Tag Archives: boarding school story

The Chalet School at War by Elinor M. Brent-Dyer

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The Chalet School at War by Elinor M. Brent-Dyer was first published in 1941 as The Chalet School Goes To It.

The Chalet School at War Book Cover

This one begins with The Chalet School on the move again. They had fled the Austrian Tyrol after getting into ttrouble with the local  Nazis. Guernsey in the Channel Islands seemed like a good place to set up their new school!! Of course that wasn’t for long and with the Germans looking like breathing down their necks again they move on to mainland Britain.

Plas Howell on the Welsh/English border has been offered to them for use as a school. It’s a large and very grand house, beautifully decorated, much too good to be used as a school but otherwise ideal. After a dangerous journey across the English Channel the girls reach Plas Howell.

Gwensi Howell isn’t happy at all, she’s 13 years old and has lived at Plas Howell for the last nine years along with her older step-brother and his godfather. But Ernest her brother has had to join his ship and his godfather has gone. Gwensi had been educated by a governess, but she is to be part of the Chalet School now, she’s not used to other girls at all and doesn’t want to share her home with a lot of strangers.

Surprisingly Gwensi settles in fairly quickly, and she turns out to be a bit of a fan of boarding school books, and a few of them are name checked in the book, presumably Brent-Dyer was kindly mentioning some of her author friends.

With wartime food shortages looming the girls become keen gardeners and learn a lot, but as often happens in schools it’s the fourth year girls who cause a lot of trouble and angst.

I was particularly pleased that Jo appears in this book – along with her baby triplets. I’m not sure how far I’ll go with this series. It’s interesting that the books were written at the actual time of the war, but I might not go any further than the 1960s with the books. They are still being written by writers/fans who are continuing with the series.

 

Nancy at St Bride’s by Dorita Fairlie Bruce

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Nancy at St Bride’s by Dorita Fairlie Bruce was first published in 1933, but my copy is in an omnibus edition published in 1937 along with That Boarding-School Girl and The New Girl and Nancy.

Chapter I is headed On A Clyde Steamer. The boat which will take the schoolgirls to the Scottish island location of their school is waiting for them at Greenock Pier. Nancy Caird is a new girl, a junior who has never been to school before. It turns out that she’s a handful and a half with no boundaries or inhibitions. In fact she thinks that rules are there to be broken and she’s always on the look-out to cause mayhem, no matter what the consequences are. A typical Nancy as we have experienced. Each of us had a mother called Nancy.

Christine Maclean has been given the job of looking after Nancy and explaining the rules to her, the job of monitors and such, but Christine’s good friend Sybil who is a bit of an awkward personality herself,  makes matters worse when she appears to be siding with Nancy and doesn’t take matters seriously at all.

This one took a different turn from what I expected it to as it got close to the end, which was a nice surprise really, as there was a bit of a comeuppance for Nancy.  I was slightly disappointed that given the Scottish setting there wasn’t more of a sense of place somehow, but maybe that was me expecting too much. There were quite a few Scots words used within the dialogue though.

I have most of the author’s Dimsie books in original hardback, but I had to buy them online, I was also sent several of the books by a very kind woman who was looking for a good home for her collection.

I was amazed to find this Nancy trilogy in an Oxfam bookshop, at a very reasonable price too, so it’s still possible to find old books like this when you least expect to.

Sadly my copy doesn’t have its nice dust jacket – but you can’t have everything!

 

 

 

 

 

Redheads at the Chalet School by Elinor M. Brent-Dyer

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Redheads at the Chalet School by Elinor M. Brent-Dyer was first published in 1964, but my copy is a very recent reprint by Girls Gone By.  This one is a bit of a departure from the usual Chalet School series as it’s more of a thriller than boarding school story.

It begins with Flavia and her step-father travelling on a train on the way to the Chalet School. Flavia has red hair and most people call her Copper for that reason, but her step-father explains she must use her real name at school and she has been enrolled under her original surname, instead of her step-father’s surname.

