My blog disappeared from the web for close to 24 hours this week, which was a shock and a worry. Google removed it for breaking community guidelines, something I strongly dispute 😀😀😀. I asked for a review, and was re-instated without apology or explanation. Thanks to all who were concerned and contacted me. I very much hope this will not happen again, to state the obvious, but it it does I will try to update people on my Substack account - see box near the top of the home page: it costs nothing to follow me there (if you are asked if you would like to have a paid subscription just say no). And for now - it's so nice to be back! Glad to celebrate with one of the more obscure corners of my recent reading
On Your Marks by Gladys Mitchell
published 1954
St Kelvern's Launches Out by Carol Ann Pearce
published 1962
You never know what will turn up in the comments round here. Recently we got into a deep discussion on what schoolgirls wore for PE lessons.
Isn’t it obvious how that arose? For the post on
A
Bullet for Rhino by Clifford Witting
I used a John Verney picture of a 1949 cricket match: as it
happened there were girls on the pitch (there weren’t in the match in the book,
but the picture was so splendid I had to use it). So we all got into discussing
what they were wearing, and soon we were going over gymslips and PE tunics and suchlike. (And I
should mention that two knowledgeable readers are still discussing the book and
its philosophy - not PE clothes - in depth),
Marty mentioned a Gladys Mitchell book about trainee PE
teachers – so obviously I had to order it and read it immediately.
It is NOT a crime story – it is a 'career
novel' for what we would now call Young Adults. This was a very popular genre, looking
at career choices for (mostly) young women by means of following the story of a
fictional young woman (mostly – there were career books for boys, but it was
girls who loved them). I remember them in my own school, and in particular
there were popular series where a young nurse was followed through many books
in different jobs and probably romances.
These books were big in the UK and the US, and I
covered an American version in this post
Cherry Ames was quite the US institution, along with Sue
Barton – a remarkable comment from Birgitta
on the recent Little
House of The Prairie post revealed that Rose Ingalls Wilder
(daughter of Laura, and editor of the books) lived with Helen Dore Boylston,
who created Sue Barton.
But there were also books about for example air hostesses
(there would hardly have been ‘Jane Smith – Airline Pilot’ in those days) –
and, here, training to be a PE teacher.
There is a marvellous book by Kay Whalley,
who is plainly the all-time expert on this topic – she has an
unrivalled collection of the books, and writes about them entertainingly:
A Smart Suit and White Gloves | Girls Gone By Publishers
She looks in exhaustive detail at the career novel
for girls, and shows a huge number of covers, which are as fascinating as you would
expect.
Back to On Your Marks: This is the first non-Bradley book by Mitchell that I have
read, and I have to say that if I’d read it blind I would never have guessed
that it was by her. It’s an easy read, very much of its time, telling a straightforward
story. Of course training colleges featured in various Bradley books, along with
other educational establishments. It was her home ground, and there are
familiar items here: rags, a boys’ college nearby, teaching practice in
schools. As in for example
Spotted
Hemlock by Gladys Mitchell
There is a fire and brave rescue, as in the school in
St
Peter’s Finger by Gladys Mitchell
Other colleges in Orange
and royal blue: Laurels are Poison (a very early entry on the
blog, without much detail – I have become much more chatty over the years) and
a school in Death at the Opera
The
Detective wore magenta, orange and blue
These are the books in the Bradley series from just before
and just after, and honestly, the contrast is marked:
The Echoing Strangers 1952
Merlin's Furlong 1953
Faintley Speaking 1954
Watson's Choice 1955
I’d love to know more about how she came to write this book
The magisterial Stone
House site of course features and reviews the book, but doesn’t
really answer the question ‘what possessed her?’
They wear, by the way, a divided skirt to play hockey… we’d probably call that culottes now.
At Mitchell's college, when snow is on the
ground it is impossible to play hockey. But never mind! They play lacrosse,
because that is more up in the air. But what will they wear on their feet?
Nothing. They play lacrosse barefoot in the snow….
Now, for me the elephant in the room is Miss Pym Disposes by Josephine Tey, one of my all-time favourite crime novels (and,
as regular readers know, the reason I was part of an Edgar-nominated writing
team, and went to New York for the ceremony).
That’s a book set in a very similar educational establishment – it was
published eight years earlier, though there is always a slight question mark over when Miss Pym is
set. There are unnerving similarities and huge differences. Would you ever
think that of two writers tackling the same subject Gladys Mitchell would be
the light-hearted one? Tey is about a million times darker. Mind you, the
Mitchell heroines, Lesley and Frankie, have maybe removed themselves from the
possibility of being murdered: in Miss Pym the Important Job at a Posh Girls’
School is at stake. Mitchell’s gals very creditably go to work in a new
Secondary Modern school, even though their qualifications could take them
somewhere more upmarket.
The book is an interesting read, either for social details
of the career choice and era, or for Gladys Mitchell completists. Count me in
for both.
I had a particular favourite book when I was young – St Kelvern’s Launches Out by Carol Ann Pearce, 1962 – which combined school story and career novel, I now realize. The heroine Elizabeth can’t decide what to do after school, so tries out a number of possibilities: she investigates acting and theatre, she applies for a job with an import/export firm that sounds very exciting, but then ‘we never send our female staff abroad’. She thinks about interior design and archaeology. At the same time, she and her friends join the school sailing club, and also try to help a shopkeeper who is being put out of business by a new self-service supermarket. And the girls join a local youth club to meet people from other backgrounds. The book is full of action, interest and humour: when I reread it because of this post I could quite see why I loved it so much as a child. Although the girls are posh and well-off, at a private boarding school, there is a definite attempt to look at the wider picture, and an implication that Elizabeth is going to continue her studies and try to do something good in the world. When someone says ‘You’ll probably be married within two years of leaving school’ it is clear this is not serious, and will be shouted down by Elizbeth - ‘And that doesn’t appeal to me either’ - and the others. Hooray for Elizabeth and her friends - young women with options.
P. Scotton playing hockey for Bundaberg in Bundaberg, 1933… | Flickr
Armagh Girls High School Hockey Team | Creator: H. Allison &… | Flickr
Comments
Post a Comment