This week the feature book is The Feud in the Chalet School, first published in 1962 and covering the winter term following Future. A small English school, St Hilda’s, relocates from Lake Geneva up to Hellerdorf near the Platz, only to be destroyed by a fire the night before term begins. With the Head in hospital, the staff and girls are forced to move in with the CS until a new building can be found, and a feud develops, fuelled mainly by gangs led by Jack Lambert of the CS and Gillie Garstin of St Hilda’s, before they all shake down. Notable events:

The book opens with the background of one Miss Holroyd, a former languages mistress with an ambition to begin a small school in Switzerland for girls whose parents can’t afford the fees for a finishing school. Thanks to careful saving and a handy legacy, she is able to begin on a small scale at Lake Geneva, but although the school flourishes, the summer heat is too much for the staff and pupils, and she decides to move the school – St Hilda’s – up into the mountains for its second year.
Having leased a new chalet at Hellerdorf, somewhere north of the CS, Miss Holroyd and her staff get ready for the new term. The night before the girls are to arrive, someone tosses a cigarette end onto the dry grass nearby and starts a fire which rapidly spreads to the school. Miss Holroyd and her maths/games mistress Miss Ashley are the only ones there, but while Miss Ashley manages to escape, Miss Holroyd goes to rescue the school cat, Minette, and has to be rescued herself by a mountaineer.
Miss Holroyd, with serious burns and a broken ankle, is whisked off to the San, and Miss Ashley is taken to the CS, who have volunteered to take in the people of St Hilda’s until long term plans can be made.
Gillie Garstin, one of the St Hila girls, wakes up on the first morning of term and reflects on the day before, when the St Hilda’s party was met at Basle with the news of the fire and the offer of shelter from the CS. When the rising bell rings, Len Maynard, her dormitory prefect, assigns Jack Lambert to sheepdog her, and Gillie is left stunned at the speed of the CS morning routine. Having also been used to English food for breakfast at St Hilda’s, they are unimpressed at the milky coffee, rolls, butter, jam and fruit served at the CS.
At Prayers, Miss Annersley welcomes the St Hilda’s crew to the ranks, and adds that, as the school is so full, they will have to be squeezed in with the CS girls instead of having their own forms as initially hoped. The St Hilda’s girls are dismayed to hear that the languages rule will apply to them, and also stunned at the lengthy list of girls who have passed GCE.
On the Saturday morning, while the St Hilda’s girls are sitting tests to determine which forms they should go into, Jack Lambert and her friends assemble on the netball pitch and discuss the lodgers. Opinion is decidedly unfavourable, as the CS girls think the St Hilda’s girls are being too pushy and forward.
Minette, who was unharmed in the fire and has taken up residence in the CS kitchen, comes along to the netball pitch, and Monica Caird, the Games prefect, orders Jack to take her back to the kitchen. Jack sets off, but bumps into Gillie and her friends Anne Crozier, Kitty Anderson and Mary Candlish. Indignant at seeing Jack handling their school cat, they attempt to snatch her back, and she hides in some bushes in a huff.
Jack tries to explain that she was told to take Minette back to the kitchen by Monica, but the St Hilda girls refuse to listen, and try to coax Minette out of the bushes, forgetting that they are due in dictation with Miss Ferrars. She comes looking for them and scolds them, and tells them to leave Minette alone, earning herself a black mark with them.
That afternoon, Lower IVa, of which Jack, Gillie and their respective gangs are ornaments, go on a ramble to Lauterbach. By this time all of the St Hilda’s girls in the form have heard a rather exaggerated account of the Minette incident and Miss Ferrars’ apparent lack of empathy, and are in a state of great indignation over it. They ignore offers to partner with the CS girls, and vow to stick together as much as possible and refuse to let the CS boss them around.
The ramble party reaches Unter die Kiefern, which is currently undergoing repairs, and the CS girls explain that it previously housed St Mildred’s, and is now used as a guest house for people with relatives in the San. Gillie pounces on the idea and decides to ask her sister Phyllis to tackle their eldest sister Monica, who is one of the St Hilda’s prefects, about asking Miss Ashley if they can move into Unter die Kiefern themselves.
Gillie duly tackles Phyllis, who promptly points out that they haven’t got any furniture, books or stationery, nor enough staff, to move to Welsen. Gillie is disappointed, but refuses to give up the idea and decides to put the idea straight to Miss Ashley, whom she guesses wants to separate from the CS as much as she does.
