The Chalet School & Health & Hypochondria
The Chalet School series by Elinor M Brent-Dyer (1925-69)
A Body Made of Glass by Caroline Crampton (2024)
I recently looked at Caroline Crampton’s new book, A
Body Made of Glass: Caroline is a friend, and also well-known to this
blog because of her interest in crime fiction and her podcast Shedunnit.
The book is about the history of hypochondria – Caroline is
a woman of many talents – and she has done another series of podcasts on
related topics, and invited me to join her to discuss the Chalet School
books we both enjoyed as girls. Well! Try shutting me up on that topic… what a
joy.
The podcast is here:
A
BA Body Made of Glass
Conversations about hypochondria, health anxiety,
wellness, medicine, scientific history and more. Hosted by Caroline
Crampton
The Chalet School series of school stories by Elinor
M Brent-Dyer ran from 1925 to 1969. Caroline and I are both big fans of the
books – but I had never really got the continuing theme of health or recognized
it as such – Caroline did see it from an early age, I don’t know what that
shows. Reading the books again as an adult it jumps out at you – the author was
obsessed with health! As Caroline points out, everyone is either very healthy
with a good colour, or else is pale and fragile and needs cossetting. People
are forever getting wet and developing a fever. In addition they are very
accident-prone – always falling over, being in cars that crash, falling down
the mountain.
Luckily, coffee and freshly-baked rolls and ‘Karen’s
delicious cakes’ will solve most things…though a good long stint in bed may
also be called for.
But then, many of the books were written before the
discovery and introduction of antibiotics. We are used to the idea that certain
things CAN be dealt with, and are not a huge worry – that wasn’t so true in the
quite recent past.
I know that many of my readers will be interested in this
because of an incident a while back: I reviewed a book by John Banville on the
blog, 2020’s The
Secret Guests (written under the name BW Black), and made a pedantic
correction about a mention of the Chalet School books. In
the blogpost I said:
As well argue with me about the Chalet School as about Agatha Christie or Dorothy L Sayers ie don’t even think about it, even if you have a Booker Prize John Banville.
… and when I Tweeted on this all my women friends of a
certain age came in to reminisce about the Chalet School and how much they had
loved it. They said they couldn’t remember what they read last week, but could describe
the uniform of the Chalet School, and tell you what days the girls spoke which
languages. Famous fans include crime
writer Val McDermid.
In our podcast conversation, Caroline and I range over the whole series, and many, many aspects of the school's life.
Elinor M Brent-Dyer created a whole world for us. I hope
there will be events planned for the series’ centenary next year…
And spending time talking about the books was marvellous (a
word defined as slang in Chalet School world…)
Tuberculosis must have something to do with the emphasis on health in these books, given that the usual "cure" between the wars (and beyond, I think) was to send the patient off to endure a regime of total inactivity in the Alps or other high mountains - the Chalet School was ideally placed! At least in its early years. A character in one of Agatha Christie's "Labours of Hercules" stories disappears and has to be tracked down to Switzerland for this reason.
ReplyDeleteSovay
Yes indeed - a few years ago on the blog I covered a lot of sanatorium literature, from Magic Mountain on. And in the podcast we do try to see it from the POV of an era without antibiotics...
DeleteAnd yes, I have a secret soft spot for that particular story, even though it is romantic rather than crime-based! You can see my post on it here https://clothesinbooks.blogspot.com/2015/10/tuesday-night-bloggers-labours-of.html
I haven't listened to the podcast so maybe you covered this: strep throat, untreated, can lead to rheumatic fever and permanent damage to the heart, so that a later ailment like flu can easily kill the weakened person. I'm pretty sure that's what happened to Beth in Little Women. But of course in the age of antibiotics that doesn't happen and no one really thinks about the possible complications of strep.
DeleteWe made similar points but not that one - I did not know that about strep throat.
DeleteI did a lot of posts on books featuring sanatoriums and TB a few years ago, and learned a lot.
I've never known about Beth!
Streptococcal infection causing rheumatic heart disease is still a problem in New Zealand and parts of rural Australia even now. And yes, I had always assumed Beth's scarlet fever caused heart valve disease that eventually killed her (and I prefer fictional deaths that make medical sense rather than vague "died from getting wet" demises).
DeleteOh that is so interesting, and unexpected.
DeleteI would expect you to want them to make sense. At one time I started collecting 'ridiculous diagnoses' from books: I tried to sell the Guardian on the idea of an article but they weren't interested. I'm sure I have a file somewhere, I must dig it out.
I have to admit, Moira, I've not read these books. But it is interesting that there's so much emphasis on health. I wonder if that's because when the books were written, we didn't have all of the vaccines, etc. that we have now? At any rate, I find it fascinating to look back at books I read when I was younger and see the patterns in them that I didn't when I first read them.
ReplyDeleteYes exactly Margot, that made it so enjoyable. Would love to hear what you read as a young person...
DeleteI definitely read some of the Chalet School books but not much has stayed with me - I remember Joey Bettany, and coffee (coffee was not for children in my early days) and I also remember finding one of the series on the library shelves and realising as I flicked through the first few pages that the school was in ENGLAND. Whereupon I thought "No, that's not right" and put it back on the shelf, and I don't think I read any of the later ones. Evidently the foreign setting was what I enjoyed most about the books.
ReplyDeleteSovay
Yes indeed - though you may have missed out because the school did move to Switzerland after a few years in England!
DeleteI once visited the wonderful ladies who publish Girls Gone By Books and Friends of the Chalet School and they have dolls wearing the Chalet School uniforms - as I recall, everyday, dress up, and sports outfit. Most impressive! Although I love school stories, I did not have access to the series as a child, just three books purchased on a family trip to Bermuda so I never became a true fan, although I liked the way they alternated languages.
ReplyDeleteNO! What a great detail - they do seem like a lovely crowd.
DeleteIt was a constant effort for me to find more Chalet School books - to borrow from the library or to buy in paperback. I used to make notes about them in an old exercise book, trying to make sense of the timeline.
It was a fascinating podcast Moira, and we're having an interesting discussion on the forum about the Chalet School and life before the NHS.
ReplyDeleteOh I must come and have a look. I am delighted at how many people are interested in the topics, as well as the number of fans around. Someone mentioned having a cough on Twitter, I mentioned Chalet School, and many many people responded to that, too!
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