I was reading that Margia, as well as later on Mary-Lou, was also Head of the Middles, albeit in a less official capacity. Now I am not an expert on the Austrian books but I remember Margia as a strong, charismatic character and a leader amongst the younger girls. I don't ever remember her as being head girl though even although it looked at one point as if she was as much a cert for the job as Jo had been earlier or Mary-Lou was to be.

Did I miss Margia as head girl or did she really never hold this post? I am only interested in what EBD said/did, not any of the fill-in writers.

I seem to remember Louise being head girl after Jo. Did Gillian and then Hilary follow? I would have thought Margia should have been head girl over Gillian and probably Hilary as well so, what happened or am I over-estimating Margia?

EBD seems to gradually separate Margia and Jo in age, fitting Louise and then Gillian and Hilary in between. Then there is the gap for the escape from Austria, when the school is closed for quite a while, and when we come back Maria is HG followed by Corney. So, Margia and Evvy, being the oldest of the quintette (?) probably would have been senior prefects in the gap...

Remind me, someone, presumably Margia and Evvy are prefects when Hilary is HG in Exile? Ilonka certainly is, and I seem to remember a comment about Corney being a very new prefect at the start of Exile.

I don't think Margia was in Exile - I think she and Elsie had both left by then. She was a prefect when Louise was HG.

The Encyclopaedia will know ... yes, she was due to leave at the end of term in New.

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Thank you very much but do other people also think she should have been head girl? I know she possibly left a little early but supposing she had not?

She's certainly the leader of her age group, and far more of a leader than Gillian who's a very nice girl but doesn't really stand out, but I don't know whether EBD might have felt that all the time she was spending on her music meant that being Head Girl as well would be too much. Of the other two musical geniuses (genii??), Jacynth becomes Head Girl, but there doesn't seem to be any question of Nina even being a prefect.

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Margia has a strong personality and is a clear leader among her peers, so I think she would have made a very able head girl. She started the SSM and I think she took charge when Biddy came on the scene. She got into enough mischief as a youngster to know how to both recognize it and deal with it as a senior. I can picture her at the head of the table organizing duties and delegating responsibilities.

Jo obviously was going to be head girl, but maybe EBD was hedging her bets and keeping Margia as a possibility for later -- or maybe even setting her up to somehow become a prefect under Jo? She's younger, but her personality combined with her musical talents would make it a plausible promotion. Or maybe EBD realised that she needed more nice strong characters, in contrast with Grizel, who is strong, but a bit jagged.

Alison raises good points about Jacynth and Nina. Jacynth is drawn as having a quiet influence over Gay, so it's possible that extends to the rest of the girls, too, though EBD doesn't go into it. Nina focuses on her music to the exclusion of almost everything else, so I'm sure the school authorities recognized she would be a terrible prefect -- especially given what they went through with Marilyn Evans, another girl who put her work before the school.

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Margia is a sub-prefect in New House (but not earlier that year), and a prefect the following year, and leaves at the end of New CS, when she's sixteen. She should actually be a couple of years older, as she starts no more than a half-year younger than Joey.

Both Evadne and Cornelia are prefects in the first half of Exile. Evadne doesn't return to the school, Cornelia does.

Personality-wise, I think Margia would have been a much better Head Girl than Joey. She's a natural leader, generally sensible and well grounded, and a lot more emotionally stable. She's a mischievous middle, but grows out of it at appropriately, and she shows organizational abilities and a willingness to take charge that young Joey lacks.

Jacynth struck me as an odd choice - not so much for the quietness, but because of her music. She came to music fairly late, and was planning on a professional career, so I'm not sure she'd have time to be a good Head Girl and fit in the necessary hours of practice. Although I'm not sure how they managed good cello lessons during her final term on the Island.

Nina didn't join the school until she was fifteen, and was pretty poorly socialized at that point. And she's only there for two years before leaving for other training. I can see why she was never considered for even a prefectship.

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In some ways Margia reminds me of a less OTT Mary-Lou. Of all the girls in the Tirol - apart from Gisela - she strikes me as the most obvious to be head girl. As she got older, I think she was more responsible than Joey. I can only suppose she was not HG because she left school early.

Nina would not have been suitable, nor have wanted any role that would have taken her from her beloved music.

I liked Jacynth very much but I was surprised she was HG, more because of her quietness than anything else.

Slightly different, but I also wonder about the choice of Maria Marani. I would never have considered her before because she was quite run of the mill. Was she made HG to try and fill her mind so she would not dwell on her father and all that had happened to her country, or as a "reward" to all the Austrian girls who stuck to the school? Should Maria have been given the role when she was going through such a horrendous time anyway? Would it just have been too much?

I wonder too if it would have affected the demand for places in the school in wartime Britain if it was known an Austrian girl was HG. The Austrians in EBD's world were anti-Hitler but I am sure the majority of Austrians were for him.

I wonder too what British girls reading Exile in 1940 thought of an Austrian HG? Again, this shows how far ahead of her time EBD was.