The Whicharts by Noel Streatfeild: Ballet Shoes for grown-ups

The Whicharts by Noel Streatfeild

published 1931

 

 


 

In a post before Christmas on Noel Streatfeild’s Ballet shoes, I mentioned ‘the mysterious Whicharts, a very  strange and somewhat inexplicable grown-up version of Ballet Shoes’.

I had been to see the wonderful stage show at the National Theatre in London (stand-out moment: seeing Petrova fly across the auditorium, not just for the splendour of the stunt, but because they gave it to the most under-valued sister) but never really need an excuse to think or write about the book, which has featured many times on the blog – along with other books by Streatfeild .

Ballet Shoes was one of the first books I covered, very early days of the blog, less than a month in, and I talked about Whicharts then – and have now been thinking that it is strange that it never got its own entry. So here it is. And I think the best way to introduce the book is to quote myself from back then:

Ballet Shoes seems a perfectly formed book, a book that could never have been anything else. It is therefore quite shocking to read The Whicharts, Noel Streatfeild’s 1931 novel for adults about three young girls who train for the stage and support the household. The story weaves in and out of Ballet Shoes, but departs radically from it in the talents and morals of the girls as they get older. It is a very enjoyable book, but weirdly uncomfortable to find a story so much about a lack of success, and a sister who gets what she wants via men. It’s not just the disorientation, it’s thinking of Noel S taking her failed novel and thinking ‘now how can I change this to try again? Suppose I make the girls NOT illegitimate by-blows of an illicit relationship? Suppose I make Maimie not whorish? Suppose I give someone some admirable talent?’  

Because – just to make it clear – NS wrote an unsuccessful novel about three orphan girls, a novel that then pretty much disappeared except for a reprint around 15 years ago. And then she reshaped it (with dramatic differences) into a book for children, one that has never been out of print, has sold in millions, and is a beloved favourite of young people down the ages. It’s a strange trajectory, and surely unique.



It’s main interest would always be to fans of the later book: you can see why it wasn’t successful in its time. It doesn’t seem sure if it is a romance (but the love stories are not at all romantic), or a fairy tale, or a stage novel…. It reminded me somewhat of books by Margery Sharp, but not as well-written or structured.

There are deaths and disasters, and the lack of money is even more difficult here, and – most of all – there is nothing remotely glamorous about the girls’ stage adventures. Everything is dirty, grubby, smelly, dusty. The first half of the book is full of short choppy verbless sentences. Like this. Annoying.

The new stage version of Shoes actually took a detail from Whicharts, intriguingly, so Kendall Feaver, who did the adaptation obviously read the book. (I would say they had also watched the 2007 TV adaptation written by Heidi Thomas). It's the question of Sylvia’s time management: In my last post I raised the question of what Sylvia did all day – well, Sylvia in the show, and her equivalent in the Whicharts, Rose, do the same job, which is ‘gauging in a fuse factory’. (In Rose’s case this is because everything is moved back a few years from Shoes, and this is the First World War – she is working in a munitions factory).

The three girls have the same father, but different mothers who have conveniently disappeared: the girls live with Rose, a former mistress of their father (though not mother to any of them) and Nana. The name comes because they say

Our Father, which art in heaven

when they pray, and it reminds them of their father.

There is, sadly, some anti-semitic stereotyping.



The girls’ moral framework is sometimes hard to work out. There is the usual audition dress panic (always the best parts of Ballet Shoes) and Maimie (=Pauline) raises the money from a man friend – but Tania (= Petrova) refuses, taking a high moral stance. But the unspoken truth is that Maimie is supporting them all, and the dress is needed for Daisy (=Posy), who is understandably put out by Tania’s interference. Incidentally, she is a very good dancer but it is not all as classy and high-toned and Royal Ballet as in the later book.


Little Daisy Whichart?

Maimie, meanwhile – well, I call up a certain phrase from time to time, mentioned in this post: ‘civilians, you might say, or in the magic words of a Louise Brooks or a Dodie Smith, ‘just hanging onto their amateur status’.’

It is engaging, and funny at times. The Shakespeare touring company, with the handsome actor-manager, is particularly entertaining.



No-one is at all bothered about education, and all of them are quitting school young. There is no Great-Uncle Matthew figure.

Nana says ‘theatricals is a trashy lot.’

And they are in this book… but still, any fan of Ballet Shoes really really should read The Whicharts.