Lower IVa goes on another ramble, accompanied by Miss Denny, Miss Moore, Len and Aimée Robinet. Miss Denny, seeing the CS and St Hilda’s girls refusing to mix, promptly rearranges all the partners, only for the girls to clump together into their respective schools anyway when they break rank.
The ramble reaches the stream which flooded back in Richenda, and Jack, Wanda and Meg Walton/Kitty Anderson (she shapeshifts between paragraphs) spot Minette on the other side. Jack and Meg/Kitty leap across to catch her before Miss Denny can stop them, and Len jumps over to join them. Eventually they manage to catch Minette and bring her back to the school, only to spot another Minette – the real one – strolling down the stairs, and realise that the cat they have brought home is a stray.
Len in her shock drops Minette II, and St Hilda’s Minette spots the intruder. The two cats battle, and are only separated when Karen the cook appears with a jug of water and drenches them. Miss Denny marches Len, Jack and Kitty, who were all scratched, up to her room for first aid, and asks Kitty (she definitely seems to be Kitty by this point) which one is Minette I. Kitty admits she can’t tell because the cats are identical, and suggests they fetch Gillie and Mary, who are both very fond of Minette I, to see if they can tell.
Gillie and Mary, and also Miss Ashley, are unable to tell which is Minette I, but are furiously indignant to see that one cat has a bleeding ear and one has a swollen eye from the fight. Meanwhile, Jo Maynard, who has so far been down at Montreux visiting Winifred Embury, who has just had a baby girl, arrives and watches the scene with great interest.
The younger St Hilda’s girls are furious that Minette I was injured (although still nobody can tell which is the real one), and drenched in water. The tension escalates between them and the CS Middles, with both parties sniping at each other at every opportunity. Maeve, Lizette Falence and Rosamund Lilley overhear one such altercation between Gillie and Co. and Jack and Co., and decide to discuss it properly with such prefects as aren’t on duty that evening.
At the meeting, Francie Wilford observes that she believes a lot of the bad feeling with the St Hilda’s girls originates from Miss Ashley, who is agitating to have St Hilda’s separate from the CS as soon as possible. They discuss whether to raise the matter with the St Hilda’s prefects, but decide not to for the time being, as one of them is Gillie’s sister Monica and they don’t want to cause any awkwardness. They also express disparaging opinions about two of the other elected St Hilda’s prefects, who shirk duties whenever possible and dislike being made to adhere to CS rules.
Miss Ashley and Peggy Burnett walk to the San to visit Miss Holroyd and Naomi Elton respectively, and on the way pass the former St Nicholas building, which is now used as flats for Herr Laubach, the Dennys and Frau Mieders and her mother. Miss Ashley asks why St Hilda’s can’t have it, and Peggy replies that it’s too small for forty-odd girls plus the staff. Just then, Jack Maynard comes out and tells them that Herr Laubach has had a seizure and will die shortly. He swears them to secrecy for the time being, not wanting the news to spread until it’s all over.
At the San, Miss Ashley tells Miss Holroyd about the St Nicholas building, and lets slip that Herr Laubach is dying, which will free up his maisonette and create extra room which St Hilda’s could use. Miss Holroyd dismisses her, but Peggy arrives in time to overhear and is furious. Remembering that Miss Holroyd isn’t to be worried, however, she checks her temper.
The two mistresses walk back, and meet Rosalie Dene at the school gate, heading for St Mildred’s. She explains that their phone is out, and she is going to tell them that Herr Laubach has just died. Without thinking, Miss Ashley blurts out that St Hilda’s can have the chalet if he really is gone. Rosalie manages to stop Peggy from retaliating, but unbeknownst to them, Miss Ashley’s remark has been overheard by Margot Maynard, who was sent to run after Rosalie with another message for Miss Wilson.
Margot, forgetting that Rosalie had warned Peggy and Miss Ashley to say nothing about Herr Laubach until the Head has announced it, bursts in on the rest of VIb and broadcasts what she overheard. The CS girls are upset and disgusted, and the St Hilda’s girls are torn between disgust and a feeling that they should be loyal to one of their own mistresses.
Although Margot remembers too late that she should have said nothing and duly goes to the Head to confess, the damage is done, and a chilly atmosphere develops in VIb between the girls of the two schools.
A Requiem is held in the Our Lady of the Snows chapel the next day for Herr Laubach, and the St Hilda’s girls ask to attend as well, which draws a halt to hostilities for the time being. This continues for the rest of the half-term weekend, including Lower IV’s trip to Neuchâtel.
