Dimsie Goes Back by Dorita Fairlie Bruce was published in 1927, my Oxford University Press copy seems to be a first edition.
In this one Dimsie has been asked to come back to the Jane Willard Foundation for one term to help out the headmistress Miss Yorke, who is looking a bit ‘seedy’ as far as the girls are concerned. Dimsie will be working as school secretary.
Dimsie is now engaged to be married, the older girls who know her are glad that she’ll be coming back, she had been Head Girl in the past and with a lot of common sense she could be just what is needed as things haven’t been going very well in the school recently.
The behaviour of senior girls has deteriorated badly, with the prefects and even the Head Girl happy to ignore the rules. Even worse than that is the influence of Coral Danesbury who comes from a very wealthy family and thinks that she should get special treatment from the staff, even offering to get her mother to pay the headmistress extra if she can have a room to herself for a study. Already her shared study is stuffed full with silk cushions and ornaments – all against the rules. But a majority of the girls look up to her and want to emulate her style. Face powder and anti-freckle lotion have become popular despite being against the rules.
Dimsie helps some of the girls set up a revived Anti-Soppist League.
This was a good read, there’s quite a lot of humour with a new girl Lintie Gordon being allowed to bring her puppy with her. Lintie is only nine years old and it’s thought she won’t be so homesick with her dog Jeems being at the school. He’s an absolute scamp and is always in trouble, but never for long as he’s just too sweet to be angry with. Through Dorita Fairlie-Bruce we’re told what is going through his mind, which is always amusing, she was obviously a dog lover as they often feature in her stories.
A best-selling Edwardian author called B. M. Croker managed to work at least one of three themes into her novels: cigarette smoking, bridge, and talking dogs.
I ignored the first two, but the talking dogs were annoying. I recall one book in which she describes the family pet going out on the veranda each morning, to receive social calls from neighbourhood dogs, and to exchange gossip about their respective masters and mistresses.
Janusz,
I had vaguely heard of Croker but the British India setting doesn’t appeal to me much. There’s no doubt that some people with pets go a bit over the top with them, it sounds like Croker was like that too.