Head Girl’s Difficulties is the second book in the LaRochelle series. Rosamund Atherton (later, she became Blossom and Judy Willoughby’s mother) is promoted to Head Girl. She faces a difficult term, as the Headmistress is away due to a train accident. Rosamund decides that the school has win all their games, top all their exam lists, raise the tone of the school and make a huge success of everything they undertake. This causes some problems with the lower school. The younger girls retaliate with a school magazine which attacks all the Prefects. Things go from bad to worse with an outbreak of diphtheria. Cecil Trevennor (from Gerry) dies and Sheila Trevennor nearly dies. Rosamund expresses her sympathy for some of those who have it especially those who have died. Her doctor Uncle tells her not to be so sentimental. Mrs Atherton turns on her brother for saying that and tells him exactly what she thinks of him. Out of the Atherton’s only Con becomes unwell, who slowly recovers.

The new term starts and there’s a new girl for the Sixth known as Blossom. She causes the younger girls to become sentimental and soppy. The Prefects deal with by making the girls read out their soppy notes to each other in front of everyone. The Atherton house catches on fire. Her Uncle is far more sympathetic over Rosamund being upset about the house catching fire, than he was over the deaths in the community. Rosamund’s essay burns in the fire. Rosamund isn’t eligible for any form or school prizes, so she had worked hard on this essay, even sacrificing social events to complete. Rosamund copes well and manages to rewrite it. The year eventually ends with a joke meant for another mistress gets played on the Head instead and there is the usual end of term matches, where Rosamund shows everyone just where Blossom Willoughby gets her tennis talents from and Rosamund wins the prize for her essay.

So what do people think of this book? It’s very obviously one of her earlier books, how does EBD’s writing compare with the latter books with both content and style?

Rosamund has some difficult things to face, such as death in the community; her home burning, which destroys something important to her and she has to remain calm through the face of these as she is the one others turn to. How does Rosamund cope and mange this? How does she grow and change during the book?

What do people think of the Uncle’s attitude towards Rosamund’s response to the death’s in the community especially when compared to his obvious sympathy over her being upset about the fire? Is his response reasonable or understandable?

How does Rosamund handle being Head Girl? Do people think her responses are harsh or too soft on the ‘sinners’? Does she change in the way she handles misbehaviour over the year of being Head Girl?

Please comment on this and anything else you can think of

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You should live each day as though you are going to live forever and as though you will die tomorrow.

I read this book two or three years ago but it was not what I expected and I ended up just by skim reading it. I think it was the last La Rochelle book I read and about the most disappointing (along with Seven Scamps which took me ages to finish). I can remember very little about it but thought it dated and Rosamund was not what I thought she would have been. Sorry for not being more positive.

I very much enjoy this book every time I read it. Roasmund and her peers are an atttractive bunch - a tad solemn in their prefectly duties and Ros's desire to make the school perfect in every way, but that just makes me laugh.

The whole Blossom thing - well, I like the anti-soppist attitude of the seniors, the way Blossom infects the younger girls is well handled and I think the punishment is perfect (though I'm not sure any real school would let the prefects carry out a scheme like EBD's here). The one thing that always bewilders me is Ros's naming her elder daughter Blossom - I can't decide if EBD had forgotten the details of the Blossom storyline in the intervening years and just remembered the name as one of Ros's school chums, or if perhaps there had been a later story or chapter, which never saw the light of day, where Ros and Blossom did become friends.

I also like the money storyline which is running in the background, with the post WWI frail father, the money worries etc., that aren't in our faces as readers but are lurking there and then get resolved at the end. OK, it's melodramatic, but I still like it.

Re. the doctor's words to Rosamund, they don't bother me particularly. To me he's saying don't give way, don't get hysterical, everyone has enough to cope with at the moment without that as well. He does speak to her quite roughly, and her mother takes him to task, but I can kind of see where he is coming from - and he must be desperately worried too, of course...

All in all, as a second attempt and a foreshadowing of her later efforts, I am rather fond of A Head Girl's Difficulties.

It's very 1920s with the anti-soppism stuff, and very obviously an early effort with the classic GO storylines of the heroine dramatically winning a tennis match in a close deciding set and then winning an important scholarship, not to mention the use of fancy-sounding names which Joey is gently mocked for doing in her first effort at writing a book .

I think Rosamund's uncle is harsh for criticising her, but it's interesting that, in this book, several of the school's pupils die in an epidemic, which is something EBD shies away from in the CS books. It's also interesting to see the head girl and prefects come to the fore during a time of crisis for the school: the CS's HG and prefects don't feature that much either in the first half of Exile or in Gay.

However, I'm going to be grumpy and say that I don't like the way the "soppiness" is dealt with. In DFB's Dimsie Goes To School, the "Anti-Soppists" are juniors who tackle their own classmates. In this book, the anti-soppist storyline comes across to me as bullying by the school's ruling clique of anyone who doesn't do things their way. They humiliate the younger girls by making them read out their soppy notes in public (with the objects of their crushes amongst those listening), and they gang up on and make fun of Adelicia.

The younger girls haven't done anything worse than sigh about how AN Sixth Former is "divinely beautiful", and Adelicia, when she asks why everyone's picking on her, is told that it's because she wanted to be known by a pet name, asked everyone to be nice to her and kept calling people "dear" or "darling". OK, soppiness can be annoying and is a big no-no in GO books of the time, but it doesn't hurt anyone and I don't see that it was necessary to treat people like that. Imagine being about 14 and being forced to stand up in front of the object of your crush and a whole load of other people and read out a soppy note about the wonders of the said crush-object which you hadn't intended to be seen by anyone except your best friends - they were probably all mentally scarred for life . [/rant]

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We really must stop eating like this ...

Minds are like parachutes - they only function when open.

Just wanted to add - I love the bit about the PE mistresses putting on a gymnastics display for the Vth forms!

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We really must stop eating like this ...

Minds are like parachutes - they only function when open.

Is it just me, or does EBD go absolutely wild with the names in this one? Maybe when Jo is writing her first novel and comes up with all those names, EBD was thinking of herself?

It's not just you, Loryat - I thought the same thing .

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We really must stop eating like this ...

Minds are like parachutes - they only function when open.

I found the deaths in Difficulties quite shocking. Although they were of the time and readers would have understood the situation, the reality of them sits oddly for me with Elinor's writing as a whole.

As regards the Growing Up theme, it's as if Elinor pulled no punches at all when she puts in the deaths stories, it's not softened down at all, or made more bearable - it's blunt and to the point and very real. It doesn't come across at all (to me) as a book written for children to simply enjoy, it's as if there's a 'this is life' statement to it, as if part of the purpose is to help the reader 'grow up'.

All that sounds very negative, and that's not how I mean it all - there is enough lightness to put the book into the realm of GO School Stories, but the sadness tinges it badly for me. Another example of Elinor's writing skill, showing how she is able to add RL situations that are hard into a 'regular' book, and still make it all hang together.