Clem and Tony Barrass
The CBB -> Anything Else

#1: Clem and Tony Barrass Author: Caroline OSullivanLocation: Reading, Berkshire, UK PostPosted: Mon Mar 15, 2004 3:31 pm


Can anyone tell me which book contains references to Clem and Tony's parents being killed. I know in Trials Mary-Lou is writing to Clem as it's just before anniversary of them dying but I've never seen another reference to this. Is this something else that was cut from the PBs or is it an EBDism?

 


#2:  Author: KatarzynaLocation: Preston, Lancashire PostPosted: Mon Mar 15, 2004 3:37 pm


Wild off the top of my head guess here but is it in Trials when Naomi can't go out and Mary-Lou decides to stay behind from a walk to write to Clem?

I know it's during one of her "helpful" moments that she mentions it but I can't recall it ever being talked about either before or after that

 


#3:  Author: ChelseaLocation: Your Imagination PostPosted: Mon Mar 15, 2004 4:50 pm


I don't think that it is mentioned at the time that it happened. Somone wrote a drabble about it (I think).

 


#4:  Author: Gabrielle PostPosted: Mon Mar 15, 2004 6:58 pm


I think its always mentioned as having happened because I remember being really surprised. Clem and Tony had two healty parents and all of a sudden they live with Mary-Lou. EBD seems to have no mercy about killing off people's parents.

 


#5:  Author: claireLocation: SOUTH WALES PostPosted: Mon Mar 15, 2004 8:33 pm


that scene in trials in where Mary-Lou says its exactly a year since Clem heard her parents had died

 


#6:  Author: NicciLocation: UK PostPosted: Mon Mar 15, 2004 11:01 pm


spooky caroline, I've just read trials again, and noticed that for the first time Embarassed and I was going to ask the same question today!!

 


#7:  Author: JenniferLocation: Sunny California PostPosted: Mon Mar 15, 2004 11:32 pm


Gabrielle wrote:
I think its always mentioned as having happened because I remember being really surprised. Clem and Tony had two healty parents and all of a sudden they live with Mary-Lou. EBD seems to have no mercy about killing off people's parents.



She usualy seems to do it in absentia, though. Aside from the twins in The New Chalet School (who weren't students), and Mary-Lou's parents are there any other cases where a death happens during the book? Gillian's mother dies between books, as do Clem and Tony's parents and Margot Venables, but most of the other students start their school career with one or both parents missing.

 


#8:  Author: KBLocation: Melbourne, Australia PostPosted: Mon Mar 15, 2004 11:51 pm


I don't think there are many during a book, but there are quite a number mentioned, staff, students and other characters.

 


#9:  Author: VikkiLocation: Possibly in hell! It's certainly hot enough....... PostPosted: Tue Mar 16, 2004 3:54 am


We had a thread on the old board of all the characters who had lost parents.......

 


#10:  Author: KBLocation: Melbourne, Australia PostPosted: Tue Mar 16, 2004 11:00 am


And it went for ages! Shocked Rolling Eyes

 


#11:  Author: pimLocation: the place where public transport doesn't work properly! PostPosted: Tue Mar 16, 2004 11:29 am


I found a fabulous quote in a book I was reading the other day about the incredible ability of main characters in books to lose a parent before the story starts, thought it quite apt for teh CS!

 


#12:  Author: KBLocation: Melbourne, Australia PostPosted: Tue Mar 16, 2004 11:39 am


I like it as a plot device, but it would have been nice if EBD could have come up with something else.

 


#13:  Author: CazxLocation: Swansea/Bristol PostPosted: Tue Mar 16, 2004 1:30 pm


It would have been interesting if EBD had used divorce instead of death or illness for once, after all her own parents had separated when she was young, and byt the end of the series divorce was not all that of a taboo subject.
Actually I can't think of any of the new girls in the later books (I count the later books as from when Len was head girl, as she seems to be it forever) who don't have dead or ill parents.
*Waits for someone to tell me I'm wrong* Laughing

 


#14:  Author: Rachael PostPosted: Tue Mar 16, 2004 3:18 pm


I think you could be right Cazx ... or they almost die (thinking Jane)

Never mind though - you're never alone with Joey around to "mother" you and a happy home at Freudesheim!! Wink

 


#15:  Author: claireLocation: SOUTH WALES PostPosted: Tue Mar 16, 2004 4:35 pm


Quite often though the reason the girls were sent to boarding school was because their mother had died, had their mother been alive they may have stayed at home

 


#16:  Author: KBLocation: Melbourne, Australia PostPosted: Tue Mar 16, 2004 11:19 pm


Rachael wrote:
I think you could be right Cazx ... or they almost die (thinking Jane)


At least both of Jane's parents were alive. It was her siblings that died in that one.

 


#17:  Author: ChelseaLocation: Your Imagination PostPosted: Wed Mar 17, 2004 12:07 am


But they do get into that car accident and "almost die", don't they?

 


#18:  Author: KBLocation: Melbourne, Australia PostPosted: Wed Mar 17, 2004 12:22 am


Yes, but they do survive. That's my point.

 


#19:  Author: LissLocation: Harrow, London PostPosted: Wed Mar 24, 2004 5:13 pm


I think it was easier for EBD to sort of subsume characters into the school if they didn't have any family ties - you know, so they could consider the school to be 'home'. Otherwise they'd just rush round being schoolgirls who were always glad when holidays came so they could go home to their families.

And of course, it means you can constantly have Joey being warm and understanding, with eyes like dark pansies etc etc etc!!!

 




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