My grandad had to take a job which meant moving about 30 miles away from home ... which was lucky, because that was how he came to meet and marry my grandma . But he certainly hadn't intended to move out of his parents' home, but, as you say, jobs were scarce in many areas. It might have been easier for people higher up the social scale, but Jo still couldn't have been too picky.

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We really must stop eating like this ...

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If one is thinking of Joey as a teacher, I tend to envision her rather in the mould of EBD herself. Probably rather good at it, and very entertaining, but not much good at the subjects that didn't interest her, and hopeless at dealing with the administration side of things.

EBD often left classes for her mother to teach while she got on with writing (and considered this perfectly acceptable behaviour), and her lack of administration was part of the reason that the Margaret Roper School failed. One can see Joey being very involved with the girls and very enthusiastic about spreading her love of history and literature, but failing to relate to academic requirement for exams or take the broader veiw of what is necessary to run a school.

As a junior teacher in the school in Tyrol she would have fitted in fairly well (and would have been able to add in extra-curricular work such as Guides), but may have struggled if she was still teaching in Switzerland.

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... Anna made up her mind for once and all that there must be something about the Chalet School that affected all concerned with it with mild insanity!

I do think working in the Chalet School would have been the obvious answer if Joey needed a job. Whether she would really enjoy it or not probably wouldn't have been a prime consideration at the time. It would have been a way of ensuring she had free board and lodgings and could earn a little bit of money. She would also have been able to stay under Madge's eye.

During the war she would probably have been called up and learned a bit of independence and probably realised there was an interesting world beyond the school gates. She would, more likely than not, have met someone and married during or immediately after the war and settled down to rearing a family and writing books, as she did in the books.

If she hadn't married I'm not sure she would have returned to working in a school. The war years would have broadened her view of life and I think she would have branched out a bit. Her options, as a woman and at a time when men were coming back from war and needed jobs, would still have been limited though so I'm not sure what would have ended up doing in that situation.

I really don't get this idea that Joey was in some way incompetent or anything but resourceful. Her youthful escapades surely showed that; character does not change substantially as one grows up.

If one assumes that the timeline remains much the same, the only difference being that she didn't marry, then she had the experience of fleeing twice before the Nazis, and also a trip to India, no small thing in those days, under her belt, by the time she was in her mid-twenties.

I think she could have held down any job she chose to try, and I see her as an excellent behind-the-lines spy in occupied France. Who knows where she might have gone from there?

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Cestina's dolls houses - Heigh Ho! Part Two

Would she have had the emotional stamina for that? She had quite a bad mental collapse after the harrowing flight from Austria and seemed to be much more emotionally fragile than Bill or Robin.

You really would need nerves of steel to have been a spy in Nazi occupied France. I just couldn't see Joey being up to that. That's not a criticism. Most people wouldn't be able to undertake a role like that.

Well possibly not an on the ground spy, but I can see her with some sort of role in intelligence - probably not code-breaking though, given her maths skills!

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Cestina's dolls houses - Heigh Ho! Part Two

Yes, I could have seen her working for the Ministry of Information or the War Office doing some kind of confidential work. Although she didn't really show herself to be terribly discreet in the later CS books, blabbing new girls' private business to her kids.
But maybe, if national security was at risk, she would learn to keep her mouth shut.

I think she would have been used as a translator during the war years, otherwise she could have helped a writer doing historical research. This would have encouraged her own literary aspirations and of course, if the author was male, could have married him.

I always think the Chalet School girls' language skills were wasted. OK, speaking three languages fluently wasn't necessarily going to mean that they all had burning vocations to work in language-related job, but - as people like Joan Baker and Maeve Bettany are savvy enough to realise - it would have given them a big head start in certain careers. Verity's solicitor's daughter works at the British Embassy in Paris, but I don't think we're ever even told her name. And those skills would have been particularly useful to the war effort.

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We really must stop eating like this ...

Minds are like parachutes - they only function when open.

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Yes, and languages even come in more than a bit handy in a lot of jobs that are not directly language-related. I would frankly have struggled as a curator without French and some German, and even Spanish and Latin were useful.

