Not for traditionalists! I'll try to write something more cheerful for Christmas
. Posting early for Bonfire Night because I'm away next Friday."I never thought I’d end up spending another birthday back here," the new headmistress of the Chalet School remarked as she dumped another pile of decades-old exam papers into a large black bag marked "rubbish". "Never mind end up spending it – and the rest of half-term – clearing out a load of junk that probably hasn't seen the light of day since the mid-1960s! Most of this lot must’ve been here since before Auntie Nell and Auntie Hilda retired: wouldn’t you’ve thought that Nancy and Kathie would've cleared it out when they took over? That someone would've done, anyway?"
The new chairwoman of the Chalet School Board of Directors burst out laughing at the pained expression on her cousin's face. "They were probably all terrified that they’d be struck down by thunderbolts if they dared to tamper with any of the relics of the Chalet School’s sacred past! And as for you thinking that you’d never be spending another birthday here, I never intended to come back here at all. I still can't quite believe that I'm really doing this - but with Michael leaving the Navy and getting this job in Geneva for the next five years just as Mummy finally decided to retire from the Board it all just somehow seemed to make sense for me to take over." She smiled wryly: she was well aware that no-one had expected her actually to take the job on; and she was equally well aware that those members of the Chalet School Old Guard still actively involved with the place had expected her to be a pushover, or at the very least not to try to bring about anything that smacked of even the slightest change. Well, they were now realising just how wrong they’d been. "Oh well, that's that lot done, anyway. What's in the next box?"
"A load of stuff from the school san." Len peered inside it. "Most of it dating back to Matey Lloyd's day, by the looks of it. Starting with a pile of old books which're all covered in mildew." She giggled. "D'you think one of them might be a book of recipes for her "patent doses"?"
"It’s going straight in the bin if it is! They look like novels, though, although I don’t know what on earth a pile of old novels would have been doing lying about in a cupboard in the san?" Sybil picked up the first half a dozen books and sat back to investigate further. Then she began to laugh. "Ah – I get it! Gone With The Wind, Forever Amber, and four copies of Lady Chatterley’s Lover! Do the rest look as if they’re more of the same?"
Len, who'd begun going through the remainder of the pile, nodded. "All the books confiscated over the years and considered too shocking ever to return to their rightful owners, obviously!" She sighed deeply. "One of the many great sins of Chalet Schooldom – daring to read anything that wasn’t judged suitable for Chalet girls' unsullied little minds! Keep them young, keep them innocent … and try to make sure that they marry the first man who comes along and feel guilty if they even think about doing anything else."
She put the books down on the floor with a heavy thud, and then reached back into the box. "What else is in here? Oh, two packs of cards. Also mildew-eaten! I wonder whom these belonged to. Presumably someone who got caught playing for matchsticks and got a lecture on the terrible evils of gambling! Like … oh, what was her name? You know who I mean: the girl who smashed up Bride's study."
"Diana Skelton," Sybil supplied. "And, yes, playing cards – well, anything other than Patience or Snap! – was a definite no-no, wasn't it? Mind you, most hobbies were a definite no-no, unless they involved making something to be sold at the next Sale. Heaven forbid that anyone should do something purely for their own enjoyment: we'd've been made to feel thoroughly ashamed of ourselves if we’d even dared think like that for very long!"
"I don’t think I ever did think like that, in those days," Len said wryly. "I even used to find it quite shocking that Con went off into daydreams about her stories during school hours. She wasn't doing anyone any harm, but she'd go off into a world of her own instead of concentrating on whatever we were supposed to be concentrating on and I just couldn’t understand how she could do that. I don't think I could understand how anyone could think for themselves. About anything. It just never occurred to me to question any of it. The rules, the system … the whole idea that no-one was supposed to be different. In any way." She shook her head. "Anyway! And these books and cards aren’t going to be any use to anyone any more, the state they’re in. Something else for the rubbish bag!" She shoved the cards into the bag, then helped Sybil to do the same with the books, and then turned her attention back to the box. " I wonder what other delights we’re going to find in here - I hope we’re not about to uncover a load of stale old food confiscated from people who dared to try to eat anything outside set mealtimes!"
"Ugh." Sybil pulled a face. "No, I can’t see it: the matrons here have always been much too fussy to leave food lying about! We'll probably just unearth some of Joan Baker’s dresses which weren't deemed to be appropriately maidenly! Or a supply of ribbons to be handed out to people like Yseult Pertwee who didn't comply with the school rules about hairstyles. Or maybe we’ll come across a load of old sheets needing to be sewn side to middle – poor old Matey, it really wasn't very fair the way she was always the one who had to supervise anyone who’d been made to miss one of those awful rounds of paper games! And when we were in Armishire and at St Briavel's, anyone who didn’t want to join the Guides had to spend Guide meetings sewing sheets side to middle, as if not being a Guide meant that they were committing some sort of terrible sin!"
"The terrible sin of non-compliance," Len said shortly. "Of any sort of individuality. Being made to feel selfish if you even stopped to consider what was right for you rather than for the School. The School, with a capital S. Or the Family, with a capital F." She paused, and then turned back to the task in hand. "You know, you were quite right about the hair ribbons - there are loads of them in here. All in Chalet School gentian blue, naturally! And there’s a load of make-up, too. All sorts – powder, lipstick, eye shadow, blusher … just think of all the speeches Matey must've delivered over the years about being vain and making yourself look cheap."
She stopped for a moment, remembering. "I remember Ted saying once that she felt that she couldn't win where this sort of thing was concerned – that if she did wear make-up she’d be condemned for showing vanity, and if she didn't then she'd be condemned for not making enough effort to make herself look attractive. And I’m afraid I was probably one of the ones who made her feel like that." She blushed. She’d been such a prig in her schooldays. As well as being fussy and interfering and everything else that Mary-Lou Trelawney had said she was. Although, ironically, anyone might well have said the same about Mary-Lou. Or about an awful lot of the girls who’d attended the Chalet School over the years, and the women who’d taught there. Always so sure that they were right. And always so sure that anyone who saw anything differently from the way they did had automatically to be wrong.
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