Flavia’s step-father is a policeman and one of his investigations has led to the hanging of a member of a vicious gang. The other gang members have sworn to get their own back on him, Flavia’s life is in danger, but to begin with she doesn’t know that.  The headmistress has been given all the information though.

From almost the beginning it’s obvious that there are nefarious characters hot on the track of Flavia, they know that they’re looking for a girl with red hair, but there are several such lucky girls at the school. Inevitably the wrong girl is nabbed! But of course all ends well eventually.

I enjoy these Girls Gone By reprints, there’s usually a short story at the end by a contemporary Girls Gone By writer.  In this case it’s  An Inspector Calls by Lisa Townsend. There’s also a few pages about the publishing history, notes on the text, and at the very beginning there’s a bit by Ruth Jolly about the apparently fairly regular appearance of girls with red hair attending The Chalet School,  there are more of them than would be expected in society. She also mentions other characters with red hair in literature, and that old chestnut that redheads are supposed to have a fiery temper, which of course had me rolling my eyes as a redhead myself, or as my mother described me – a strawberry blonde.

I almost feel a blogpost coming on about walking in a person’s shoes, because unless you have red hair you have no idea what it’s like! It is the only prejudice which is quite happily allowed nowadays, and features in TV adverts, where derogatory comments about skin colour definitely aren’t tolerated.

 

The Princess of the Chalet School by E.M. Brent-Dyer

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The Princess of the Chalet School by E.M. Brent-Dyer was first published in 1927 and it’s the third book in the Chalet School series which I’ve started to revisit since reading some of them as a youngster. I can’t really say it’s a trip down memory lane as I don’t remember too much about them, or maybe I just read the later books.

Princess Elisaveta has never been to school before, having been educated by governesses. She doesn’t know it but the heir to the throne in her country would like to get his hands on her to try to force the king to abdicate in his favour.

Meanwhile. Miss Bettany has employed a new matron without interviewing her, and it isn’t long before she realises that that was a big mistake.  The matron is a ghastly woman with a shrieking voice and she thinks the worst of everyone, but particularly dislikes Jo as she’s the headmistress’s sister, she even dislikes the baby of the school, The Robin! In no time flat the matron’s behaviour has upset the whole school.

A lack of communication leads to danger for Elisaveta and Jo. Miss Bettany is busy with her wedding preparations as well as the running of the school. but all is well – of course.

Nowadays we might think how unlikely it would be that a princess would be at the Chalet School but you don’t have to suspend disbelief too much as there were lots of what we would call minor royal European families around even in the 1920s. Such fun!

 

The School in the Woods by Dorita Fairlie Bruce

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The School in the Woods by Dorita Fairlie Bruce was first published in 1940, but my copy is a reprint from Girls Gone By Publishers.

Tabitha (Toby) Barrett’s mother is dead and her father, who is a famous artist, gets a commission which is going to take him to Ireland for six months. Toby had been a day girl at St Githa’s but that school is closing, and the boarders are being transferred to a school called Thatches. Obviously Toby will have to be a boarder too.

The girls settle in to the new school and make new friends, and enjoy the new setting of a woodland area, but Toby gets into trouble when she stumbles across a shed in the woodland which is being used as a laboratory. It’s off limits to the girls and Dick Trevor who is doing chemical experiments in it isn’t happy about her being there. His father is a well-known scientist and they live nearby, and with the country being on the cusp of World War 2 Dick is worried about his work being stolen by spies.

Toby knows she’s not a spy, but she suspects that there’s something nefarious going on within the school, she’s just not sure what.

I enjoyed this one which is interesting from a social history point of view with the girls thinking about their futures although in general it’s a ‘training’ in something that they’re thinking about.

As often happens there’s a radical shift in the behaviour and attitude of the most annoying girl – if only that were true in real life!

Autumn Term by Antonia Forest

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Autumn Term by Antonia Forest is the first in her Kingscote school (Marlow Family) series. It was first published in 1948.

It begins with twin girls Nicola and Lawrie Marlow travelling by train to Kingscote School to join their four older sisters there. Before they even reach the school Nicola has a moment of madness which could have ended in tragedy. Big sister Karen Marlow is unimpressed as she’s the Head Girl and a misbehaving young sister is reflecting badly on her.