The truce lasts for a week, until one evening during Hobbies, when Gillie, bored of the first hobby she had chosen (making a scrapbook screen with Kitty and Anne), wanders over to watch Jack making a model aeroplane with a fretsaw. An exclamation from Jack causes her to drop the box of parts already cut and accidentally break one of them. Jack loses her temper and the two girls row until stopped by Carmela Walther.
In the Splashery afterwards, Jack, having cooled down, makes a somewhat lame apology to Gillie, who, still in a sulk, throws it back at her and declares that she intends to take up fretwork herself, meaning Jack will have to share the treadle saw with her. Margaret Twiss makes a sarcastic remark about all St Hilda’s girls having poor manners, which immediately reignited the feud amongst the Middle school as everyone sides with either Jack or Gillie.
The next day the snow begins, and there is great excitement when Jack Maynard is spotted in his car handing a parcel over to Gaudenz. It turns out to be that year’s Nativity play, written by Jo. She has also sent over jars of Anna’s greengage jam to give the girls a change, and Jack proposes a cheer for Jo, in which everyone except an obstinate Gillie joins.
The play is read and everyone of both schools is delighted with it. In the middle of Abendessen afterwards, Gillie causes a sensation by standing up and asking if they can have three cheers for Jo for sending the jam, to which Miss Annersley laughingly agrees. When Barbara Hewlett points out that they had already cheered. Gillie replies that she hadn’t tasted the jam at that point.
The bad weather continues, and the Middles become restless and ready for mischief. While having sewing with Mlle, they spot Gaudenz going past the window carrying a tin of what Jack assumes is varnish, but is in fact linseed oil. That evening, Jack, Gillie and their respective gangs decide to go for a stroll around the corridors, and on reaching the kitchen, hit upon the idea of asking Karen if they can play with the two Minettes, who are now reconciled to each other.
Karen isn’t in the kitchen, but on exploring it they find Gaudenz’s can of linseed oil, as well as several smaller tins left by a careless housemaid which Jack is sure must be the varnish he was using on the doors. They decide to give him a shock by varnishing another two doors for him, and duly set to work. When the bell rings for Abendessen, they are unable to return the tins to the kitchen as Karen is now back, so they leave them in a corner and hope that they won’t be noticed.
The next morning, Gaudenz duly discovers what the girls have done, and for the first time in the school’s history completely loses his temper. As it is too early for the Head or Miss Dene to be up, he storms off to Karen, who investigates and discovers that the doors have been covered in golden syrup, and points out that the work was obviously done by some of the girls. She succeeds in calming him down before he goes to report to the Head.
At Frühstuck, Miss Annersley makes enquiries, and the culprits own up. They are condemned to losing their free time, including Saturday evening, in cleaning the doors and then helping Gaudenz to oil them properly.
The feud having died down – except for Miss Ashley’s continued grievance – the two schools settle down together, and both Miss Holroyd and Naomi continue to make good progress. The snow begins, and after a few days’ imprisonment, the girls are allowed out for skiing and tobogganing.
One night, Jack and Gillie both have a nightmare and wake up. Jack hears Gillie moving about her cubicle and goes to investigate, and after helping each other put their plumeaux back on their beds, Jack proposes they go out into the corridor and have a look out of the window at the snow. They do so, and on opening the window, they hear Minette wailing and realise she is trapped out on the roof.
The two girls put on clothes, go up to the trunk room and climb out of a window there and onto the roof, inching along it to where Minette is trapped next to one of the chimneys. Her wails eventually wake up Miss Ashley, who dashes up to the trunk room and is filled with horror at the sight of the two girls out on the roof. She is soon joined by Matron, also awoken, and who sends her to fetch Nancy Wilmot to help the two girls back inside once they have retrieved Minette.
Everyone is deeply shaken by the event, and Jack and Gillie end up with head colds, but otherwise nobody is any the worse, and Miss Ashley finds the last of her resentment slipping away as she feels properly included as one of the mistresses for the first time.
The end of term nears, and the Christmas play is held and is a great success. Afterwards, Miss Ashley admits to Miss Holroyd that she is glad they have joined up with the CS and that she won’t be so pig-headed again.


