REREAD: Carola Storms the Chalet Schooll
Carola Storms the Chalet School: Elinor M. Brent-Dyer. 1951 (although I suspect this is a reprint) Chambers
A reread, this, because I brought a hardback copy - I had an Armada copy already - partly for sentimental reasons, as the secondhand bookshop I was buying it at was closing.
Anyhow, this is the story where the heroine memorably upends the girls’ own trope of a girl running away from school: Carola runs away to school. Her Cousin Maud has taken over responsibility for her, as her parents are in Nigeria, but nearly fifteen-year-old Carola is expected to fit in with her travelling aunt’s plans. Sick of the constant chop and change of the last four or so years and longing for some stability, including in her education, Carola meets one Biddy O’Ryan at a Cornish guest-house over Christmas. Biddy is about to return to her beloved Chalet School as a history mistress, and pours stories of the Tirol years into Carola’s eager ears. But she never thought that Carola would plot to escape her aunt on the verge of a voyage to Jamaica and gatecrash the Chalet School.
However, that’s precisely what Carola does. Although it comes off, somehow, until roll call on the first night, everyone in authority is scathing - Brent-Dyer the responsible adult is quite overt about squashing any one who might think of emulating her heroine, although, of course, the island of St Briavel was as fictional as the Chalet School itself. And the author most have known it was a peach of an idea for a story.
Carola hasn’t read the prospectus and has less idea than the usual new girl of the ins and outs of the school, from the uniform to the sports to the link with the San. Perhaps only in a series as long-established as the Chalet School could there be such a story. I certainly thought this as I read about Carola’s first day. The level of detail of what the girls do - every minute is planned, there are individually labelled hooks in the cloakroom, special drawers for each table’s cloth and so on - is far more thorough than in most boarding schools. (The only thing that I can think of that is similar is Oxenham’s May Queen arrangements in the Abbey Girls.)
We stay quite close to Carola as she waits for the school authorities to contact her cousin and her father, who flies back from Nigeria to see about his errant daughter. She has been told quite frankly that she should have thought more about the consequences of what she did - she didn’t even leave a message for her cousin, just vanished in Southampton. But she is allowed to stay on as a pupil, and becomes an official member of Lower VB, whose prefect is Clem Barrass. Carola is also allowed to ignore Maths for Botany, because she has only studied the latter - her studies having been patchily left to various governesses over the years. The German-speaking days are a problem for her, but she’s not alone.
Gradually the focus expands to cover the whole of the Fifth and some notable Chalet Girls, like Len and Con Maynard, Mary-Lou Trelawney and prefects. Joey Maynard, of course, takes it upon herself to take some responsibility for Carola. There’s some Biddy O’Ryan - although Brent-Dyer doesn’t make too much of the fact that they knew each other before the school - and other old girls-become-mistresses (all smoking like chimneys). This is the term when Hilary Burn meets a certain Doctor Graves, who of course has to help rescue one of the girls on a trip, and gets engaged to him; Grizel Cochrane leaves the school for New Zealand; and a rumour is starting to spread that the Chalet School may be moving to Switzerland.
Carola is a bit of a remarkable new girl, coming up with the competition related to Tom Gay’s latest dolls house for the Sale, helping to save two girls in two separate accidents and being involved in looking after a recurrence of Con Maynard’s sleepwalking. Her main fault is thoughtlessness, but she’s shown to be a good addition for the school who will gain a lot from its newest Chalet Girl (I forget, did she ever ascend the heights of Head Girl? Probably not if she was a contemporary of Clem’s.)
EBD gets her geography wrong - Gower is to the east of Tenby and Pembroke. Now I’m really confused about the supposed location of St Briavel’s.
This entry was originally posted at http://feather-ghyll.dreamwidth.org/110157.html. Please comment wherever you prefer to.
A reread, this, because I brought a hardback copy - I had an Armada copy already - partly for sentimental reasons, as the secondhand bookshop I was buying it at was closing.
Anyhow, this is the story where the heroine memorably upends the girls’ own trope of a girl running away from school: Carola runs away to school. Her Cousin Maud has taken over responsibility for her, as her parents are in Nigeria, but nearly fifteen-year-old Carola is expected to fit in with her travelling aunt’s plans. Sick of the constant chop and change of the last four or so years and longing for some stability, including in her education, Carola meets one Biddy O’Ryan at a Cornish guest-house over Christmas. Biddy is about to return to her beloved Chalet School as a history mistress, and pours stories of the Tirol years into Carola’s eager ears. But she never thought that Carola would plot to escape her aunt on the verge of a voyage to Jamaica and gatecrash the Chalet School.
However, that’s precisely what Carola does. Although it comes off, somehow, until roll call on the first night, everyone in authority is scathing - Brent-Dyer the responsible adult is quite overt about squashing any one who might think of emulating her heroine, although, of course, the island of St Briavel was as fictional as the Chalet School itself. And the author most have known it was a peach of an idea for a story.
Carola hasn’t read the prospectus and has less idea than the usual new girl of the ins and outs of the school, from the uniform to the sports to the link with the San. Perhaps only in a series as long-established as the Chalet School could there be such a story. I certainly thought this as I read about Carola’s first day. The level of detail of what the girls do - every minute is planned, there are individually labelled hooks in the cloakroom, special drawers for each table’s cloth and so on - is far more thorough than in most boarding schools. (The only thing that I can think of that is similar is Oxenham’s May Queen arrangements in the Abbey Girls.)
We stay quite close to Carola as she waits for the school authorities to contact her cousin and her father, who flies back from Nigeria to see about his errant daughter. She has been told quite frankly that she should have thought more about the consequences of what she did - she didn’t even leave a message for her cousin, just vanished in Southampton. But she is allowed to stay on as a pupil, and becomes an official member of Lower VB, whose prefect is Clem Barrass. Carola is also allowed to ignore Maths for Botany, because she has only studied the latter - her studies having been patchily left to various governesses over the years. The German-speaking days are a problem for her, but she’s not alone.
Gradually the focus expands to cover the whole of the Fifth and some notable Chalet Girls, like Len and Con Maynard, Mary-Lou Trelawney and prefects. Joey Maynard, of course, takes it upon herself to take some responsibility for Carola. There’s some Biddy O’Ryan - although Brent-Dyer doesn’t make too much of the fact that they knew each other before the school - and other old girls-become-mistresses (all smoking like chimneys). This is the term when Hilary Burn meets a certain Doctor Graves, who of course has to help rescue one of the girls on a trip, and gets engaged to him; Grizel Cochrane leaves the school for New Zealand; and a rumour is starting to spread that the Chalet School may be moving to Switzerland.
Carola is a bit of a remarkable new girl, coming up with the competition related to Tom Gay’s latest dolls house for the Sale, helping to save two girls in two separate accidents and being involved in looking after a recurrence of Con Maynard’s sleepwalking. Her main fault is thoughtlessness, but she’s shown to be a good addition for the school who will gain a lot from its newest Chalet Girl (I forget, did she ever ascend the heights of Head Girl? Probably not if she was a contemporary of Clem’s.)
EBD gets her geography wrong - Gower is to the east of Tenby and Pembroke. Now I’m really confused about the supposed location of St Briavel’s.
This entry was originally posted at http://feather-ghyll.dreamwidth.org/110157.html. Please comment wherever you prefer to.