E. Blyton: St. Clare's, Mallory towers - a bullying system?

Elfrida

Fri, Jun 26 2020, 1:46 am

Quote:

Btw I’m 30 and read these when I was 10 and now my 9 yr old is reading them. She likes them but I prefer she reads books with more substance to them. If anyone has ideas what that would be great cause she reads through books sooo quickly that we get from the library

They're not so available today, but I loved Elinor M Brent Dyer's Chalet School books. I admit to having two full shelves of them, and rereading them regularly. Some of them are still in print, and others are available second hand. The characters have are not so rigid, a d have more room to grow and develop. While there is an overarching value system, there is more tolerance for different characters to express themselves within it.

I never really like Angela Brazil, but she also wrote a lot of books for girls, and was a very popular author. A lot of her books are available for free download from Gutenberg or Faded Pages.

Elsie Oxenham is another author of the same genre whose books are becoming available for free download. Her books are good, but hard to read out of order, due to the way the characters develop.

Last edited by Elfrida on Fri, Jun 26 2020, 1:52 am; edited 1 time in total

Elfrida

Fri, Jun 26 2020, 1:51 am

mary6 wrote:

Wow never really thought these kinds of school existed. Magenta can I ask how long ago this was?
I guess I grew up really naive and just pictured this being over 100 years ago. .

I think I always saw them as being set around the 1930's. Though I rarely thought about it as a child. They existed in their own world, only loosely related to the real one.

I could dream about boarding school without having to worry about the realities.

My uncle went to Carmel College - and got expelled from it, so not the best example of a boarding school education. His stories fitted into the same semi-real world as the stories.

Elfrida

Fri, Jun 26 2020, 8:09 am

When I was mentioning books earlier this morning I completely forgot Mary Grant Bruce. An Australian author, most of her books are on Faded Pages. She has a long series of 'Billabong' books. The earlier ones are better than the later ones, but they are all a good read. There are a lot of stand alone books as well. She tends to emphasize the value of hard work and making the best of it when things go wrong, but not in a moralistic way.

amother

Tangerine

Fri, Jun 26 2020, 9:00 am

Sadly, Carmel College closed down about 10 or 15 years ago. My parents had close friends there so we would often visit. Happy memories of messing about on the river there!

But I imagine attending Carmel (or other boarding schools) in the 70s or 80s or 90s was very different to boarding schools in the 50s. My mother attended a (non Jewish) boarding school as a day pupil (in the 50s) and she said all the boarders were miserable and she was so happy she got to
go home every day.

My daughter attended a boarding school in Israel (we live in chul) and it is not very similar to British boarding schools. No prefects. We had prefects, head girls, and houses in my UK Jewish school. I was a prefect. LOL

(not sure if they still have them today)

Like Elfrida, I grew up on a diet of Chalet school, (1930's to 1950's) Angela Brazil, (20's, 30's) Malory Towers, also Trebizon and a series of books by a writer called Antonia Forest, both of which were slightly more modern. (60's or 70's) Of course, me and my sisters all really wanted to go to boarding school. (despite my mothers assertions on how horrible it was) My sister even wrote (in an exercise book) a frum boarding school story in which students had to speak yiddish one day, hebrew the next. LOL!!!!!

I read once this is why Harry Potter was so popular - JK Rowling tapped into the british publics love of boarding schools fostered by Blyton and others.

Re the fagging system - this also had the potential (esp in boys boarding schools) for s-xual abuse. I think in general the corporal punishment and other stuff that went on lead to a lot of s-xual dysfunction in pupils later in life.

Boarding schools such as Eton College, Rugby, Harrow, etc all still flourish. The Royal family send their kids to Eton. Although its a much less popular and socially acceptable option to send kids away to boarding school now then it used to be.

Elfrida

Fri, Jun 26 2020, 9:08 am

amother [ Tangerine ] wrote:

Like Elfrida, I grew up on a diet of Chalet school, (1930's to 1950's) Angela Brazil, (20's, 30's) Malory Towers, also Trebizon and a series of books by a writer called Antonia Forest, both of which were slightly more modern. (60's or 70's) Of course, me and my sisters all really wanted to go to boarding school. (despite my mothers assertions on how horrible it was) My sister even wrote (in an exercise book) a frum boarding school story in which students had to speak yiddish one day, hebrew the next. LOL!!!!!

So I wasn't the only one! But mine was set in the Golan. Couldn't dispense with that mountain scenery. Or the thought of school in a foreign country.