So, thoughts on the feud of the title? What do you think of Jack, Gillie and their respective gangs? What about Miss Ashley and her obsession with finding a new building for St Hilda’s? Thoughts on Herr Laubach’s death? What about all the Minette episodes?

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'I'm sorry, I only play for sport.' - Lara Croft

I hardly ever go near this book as it only seems to me like a double lot of Jack Lambert and her gang. I cannot deal either with perfect Len who spoilt the last of the CS books for me as she was faultless. At least Joey and ML had faults as well as good points.

I first read Feud as a library book and it was one of the last books I bought to complete my collection even although it had been out in Armada for a long time.

I have read other comments about the jam but don't know if it is mentioned in the pb and I am not going to look.

Sorry for being so negative but this book ranks right up there with another half dozen as being my most disliked in the series and if it is not top it is not far behind.

I like this one better than the next one....

It's the third time the CS has absorbed another school. Having one of the mistresses be a problem is a new twist, though. Miss Ashley did need a good smack - she's actively stirring up trouble in the school, and making it more difficult for the CS, who have gone above and beyond in taking in a whole school for a year.

I do like the relationship shown with Gillie and her sisters. We don't see a lot of family groupings in the later books, and it's nice to see them interacting. It's also nice to see Jack having a rival - most of the rest of the time, she leads everyone around by the nose. It might have been nice to have Gillie stay, as someone to push back.

The prefects seem rather weak in this one. Maeve is generally fairly weak in the role, which is a shame. It's a rare time that the Head Girl is not an academic type, but instead not good at exams, and more into sports and social stuff.

I'm a bit dubious about whether a group of twelve year olds would really not be able to tell the difference between varnish and syrup. But Gaudenz's reaction would have been priceless.

There's a big description at one point about how Gillie and her friends are spread out over several forms after the entrance exams, but for the rest of the book, they're all in the same form.

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Ring the bells that still can ring; Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything; That's how the light gets in
Anthem: Leonard Cohen

Poor Herr Laubach! Being sacrificed to an early death just so that the plot could make Miss Holroyd look bad .

I'm not keen on this one. As Jennifer said, the whole thing with the CS absorbing another school had been done twice already. The storyline with the cats is plain silly, and surely girls of 12 would have been able to tell varnish from syrup.

As for the legendary greengage jam, which causes the girls to cheer so wildly that the staff say it's a wonder the ceiling hasn't collapsed, and Nancy Wilmot to say what an inspiration Joey is ... what on earth was in that jam to cause such excitement ? My schooldays were very mundane compared to the CS, but I'm quite sure no-one would ever have got that excited over jam! And it really annoys me when Wanda tells Jack that Joey and Mary-Lou are the only two girls in the school's history who would have been kind enough to do that - I think EBD really insulted a long list of very kind girls there .

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We really must stop eating like this ...

Minds are like parachutes - they only function when open.

http://setinthepast.wordpress.com/

Miss Ashley rather than Miss Holroyd?