ETA It was Pamela James who was Verity's solicitor's daughter and worked in the British embassy in Paris, but we don't get any more than that except that she has an elder sister Joan who's married.

It's interesting, though - in a crisis, when needed, Jo is resourecful and resilient - rescuing Veta, going after Maureen, rescuing the Robin from the cave, even following Grizel up the Tiernjoch. Maybe not always the wisest decisions to go in the first place, but she had a plan, she put it into action, she saved the day etc. She might collapse later, when she's reached safety, when there is someone there to look after her, but when she needs to, when she has to, when other people are relying on her, I think she generally pulls through. So I could totally see her as a spy.

That's true and I think Joey has a tremendous amount of courage. But for spying I think it needs to be a cool, calm kind of courage involving holding your nerve over a long period of time and making good decisions under extreme pressure. I think a highly strung person like Joey who reacts emotionally in most situations wouldn't necessarily be the right person for the role.

I wonder if Joey might have ended up as a PA to someone like Mr Lannis, or to a businessman in Innsbruck. Her language skills would have been a real asset to anyone doing business internationally.

Would there still have been issues around chaperonage by then? I know Agatha Christie has lots of live-in lady secretaries in her books, but EBD makes a lot of the issue in some of her stories.

I somehow don't see Joey working for anybody else - but the school - in whatever capacity. Not meaning this in a nasty way but Joey was the star/the doer/the creator, not the assistant.

I don't either see her involved in any kind of intelligence. Subterfuge is not her thing.

If she had to do war work, maybe she could have used her talents as a translator.

If she did have to work for any outsiders I would think it would be as a sideline to Joey's own creative talents and something lighthearted. She is meant to be good at fashion, at knowing how to dress. What about something in that line in an exclusive clothes shop?

Perhaps she could have been a "mother's help" to an authoress with far too many children

She had been hoping to go to Belsornia as a Lady-in-Waiting/Companion to Elisaveta, but then Madge wanted her at home when Sybil arrived and the nursery got a bit full. I know people say she'd have been hopeless at it, but I don't know - it might have suited her talents rather well. But of course the War would have put paid to it even if Sybil's arrival hadn't.

I really don't think chaperonage was an issue in the UK by the late 1930s - in fact I think it had ceased to be much of an issue by the First World War. A great many middle class young women were going to college or university or were out earning their livings; it would have been unrealistic to try to keep it up.

EBD seems to think chaperonage was an issue in the Tyrol, and Madge goes along with it for the Austrian girls. We see that Madge isn't bothered about it for Jo - she has Jo going off with Jack to meet the Lintons, for example.

(And in fact I think historical novelists make a bigger thing of chaperonage than it necessarily was at the time. Jane Austen doesn't make a thing of it. Elizabeth is alone with Darcy several times. Charles Musgrove thinks it's OK to let Captain Wentworth escort Anne Elliot through Bath - and Anne normally goes out and about in Bath on her own.)

I was once told by someone whose family came to Britain as refugees from Vienna in the 1930s that chaperonage was still a big issue for young women in Austria back then - even under those circumstances, there were issues about sending girls away without a chaperone. It certainly wasn't an issue in Britain by then, but maybe it would have caused a bit of a scandal if a young woman had taken a job as live-in secretary in Innsbruck.

I always quite envy Grizel, getting to study in a lovely city like Florence, in the days when there was a big British expat community there so probably lots going on socially. I like to think that she and Gerry had the time of their lives there . Would Joey's singing have been good enough for her to have made a career of it, maybe as a teacher if not as a professional singer?

_________________
We really must stop eating like this ...

Minds are like parachutes - they only function when open.

http://setinthepast.wordpress.com/

She'd have had to work at the theory and technical side, and perhaps learned some anatomy, in order to understand about breathing and posture. I never had the impression she was that keen on music. I think languages and history meant more to her. Going to Italy to study Italian language and culture might have suited her better.

I don't remember this aspect of Joey. I know Simone was meant to be very chic, but I never pictured Joey as caring that much about clothes and fashion.