Isn't there something in one of the books about Jo cleverly having a series of scarves made to match her summer dresses so that she can put them round her hat and always be coordinated?

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Cestina's dolls houses - Bringing Ospreys to Bavorov

Yes, and she settles her clothes with the skill of a Frenchwoman, or words to that effect.

But she seems to have adopted a style soon after she left school, and never really deviated from it. If she was working in fashion, she'd have to have her hair cut and styled and wear the latest designer fashions.

Chanel might suit her, but I don't think Dior's New Look would.

(Crossed with JayB!) There is, and I think she's shown as knowing how to put her clothes on to best suit her from her late teens onward (you know, where EMBD starts on about having 'French' fingers, or 'fingers with the French gift' of knowing how to settle her clothes). One of the places where we get the maximum effect is when she and Jack have taken the Richardsons under their wing(s) and she's talking to Ruey about underwear (I still wonder if this was from the fourth 'annual' that didn't ever materialiser!)

As a young adult she's obviously given some thought to what colours best suited her dark hair and pale skin - she could have put her customers ahead of the game with colour analysis, especially in the UK, where a lot of teenagers and young women were encouraged to dress in a safe, rather colourless style until the mid-1960s.

I think she had the height and the figure to carry off the New Look, JayB, but I suspect that it might not have been to her taste.

Edited for accuracy

Yes, I thought that about the height and figure but I think she might also actually have enjoyed shocking people a little...

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Cestina's dolls houses - Bringing Ospreys to Bavorov

On my phone so not carrying quotes over but some of my idea came from the matching scarves in Joey & Co.

In Lavender Laughs when Stephen was born she had been dyeing a dress. Jack was her husband and besotted with her but he said it was quite a "fetching affair".

In Joey Goes to the Oberland I seem to remember that after she spills the coffee over herself she changes into another old frock and Robin says "admiringly" how it had always suited her.

There is also her much criticised hairstyle. Earphones don't appeal to me but it could be Joey had hit on a hairstyle which really suited her looks and who she was so why change it?

I am by no means saying she went about looking like a fashion plate but the above all suggests she did know what suited her and had a natural flair and that she was interested enough to dress to suit the occasion.

What about if she had attended uni to study history? She could have done groundbreaking work on Napoleon and written the book that's "the last word" on him -- like Eustacia and that Greek chap she wrote about. It would have combined history, languages and writing, the three things she loves.

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

She wouldn't have been able to do that until after the war, because of needing to access French records. And what would she have lived on while she was researching and writing it? There'd have been a lot of travel and research in French and other archives, so it'd have been difficult to combine it with any kind of job.

She could probably have written a very good and readable biography aimed at general readers, and made some money from it. But it wouldn't have been groundbreaking or 'the last word'. That kind of writing doesn't tend to make any money for the writer.

I have trouble seeing Joey as an academic (I'm an academic myself).

I think her strength with history is on the narrative end - she has a good sense of the flow of history, and can tell vivid stories about people and events, and bring about a real sense of time and place. So I think she could do quite well as a tour guide, or as a docent in a museum or historical site. Or, as she ends up doing, writing historical fiction.

But the more research end is quite different. She'd need to pass the entrance exams for university, for one thing. And research involves a lot of quiet, meticulous work that mostly occurs in isolation. Academic writing is also its own thing, and is almost never described as a "crisp, racy style" (the way Jo's writing is).

Jo also really enjoys immediate and enthusiastic responses - girls who loved her books and are thrilled to meet Joey Bettany, for example, or, early on, CS girls who think it's amazing that she's writing books. As a tour guide, she'd get tourists who enjoyed the experience. But the vast majority of researchers aren't known outside their own field (or even well within it), and inside the field praise tends to be on the more restrained side (like "That's a really nice piece of analysis" as a major compliment, or getting a good research grant).

Someone like Stacie I can see thoroughly enjoying the solitary intellectual work and wrestling with a problem, and gradually building up a reputation as a scholar. I can't see Joey being happy in that sort of job. What I could see is Joey as an established writer collaborating with a historian on a popular history book for children - her writing style and narrative gift combined with someone else's work on the academic end.

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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

Just to put a weensy spanner in the works.

How much of history is actually true?

There are some myths around. Everyone knows, and is taught that Edward II died from having a red-hot poker stuck up his backside, don't they?

Yet the first mention of this comes years after his (supposed) death. This was written by a man who really wanted to sell his Chronicle of that time, but so many other people had written chronicles, that he needed something different, so out came the hot poker theory.

And now, it seems to be established fact. But did it really happen? Edward's corpse was disembowelled, then wrapped in Cere Cloth. This work was carried out by local woman, who would surely have told her closest friends that the king's face was distorted, as it would have been if he had died in such a way.

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Carpe diem, carpe noctem, carpe pecuniam et exe, celerrime.
A certain edge when she spoke of Mrs Maynard, certainly, but, after all, not everyone could love Joey.
'Life,' said Marvin, 'don't talk to me about life!'

Well, that's what research is for - to establish the truth, as far as it can be established. There's always room for differing interpretations, though.


Professional historians know which bits are backed up with evidence and are likely to be true, within their own fields. But some of the myths are so deeply ingrained in the general public that it's difficult if not impossible to challenge them. The Daughter of Time has quite a lot to say about this.

It's not just the big issues, like the Princes in the Tower. Popular historical fiction, and some popular history, have established a view of some aspects, and some eras of history. Attempts to challenge these ideas are met with resistance, sometimes even hostility. (I speak as a historian who has been an academic and who also writes historical fiction.) But this is a topic that's perhaps worthy of its own thread.

I don't see Jo being the one to challenge established ideas of history, although with her experience of foreign travel and living on the Continent, and her ability to read in French and German, I could see her writing about European historical events and personalities from a perspective that might be new to British readers, for the general market, not for the academic market. It would be based on existing work, not original research. She hasn't got the skills to do that, and she can't afford the time.

Someone mentioned freelancing - she'd make a good freelance travel writer as long as she remembered to stick to deadlines. She'd make a great tour guide too. I also think the school should have officially employed her as some kind of guidance counsellor.

Sorry for double post, but

That's where her language skills come in. She could do translation work.

I think most people's language skills are wasted. OK, being made to speak three languages at school doesn't mean that you're going to want to get a job with languages, but it does give you a natural advantage in the jobs market in some areas, and very few people take advantage of that. Only Joan and Maeve really seem to realise that the school trilingual system's giving them an opportunity to get a far better job than someone at entry level might do otherwise.

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We really must stop eating like this ...

Minds are like parachutes - they only function when open.

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Not sure Jo was suited to doing any kind of work that she wasn't allowed to talk about.

I wonder how good the language skills of the average CS girl were. Those who were interested, who had natural ability, who worked at it, who had opportunities to practice the languages away from school, probably would reach quite a high level of competence. But those who did just enough to get by at school, and didn't speak or read anything but their own language in the holidays, probably wouldn't achieve a very high standard.