And I suppose the difference this time round is that the other school isn't intended to be permanently merged. Therefore there is the scope for different treatment and, in particular, different tensions - including the desire by many to get out as quickly as possible. EBD may not have exploited the situation she set up very well, especially in the other two books when St Hilda's girls are still there, but she did at least intended to do something slightly different. (Too many 'differents' there, but I can't think of any synonyms!)

Oh for someone to have said "three cheers for Anna for making such nice jam".

This might be the Chalet School book I dislike the most. The introduction of a new school has been done before and better than this. Even though the St. Hilda's girls pop up in later books, they don't change the landscape of the school the way St. Scholastika's or the Tanswick Chalet School did. The St. Hilda girls don't get a lot of sympathy for having to adjust to a wildly different environment -- can you imagine suddenly having to do two-thirds of your schoolwork in a foreign language? I would have been resentful too.

Even though Miss Ashley is silly and her comments about Herr Laubach are insensitive to the point of offensive, I do sympathise with her a little. She's an ambitious, take-charge type and is suddenly pitched into an environment with nowhere to channel those qualities.

The Minettes story line is silly, even if EBD intends for the cats to be a metaphor for the schools themselves. The euphoria over the jam is silly. I quite like the varnishing incident though.



Poor Tom cranks out a marvelous doll's house every year for the Sale, and other Old Girls have sent stuff over the years, too. Wanda and Jack are probably too young to think about that, but still ... !



That's a great idea and I wish EBD had done that. Even Mary-Lou had a couple of people who held her in check every now and then. Jack really needs someone to do that.

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"I -- I didn't think!" -- Carola Johnstone

I wonder what Anna's "secret ingredient" was that made people so euphoric after eating the jam?

I also sympathize with the Hilda's girls for the language stuff - suddenly only understanding one lesson in three, plus differences in curriculum, would have a significant impact on their schoolwork. Then, after a year of struggling to adapt, they go back to the old system. And the next year, they'd be combining girls who had been in multiple different forms with different work back into single forms, so another disruption in work. Girls Gillie's age would have time to catch up, but for girls in the fifth form, say, it would be a struggle.

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Ring the bells that still can ring; Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything; That's how the light gets in
Anthem: Leonard Cohen

The comment is insensitive, but she never met the man and had no relationship with him. And she had no idea how close the CS staff and girls are to each other.

But the CS girls and staff also wildly overreact - the guy was a terrible teacher constantly yelling at and belittling his students. As well as being quite elderly and ill for a while, so it could hardly have come as a shock. Maybe they were crying with relief?



I always read it as Joey was consistently thoughtful and kind towards the school and its girls. Which is nice of her but she also lives right next door and has ability and time to do things like host new girl teas and act as informal school counsellor.

And most OG would simply not bother. School is done and your new adult life has started. So while you might show a casual interest, maybe attend the sale or send things, very few people would bother to show the level of interest Joey does.

There's a fascinating conversation in one of Antonia Forest's Marlowe books about a character not wanting to be one of 'those' OG - the ones who still show up at OG nights long after anyone remembers them and is wildly interested in the school. Joey is very much one of 'those' girls.

But Wanda's comment also drives home the fact EBD has lost all sense of proportion about Joey and her deification.

This is my least favourite book. There's just too much Jack and she's not a nice character.

I don't need my main characters to be good people, in fact, the nasty people are often the most complex and enjoyable to read about. But Jack makes the mistake of being both nasty and boring.

I do like Gilie though and wish she and Jack had remained frenemies. That would have been much more interesting.

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It's fun to have fun, but you have to know how - Dr Seuss

Was anyone else surprised by Francie Wilford being made a Sub-Prefect from that group? I must admit I wasn't expect her to be made a Prefect over some of the others, when Prefects from IVb were chosen. In the previous book, Len doesn't even mention her as someone who could do it instead of her. And the only one Len mentions that is actually made a Prefect is Ros Lilley. Marie Huber, Rikki Fry, Jeanne Daudet and Heather Clayton are all mentioned, yet none make the list and Heather does become one of the more important Prefects the following year, being Games Prefect, so it would reasonable for her to have a year as Sub Prefect when most of the other Games Prefects do get that chance.