Nicola and Lawrie are shocked when they discover that they aren’t as clever as they thought they were. All of their siblings are smart, it’s a bit of an embarrassment for the youngest girls to be put into the Third Remove. Nobody expects much from that class but the girls are determined to make the class’s mark in the school, somehow.

This is a really good read. Antonia Forest was so in tune with girls of high school age, and the scrapes that they can get themselves into. In parts it reminded me a bit of Noel Streatfeild, with a play being rehearsed and acted towards the end.

Dimsie Moves Up Again by Dorita Fairlie Bruce

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Dimsie Moves Up Again cover

Dimsie Moves Up Again by the Scottish children’s author Dorita Fairlie Bruce was first published in 1922 and is the third book in the Dimsie series with the setting of a boarding school for girls. My copy of the book dates from 1941 when it was a Christmas gift to Joan from her Auntie Belle, according to the inscription.

The story begins on a stormy September day, it’s the first day of the new school year so it’s quite chaotic with lots of girls’ boxes and trunks piling up waiting to be emptied. Dimsie and her chums are now almost seniors, but not quite. They are however senior enough to be outraged by the behaviour of the girls in the lower forms, they had never behaved like that when they were juniors!

The new head girl is an unexpected choice as far as most of the girls are concerned, and to some of the teachers too, and it takes a while for her to get into the swing of it all, so behaviour does get a bit out of hand in a dangerous way.

The new girl Fenella, who has never been at school before having been educated by governesses, has such a superior attitude – for no good reason – and she inadvertently triggers a hair-raising adventure.

As ever though it’s Dimsie who is the central character. I feel that Enid Blyton based Darrell in her Malory Towers books on Dimsie, those books were published over 20 years later than the Dimsie books and aren’t nearly as well written although I loved them as a youngster. I’ll definitely be continuing with the Dimsie series.

Dimsie Goes to School by Dorita Fairlie Bruce

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Dimsie Goes to School by the Scottish author Dorita Fairlie Bruce was first published in 1920 with the story taking place in 1919. It was originally titled The Senior Prefect. My copy was published in 1932.

It begins with the ten year old Daphne Isabel Maitland better known as Dimsie travelling by train from her west of Scotland home to her new boarding school at Westover, a coastal town in the south of England. She’s accompanied by her older cousin Daphne who is a prefect at the school.

There’s a bit of a mystery as to what has happened to Dimsie’s mother as she has disappeared and only communicates with her soldier husband through solicitors, but Dimsie is unaware of this. There’s a new headmistress at the school and many of the girls are upset by the change, especially when she cuts their hockey practice time by half, reasoning that they don’t do at all well in their exams. However she starts lessons in domestic science which hadn’t been taught there before. This is a good idea given that it’s just after World War 1 when the lack of servants became such a problem for middle-class households.

Although the war has ended it’s still very much part of the book as air-raids and coastal trenches are mentioned as well as shell-shock, and Dimsie’s father is a colonel in the army.

There’s talk of spies, counterfeit money, a strike and even a problem with burglars in the neighbourhood and rumours fly around, aided and abetted by Nita, a nasty piece of work who takes aim at Daphne with a view to getting her sacked as a prefect. The characters of the two Maitland girls shine through it all though with Dimsie in particular becoming popular with just about everyone, the addition of some well written Scots dialect was enjoyed by me anyway.

I found it interesting that it was written in 1919 and that first marking of armistice day is described as ‘the rejoicings’. That struck me as being really strange as today more than one hundred years later it’s always a very sober affair. I think a lot of people in 1919 who had lost family members in the war would not have felt much like celebrating and in a girls’ school there would have been girls who had lost fathers and brothers in the war.

Whatever, this was a really entertaining read and I think it was better than any by Angela Brazil that I’ve read and she was the most popular writer of school stories, but maybe that was just because she wrote so many of them.

