The Chalet School
Sep. 20th, 2011 07:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
magog_83This morning, a 30 minute documentary (sort of) on The Chalet School books by Elinor M. Brent Dyer aired on Radio 4! I have just listened to it and it was WONDERFUL. They had all these quiz questions in between and I actually got quite a few of them right. GO ME.
Because of those books I grew up yearning to go to the Austrian Tyrol and greet everyone I met by saying "Gruss Gott" - as every good chalet girl did (I later did this when I was 12) and eat 'mittagessen' and use the splasheries and have crazy adventures in the mountains. In reality, I would have hated boarding school, but not if it was the Chalet School <3
There were 58 books written and I think I've read all of them, well all of them I could get from my local libraries and charity shops.
Anyway, here it is on Listen Again if anyone is interested. It's a very funny and affectionate documentary presented by the crime novelist Val McDermid.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b014pzzs
Because of those books I grew up yearning to go to the Austrian Tyrol and greet everyone I met by saying "Gruss Gott" - as every good chalet girl did (I later did this when I was 12) and eat 'mittagessen' and use the splasheries and have crazy adventures in the mountains. In reality, I would have hated boarding school, but not if it was the Chalet School <3
There were 58 books written and I think I've read all of them, well all of them I could get from my local libraries and charity shops.
Anyway, here it is on Listen Again if anyone is interested. It's a very funny and affectionate documentary presented by the crime novelist Val McDermid.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b014pzzs
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Date: 2011-09-20 06:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-09-20 07:03 pm (UTC)This is totally random I know, but I actually have a spare copy of The School at the Chalet (book one) which I would be happy to post to you?? The Chalet School are such lovely school stories, if a bit old fashioned now of course.
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Date: 2011-09-20 07:36 pm (UTC)DD1 loves old fashioned books! Such a generous offer, to ship me a book. Can I pay the postage? I'll pm you my address:D
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Date: 2011-09-20 08:15 pm (UTC)PM me your address and I shall stick it in the post! I'm fairly sure it's in my book box in the garage :)
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Date: 2011-09-20 09:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-09-20 06:52 pm (UTC)But these and the Enid Blyton stories combined to make me feel horribly betrayed when, age 9, I rocked up at boarding school. Where was my mitagassen? And my midnight feasts? And the pranks played on teachers? Nowhere, that's where. Betrayal of the highest kind.
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Date: 2011-09-20 07:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-09-20 07:07 pm (UTC)And didn't Joey have about thirty children, including twins and triplets in the end? How did she get time to write?
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Date: 2011-09-20 07:12 pm (UTC)The plots were very similar, it's true, and the girls all married doctors, but I think I found that quite comforting when I was little. Really awful things rarely happened and all the girls found their place in the school and made friends <3
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Date: 2011-09-20 07:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-09-20 07:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-09-20 07:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-09-20 07:17 pm (UTC)With all the tennis! And Rebecca and her boyfriend Robbie <3 <3
I could never get hold of the later books in that series. I still wish I could read them now. One day I will seek them out properly. There's a publisher near me called 'Girls Gone By' which republishes out of print works (with permission of course) including the Chalet School and all the old Sadler's Wells and Enid Blyton stories.
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Date: 2011-09-20 08:36 pm (UTC)But holy moley - 58 books?! That's quite a lot! Are they very long? The author must certainly have enjoyed writing them just as much as you enjoyed reading them :)!
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Date: 2011-09-20 09:07 pm (UTC)Things I learned about Austrians from The Chalet School: They are all noble, upstanding citizens who thought an English education was more healthy for their girls, because Austrian education was much harder. They are deeply religious, they take lemon or rum in their tea (Joey was VERY SHOCKED at this). Um... they are all very obedient to their parents (or the Mensches were anyway) and then to their husbands, oh and they have kaffee und kuchen every day with lots of honey and nut cakes :D Also they say 'Gruss Gott' to EVERYONE EVER.
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Date: 2011-09-24 01:55 pm (UTC)... I say Grüß Gott :) - though nowadays most people say 'Hallo'. Boooring! :) What's pretty widespread as well though is 'Servus'. I don't know if you've heard of that one ... :)
That's a rather idyllic image of Austria though :)! What a shame that I basically live in Vienna and never got to drink rum with my tea ...! Must be something local in Tyrol!
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Date: 2011-09-20 09:09 pm (UTC)The Chalet School internet community informs me that,
Elinor Brent-Dyer appears to have gone on holiday to the Austrian Tirol in 1924, a fairly cheap place then, and stayed in a village called Pertisau, on the side of the lake Achensee. These became the Briesau and Tiernsee of the series. Many of the real names of nearby places were kept, e.g. Buchau, Scholastika and Innsbruck.
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Date: 2011-09-20 09:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-09-21 02:14 am (UTC)Are they anything like Nancy Drew (I mean time period, style, etc.), which I love?
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Date: 2011-09-24 09:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-09-24 09:11 pm (UTC)