That said, Francie is always described as the leader of the naughtiest girls in the school, so once she reformed, she would be a good candidate. It would have been interesting to see her make Head Girl with her background.

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You should live each day as though you are going to live forever and as though you will die tomorrow.

I think it works very well when the heroines have an eternal nemesis, like Lois Sanger in the Kingscote books, and to some extent Gwendoline in the Malory Towers books. I know I'm always saying this, but I think it's a great shame that Phil Craven was written out of the series, and not allowed to stay in as a thorn in Mary-Lou's side; and it's the same with Gillie and Jack.

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We really must stop eating like this ...

Minds are like parachutes - they only function when open.

http://setinthepast.wordpress.com/

I don't disagree, and I wouldn't expect Miss Ashley to show any grief herself, but a moment of silence that outwardly showed respect and inwardly let her scheme would have been more, well, politic.

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"I -- I didn't think!" -- Carola Johnstone

I'm always quite sad to hear that one of my old teachers has died, even though it's 25 years since I left school. It was very insensitive of Miss Ashley, but it was also thoughtless and insensitive of Margot to tell everyone else what she'd heard, knowing that it would stir up trouble. I think she was 16 by then? Shouldn't she have stopped to think?

_________________
We really must stop eating like this ...

Minds are like parachutes - they only function when open.

http://setinthepast.wordpress.com/

I've felt sad over losing teachers, too, but they were nice ones, not ones that growled at us in German and treated us like we were worthless if we couldn't do the work. It's hard to imagine this generation of students liking Herr Laubach enough to get emotional over his death.

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"I -- I didn't think!" -- Carola Johnstone

I suspect it was the contrast with the shop jam of the day, which was - well, basically it tasted of sweet nothing. It was alleged - and I don't know how true that is - that the raspberry jam of the day was made mostly from turnips, with tiny woodchips to simulate pips. Of course, the jam in Switzerland wasn't like that, but how could EBD be expected to know that? Even as recently as the mid-1990s, cheap French jam was more delicious than expensive English jam!

So then you got delicious home-made jam, in which you could actually taste the fruit from which it was made - well, no wonder Gillie wanted to cheer! And she wouldn't have known that it was actually Anna who had made the jam, as she didn't know the household...

It would have been interesting for Jack's form to continue to have two gangs - Jack's gang, and Gillie's gang. I could see them getting along reasonably well most of the time, but occasionally clashing, and possibly competing for the new girls.

Phil Craven leading an anti-gang would have been entertaining too.

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Ring the bells that still can ring; Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything; That's how the light gets in
Anthem: Leonard Cohen

I agree. And there is no way in God's green earth that girls weren't adversely affected by his teaching methods. He regularly drove students to tears and called them stupid. We are even told some girls were scared of him and didn't want to attend his classes - or was that Grizel?

How on earth in those circumstances would you have good memories of him? Maybe you don't feel glad he's dead but it wouldn't drive you to tears either.



Fair enough. But the cheering combined the comments are still a bit OTT.

And even if Gillie doesn't know about Anna, the other girls and teachers most certainly do and NONE of them say "and how about an extra cheer for Anna who did all the work!"

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It's fun to have fun, but you have to know how - Dr Seuss

The thing about the jam is that they cheer twice! Poor Anna who imagined that her lovely jam would last the Maynards all through the winter - in another book her bottled fruit gets snaffled too.

This had the potential to be a great book with all of the outsiders causing upset when they are unwittingly dumped on the school. Although Miss Ashley is heartless with her comment about Herr Laubach it makes a change to see an adult criticising the school and had the potential to cause a rift in the staff which would have made a great storyline! But as many have already said there is far too much Jack Lambert and she spoils it. Does anyone at all on the board like Jack?!

I remember that I quite liked her when I was the right age for the books - perhaps EMBD created her specifically to appeal to her readers, or at least a fair-sized proportion of them? And I certainly preferred her as a personality to Jane Carew, when we get to Jane and the CS, while not liking the way she treats Jane.