REVIEW: Stanton's Comes of Age
Stanton's Comes of Age: Sylvia Little, Stanmore Press 1947
This was the first Sylvia Little book I've read since finding out that Sylvia Little = Eric Leyland, who also used the name Nesta Grant, so, I was hyper-aware of any mention of gender, often in the form of authorial 'asides' about boys' and girls' natures. I hadn't ever suspected that the author was really a man, although I had noticed that boys did tread into the hallowed school grounds in Little's books. I've come across very few mixed boarding school a la Hogwarts. Following the real-life culture, older children's books and their fictional schools were strictly divided. I can think of one Mabel Esther Allan, there's the school that Blyton's Naughtiest Girl goes to, and there may be others, but I don't recall them, except for at least one school (Castle School, I think) that Little has written about. I think that in the other Little book I own, Queen's has a close relationship with a boys school (?), which is the case between the girls' school in Stanton's Comes of Age, the Trebizon books (set much later, though) and By Honour Bound link by Bessie Marchant and Sally at School. You know, the sort of school where the heroines' brothers go to. The language is of being chums rather than girlfriends and boyfriends (hi, Trebizon). This type of arrangement is still pretty rare in most of the girls' boarding schools I've read. Boys are for Christmas hols, mainly.
As for the book itself well, it was much more like it than a lot of the school stories I've read recently. Yes, it's utterly cliched, the upcoming events are telegraphed, the characters are all stock (even the most entertaining, Willy, the boy who talks nonsense but is really shrewd under it all) but it's ripping fun.
Stanton's is closing down after the death of its headmistress, Miss Agatha Fawcett. A big clump of girls, including Phyllis 'Phyl' Carmichael, who would have followed the family tradition and been head prefect, will be transferring to Tremartha, a school run by Miss Fawcett's younger sister, Di. Ructions are expected as the school becomes a house and must learn new rules and customs, while both sides must adapt and unite.
It's hardly an unfamiliar plot, but what is fresh is that the story follows the 'immigrants'. This may be an example of serial bias, but in the other examples of this plot that I remember - A New House at Springdale, the St Scholastika amalgamation and the later absorption of the other Chalet School by the Chalet School - we're with the school taking on new pupils. Headmistress Di has decided to keep the name of Stanton's (IIRC it is written like that throughout for whatever reason) and letting its girls stay together in a new house of which Phyl is head. Phyl is also made the second prefect of the whole school, putting one Ursula Carr's nose out of joint, because Ursula expected the position. Worse, she and Phyl have met before term begins, when Phyl beat Ursula in a gymkhana (poor Ursula, Phyl has a habit of coming into unbeatable form every time they compete, she later does the same thing in a vital cricket match). We are told that Ursula has been spoiled as a child, but is a good sort at heart. We're told that, but what we see happening is Ursula behaving very badly and setting herself up against Phyl and the new house. As Tremartha's cricket skipper, she refuses to consider any Stanton's girls for the school teams. This enmity becomes even more grievious a problem when the head girl Christine falls ill and Phyl is de facto head girl.
As the seniors have their power struggles, the middles, driven by the injustice of it all, get involved. The Stanton's middles are led by a trio - 'Peggy and Co,', regarding which it is enough to say that they're spiritual Fourth Formers - whose mad stunts make things much worse, and soon there is a feud, particularly between the new house of Stanton's and School House, which is headed by Ursula. To Phyl's frustration, the other houses and prefects are at best neutral, at worst on Ursula's resentful side.
Fortunately, Phyl and her second in command Joyce make friends with Willy and George of neighbouring Bishop's School, who are a tonic, being something of a double act, and able to offer some advice and perspective. However, it is mainly Phyl's own fair and sporting nature, most particularly expressed on a cricket pitch, and after A Daring Rescue (remember she rides horses well) and Ursula's increasing monomania that gets Tremartha to accept its new house and head girl.
I just really enjoyed it. Sometimes, you want the comfort of a book where the seniors have studies and the juniors make their fires, where some places are out of bounds just because and the middles flout the rules wholesale for reasons that seem good at the time. And you want the 'pre.s' to deal faithfully with them, with occasional recourse to the higher authority of the head. I could have done with a little relenting on the cricket detail, and I was also surprised, even though this focuses on the school girls, that Di's feelings at losing her sister were never mentioned. It was entertaining, particularly when Willy was blathering or the Middles were scheming.