Pictures to show different aspects of the Whicharts stage life..

Sister act from the Provincial Archives of Alberta.

The showgirl is Evelyn Keller, of the Earl Carroll Vanities, NYPL.

Cheery group of dancers from NYPL.

Little Daisy Whichart is actually Dorothea Mulvihill,aged 8, NYPL

Two actresses and a showgirl talking’ is from the State Library of New South Wales, the splendid Sam Hood as ever.

[the NYPL has the most wonderful collection of pictures of stage performers and dancers of all kinds from the past 200 years, I get lost in them, and use them frequently on the blog]

 

 

Comments

  1. The snobbery comes in dollops. Tanya tours with the Shakespeareans and shudders to find herself among dusty streets adorned with old chip-wrappers, living in digs among pictures of her landlady's relations.By the time Ballet Shoes became popular, that whole way of life had gone and children had to stay at school until 16.

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    1. Oh that's interesting about the age difference, I hadn't realized that. I did (on reading BS as a child) always get the point about being 12 to start earning.
      Yes, a snobbish book, though the children don't really rise in the world...

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  2. "... same father but different mothers who have conveniently disappeared" sounds like our old Western TV show "Bonanza" with daughters instead of sons. (At least that dad didn't dump the kids on an old girlfriend!) Or maybe a Sarah Phelps adaptation of "Little Women"--I'm sure that the Alcott family had a lot more "warts" than the March family. It wouldn't be the first time an author had "cleaned up" real life in the creation of a beloved story. I loved the "Little House" books about American frontier life, but later learned how much had been glossed over to make the books suitable for children.

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    1. I didn't know the Bonanza boys had different mothers, though I do remember there weren't many female characters. I could hum the theme tune now, and picture the opening credits with a map bursting into flame. Happy days. I liked Little Joe of course, he was v good-looking...
      Yes, massaging of family details is always fascinating. I would be very wary of Mr Alcott...

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  3. I think I read this a very long time ago but have no clear memories of it. You make it sound intriguing, Moira. Very different from Pamela Brown's The Swish of the Curtain series!

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    1. How very true! Pamela Brown was very young when she started writing them, and she tried to sound very grownup, but really just made you realize how young she was... Whereas Streatfeild, whether writing for children or adults, knew all about the world.

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  4. This is fascinating! I can imagine perhaps rewriting a short story that hadn't quite come off - actually I've done it myself - but a whole novel! I am guessing that the thought that it could be so much better kept nagging at her. Chrissie

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    1. ... or the fact that it wasn't successful, but WHAT would make her think that the children's book would do it? I would so love to know what she was thinking....

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    2. Both Streatfeild's highly fictionalised autobiography, and Angela Bull's biography, say that it was not her idea to write a children's book. She was approached by another publisher to write a book for children but 'did not intend to waste much effort on her story. The Whicharts lay to hand; its simple outline still looked serviceable. As quickly as possible, Noel started to rehash it, turning it into a story for children.' (Bull). Streatfeild herself doesn't quite say this, but she does say that she was 'cross with herself for agreeing to something she was convinced she could not write'.

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    3. Sorry -forgot to put my name to the above 'Anonymous' reply (quoting Angela Bull and Streatfeild's autobiography)

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    4. Thanks, Harriet, for the extra info. Smart publisher then, who knew better than NS herself!

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  5. How d you tell the difference between an actress and a showgirl?

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    1. That sounds like the start of a spicy riddle!
      Showgirls didn't have to be able to act...
      I remember reading (years ago, about a past time) that the main thing about showgirls were that they were tall. They didn't have to be able to dance, either, but dancers could be smaller, so that was another distinction.
      I think it's not only the numbers that make it apparent in the picture above which is which....

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  6. Dodie Smith's remark about "amateur status" may be another reference to cricket.
    In the 1920s cricketers were divided into amateurs (gentlemen) and professionals (players). They had separate entrances to the field and even separate changing rooms in some pavillions. Amateurs, though, could claim more in expenses than professionals were paid.
    There was a growing shortage of amateurs, so some were given jobs as secretaries of cricket clubs. Percy Fender, captain of Surrey, was disapproved of because he said the only reason he played full time cricket was because it helped his job as a wine merchant.
    The ultimate shamateur was the professional Hammond, W.R., who was given a job with a car company and became the amateur W.R. Hammond and so qualified to captain England. His job consisted entirely of mentioning his employer now and then.

