Dimsie Intervenes by Dorita Fairlie Bruce was first published in 1937 and it’s the eighth book in the Dimsie series, so I’ve missed a few of them. I’ll have to get online to find the others. This is the third last book in her Dimsie series and it was only written after readers had asked her for more books featuring Dimsie and the school, the Jane Willard Foundation.

Old girl Erica is living in the village and has set up a branch of the Girls’ Guildry there, but they’re in dire need of a piano. They’re trying to raise £8 to buy one and that’s an awful lot of money. When Erica mentions it to some of the pupils they decide to help out somehow.

Some of the younger girls are getting very keen on make-up, face creams and slimming cream!! But things like that are frowned upon by the school. A small business is set up by the older girls when they realise that they can send off for small samples from the manufacturers who advertise in magazines, and they can sell them on to the younger girls, at a profit naturally. It’s all very secretive of course.

I think this is the fourth Dimsie book I’ve read and I didn’t enjoy it as much as the others, although it was still a good enough read to continue. Inevitably I feel uncomfortable when there’s interaction between the schoolgirls and the local village girls as there’s an air of them being condescended to. Which is exactly how it would have been, in fact it still is like that – in some places not that far from here!