This was the first Sylvia Little book I've read since finding out that Sylvia Little = Eric Leyland, who also used the name Nesta Grant, so, I was hyper-aware of any mention of gender, often in the form of authorial 'asides' about boys' and girls' natures. I hadn't ever suspected that the author was really a man, although I had noticed that boys did tread into the hallowed school grounds in Little's books. I've come across very few mixed boarding school a la Hogwarts. Following the real-life culture, older children's books and their fictional schools were strictly divided. I can think of one Mabel Esther Allan, there's the school that Blyton's Naughtiest Girl goes to, and there may be others, but I don't recall them, except for at least one school (Castle School, I think) that Little has written about. I think that in the other Little book I own, Queen's has a close relationship with a boys school (?), which is the case between the girls' school in Stanton's Comes of Age, the Trebizon books (set much later, though) and By Honour Bound link by Bessie Marchant and Sally at School. You know, the sort of school where the heroines' brothers go to. The language is of being chums rather than girlfriends and boyfriends (hi, Trebizon). This type of arrangement is still pretty rare in most of the girls' boarding schools I've read. Boys are for Christmas hols, mainly.
As for the book itself well, it was much more like it than a lot of the school stories I've read recently. Yes, it's utterly cliched, the upcoming events are telegraphed, the characters are all stock (even the most entertaining, Willy, the boy who talks nonsense but is really shrewd under it all) but it's ripping fun.
Stanton's is closing down after the death of its headmistress, Miss Agatha Fawcett. A big clump of girls, including Phyllis 'Phyl' Carmichael, who would have followed the family tradition and been head prefect, will be transferring to Tremartha, a school run by Miss Fawcett's younger sister, Di. Ructions are expected as the school becomes a house and must learn new rules and customs, while both sides must adapt and unite.
It's hardly an unfamiliar plot, but what is fresh is that the story follows the 'immigrants'. This may be an example of serial bias, but in the other examples of this plot that I remember - A New House at Springdale, the St Scholastika amalgamation and the later absorption of the other Chalet School by the Chalet School - we're with the school taking on new pupils. Headmistress Di has decided to keep the name of Stanton's (IIRC it is written like that throughout for whatever reason) and letting its girls stay together in a new house of which Phyl is head. Phyl is also made the second prefect of the whole school, putting one Ursula Carr's nose out of joint, because Ursula expected the position. Worse, she and Phyl have met before term begins, when Phyl beat Ursula in a gymkhana (poor Ursula, Phyl has a habit of coming into unbeatable form every time they compete, she later does the same thing in a vital cricket match). We are told that Ursula has been spoiled as a child, but is a good sort at heart. We're told that, but what we see happening is Ursula behaving very badly and setting herself up against Phyl and the new house. As Tremartha's cricket skipper, she refuses to consider any Stanton's girls for the school teams. This enmity becomes even more grievious a problem when the head girl Christine falls ill and Phyl is de facto head girl.
As the seniors have their power struggles, the middles, driven by the injustice of it all, get involved. The Stanton's middles are led by a trio - 'Peggy and Co,', regarding which it is enough to say that they're spiritual Fourth Formers - whose mad stunts make things much worse, and soon there is a feud, particularly between the new house of Stanton's and School House, which is headed by Ursula. To Phyl's frustration, the other houses and prefects are at best neutral, at worst on Ursula's resentful side.
Fortunately, Phyl and her second in command Joyce make friends with Willy and George of neighbouring Bishop's School, who are a tonic, being something of a double act, and able to offer some advice and perspective. However, it is mainly Phyl's own fair and sporting nature, most particularly expressed on a cricket pitch, and after A Daring Rescue (remember she rides horses well) and Ursula's increasing monomania that gets Tremartha to accept its new house and head girl.
I just really enjoyed it. Sometimes, you want the comfort of a book where the seniors have studies and the juniors make their fires, where some places are out of bounds just because and the middles flout the rules wholesale for reasons that seem good at the time. And you want the 'pre.s' to deal faithfully with them, with occasional recourse to the higher authority of the head. I could have done with a little relenting on the cricket detail, and I was also surprised, even though this focuses on the school girls, that Di's feelings at losing her sister were never mentioned. It was entertaining, particularly when Willy was blathering or the Middles were scheming.