS girls.

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