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    1. That's a very interesting comparison, I wonder if she had it in mind... it does actually work out at a number of levels. That feel that taking money was the ultimate fall.
      Also - respect for amateurs, they had honorifics, ie Mr, didnt they, whereas the professionals were just last name. Miss Smith and Miss Brooks...
      (Louise Brooks was quite cross because she didn't realise till later that she could make money this way)
      For complicated reasons, I have it fixed in my head that a horse called Mr Frisk won the Grand National in 1990, and for a long time the jockey was the last amateur to do so (happened again in 1922 I think). I thought it was quite fitting that the horse had Mr at the beginning of his name, and helps me remember. Always useful to have a few random facts like that for quizzing (or in case ever on the TV quiz Pointless).

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    2. Amateur status for girls was still a thing in 1961 - I’m reading “The Half Hunter” by John Sherwood in which the teenage hero has lent some money to a girl he fancies, which her mother insists on repaying at the first opportunity, much to his embarrassment, on the grounds that ‘I’d prefer my daughter to retain her amateur status.’

      Sovay

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    3. I don't remember that moment, but I did enjoy that book hugely
      https://clothesinbooks.blogspot.com/2018/07/dress-down-sunday-who-wants-to-go-to.html

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  7. I think perhaps you are being a bit unfair in calling The Whicharts 'unsuccessful'. According to Angela Bull's biography of Noel Streatfeild, it was reviewed in many newspapers, generally positively. She quotes the London Evening News critic Frank Swinnerton 'Those who like reality, with a strong dash of humour and improbability, should make a point of reading the most promising first novel I have read for months. It is full of faults ... but it is high-spirited, witty and enjoyable, and has been written by one who is in touch with life'. Bull doesn't give sales figures, so I don't know how financially successful it was, but on the strength of it, Streatfeild was invited by John Galsworthy to join the PEN club, which normally required members to have published at least three books. And since Heinemann's continued to publish her beyond the originally contracted three books, they can't have been doing too badly. I imagine (although I don't actually know, so could be completely wrong!) that there would have been many other books published at the time that were moderately successful, but did not remain in print. And none of them resulted in the author being approached by another publisher and asked to write children's books.

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    1. Of course, Ballet Shoes was MORE successful, but many orders of magnitude. There is an amusing passage in Streatfeild's autobiography where she has to buy copies to give to friends for Christmas (having already parted with her author copies, and unable to get the author rate from the publisher as they had run out) but when she tries to buy 12 copies, is told that customers are restricted to one copy.

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    2. It would be interesting to see sales figures, but I expect that's impossible now - reviews and critical acclaim do not always translate into sales (then and now), and in the end I come back to this: if it was very successful and sold a lot of copies, how could she have self-plagiarised it? If a lot of people had read it, a lot of people would have know where Ballet shoes came from.

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    3. The two books were aimed at very different audiences, and when the girls who read Ballet Shoes grew up The Whicharts was probably long out-of-print, while the women who'd read The Whicharts didn't bother with "children's books", perhaps.
      I don't think the Brigadier could get away with evading child maintenance quite so easily today.

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    4. I imagine in those times people were less willing to chase after errant fathers legally, because of the resulting publicity and scandal. So he could confine himself to his Lord Bountiful gestures at his own convenience.
      I did some Googling and came up with an interesting paper on the history of child support. (The whole site, on a guick glance, looked very worthwhile)
      https://www.historyandpolicy.org/policy-papers/papers/the-child-support-agency-and-the-old-poor-law

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  8. Sorry, but I didn’t love this. I think its main interest is as precursor to Ballet Shoes, which I do love, and it could have done with some editing and ‘pruning’. It is darker and bleaker than the other Streatfeild novels I’ve read, which gives it an edge, and makes me wonder what will happen to the characters, especially Mamie, who is more like Flossie in It Pays to be Good than Pauline Fossil. She would fit nicely into the ‘Bad Girls’ category we recently discussed, using her brains and beauty to her own advantage.

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    1. Christine Harding5 February 2025 at 15:33

      That was me

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    2. I hadn't thought of Maimie as a Becky Sharp, but you are right! Taking small talents and turning them to advantage.
      For me it would not have been interesting (or good) as a standalone - it's the connection to Ballet Shoes that I find fascinating.

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