Prefects at Springdale by Dorita Fairlie Bruce

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According to Queeney cover

I think I had been looking at Angela Brazil books when this author’s name popped up. I had never heard of her, but was interested to see that her books are mainly set in Scotland. Although Dorita Fairlie Bruce was born in Spain – hence her nickname Dorita – her name was actually Dorothy, she was really Scottish and apparently second only to Angela Brazil in popularity where school stories were concerned. Her books are set in Scotland, I recognised the area as being Ayrshire, the other side of the River Clyde from where I was brought up and quite a bit south. At one point some of the girls go on a jaunt with Dimsie to Arran which is a place I’ve always wanted to visit and intended to do it this year – but we all know what happened to that plan.

I don’t think it was just the setting that led me to enjoy Prefects at Springdale, which was first published in 1936, more than any Angela Brazil books that I’ve read. Somehow the schoolgirls seemed more authentic to me. Unfortunately the books can be quite expensive, there are seven books in this Springdale series and I inadvertently started off with the sixth one. Well, I was amazed to find this book in a pile at an antiques centre, the books are usually really expensive but obviously the seller didn’t rate this author highly as it was priced at £5, I snapped it up.

Anne is preparing to go back to Springdale School, packing her trunk when her sister Peggy tells her that she has received a letter from Diane, also known as Dimsie, a Springdale old girl who is now 23. She’s going to be working there as a temporary games-mistress until a permanent replacement can be found. Peggy is worried about Dimsie and wants Anne to look out for her. It’s going to be a bit of an awkward situation all round as some of the younger girls had rather idolised Dimsie when she was a senior girl.

This was a great read which seemed quite before its time with one of the girls being keen to become an archaeologist and another one being determined to train as a museum curator and luckily they both get a chance to get some hands on experience. There’s a bit of an adventure and a smidgen of romance and this one was an enjoyable trip back in time and place. I also like the rather stylish 1930s design of the book cover.

When I opened this book I discovered that a previous owner had left a wee cache of bits cut out from pop magazines, from the 1970s. I suspect that she wasn’t allowed to stick posters on her bedroom walls so made do with small ‘photos’ cut out. She was a fan of Gilbert O’Sullivan, Rod Stewart, Slade and two mystery chaps that I don’t recognise. I’ll try to take a photo of them and add it here later, maybe someone can enlighten me.

Whose posters did you put on your bedroom wall? I was devoted to Marc Bolan and T.Rex. I’m not even sure if teenage girls still do things like that nowadays.

The Mystery of the Moated Grange by Angela Brazil

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The Mystery of the Moated Grange cover

The Mystery of the Moated Grange by Angela Brazil was published in 1942 and World War 2 does feature in it as the tale opens with the Bevan family enjoying a last hour together before Captain Bevan goes off to rejoin his regiment. Captain Bevan had had a week long leave but he had to spend so much time in London with solicitors that the time had gone so quickly. The upshot of that is that he has inherited an estate from an elderly uncle – if the uncle’s estranged son doesn’t turn up to claim it. It’s thought that the son must be dead.

Maenan Grange is a moated property in rural Herefordshire and it has just been rented out to a boarding school which has been evacuated to the safety of the countryside. The two Bevan girls are enrolled at the school while Mrs Bevan becomes a sort of custodian of the house. It’s an awkward situation for Mrs Bevan and the teachers who really don’t want the owner of the property looking over their shoulders. The older son of the family is sent to a nearby boarding school for boys.

The Bevan children are very impressed with their new home, but they know there’s some sort of mystery surrounding it as they overheard their father saying something was a gamble. The Bevan sisters, Marian and Hilda find it difficult to make friends with the schoolgirls, Marian is particularly aware of her status as the daughter of the owner of the grange, and is a bit stand-offish with the other girls for that reason.

The possibility of the grange being haunted and a hint of lost treasure make this one seem like a cross between an Angela Brazil and an Enid Blyton, but it’s an entertaining light read for pandemic times.

If you fancy having a read at an old-fashioned school story have a look here at the Angela Brazil books available free from Project Gutenberg. This book isn’t available free as it’s one of her later books. She had a very long career which began in 1899 and ended in 1946, she died in 1947.