Behind the Chalet School: A biography of Elinor M. Brent-Dyer

by Helen McClelland

  Ernest Farrar (1885-1918), taken in 1916.

  It would be tempting to draw all sorts of conclusions from Elinor’s enduring devotion to Ernest Farrar’s music, as expressed in her books. But, despite indications that there was an element of romantic attachment on her side, it is highly unlikely that anything beyond a possible friendship existed between the two. For when Ernest Farrar arrived in South Shields he was already well acquainted with, if not actually engaged to, the girl he was to marry three years later. And it is virtually certain that any tender feelings Elinor might have cherished for this talented young man would have been kept strictly to herself.

  Quite apart from other considerations, she knew Ernest’s fiancée, had known her in fact long before Ernest appeared on the scene. For, by one of those odd coincidences that do occur in real life, Ernest Farrar’s bride-to-be was Olive Mason — that same Olive whom Elinor had admired so much in her early days at the Misses Stewart’s school.

  Elinor for many reasons, in particular the gap between their ages and backgrounds, was never an intimate friend of Olive Mason’s. Nevertheless she might well have been present at her wedding, among the large congregation which attended St Hilda’s Church on 8 January 1913. (If so, surely her thoughts must have turned for a moment to another couple who had been married in that same church, nearly twenty years before.)

  After their wedding the Farrars settled down in Harrogate, where Ernest had already moved some months previously; and he was fortunate here in finding the opportunity to compose for, and hear his works performed by, the Kursaal Orchestra under its conductor Julian Clifford. But with the Great War just around the corner the couple were to have only a short time together. In 1915 Ernest was one of those who responded to the appeal ‘Your King and Country need you!’ He volunteered and, being apparently a very tall man, was selected for one of the Guards regiments. And that he looked extremely handsome in uniform can be judged from a photograph which, to the end of Mrs Olive Farrar’s life, was still displayed in her sitting-room.

  Oddly enough, in view of the desperate situation at the Front, Ernest’s regiment was not sent out of England until September 1918, when they were ordered to France. Before departing Ernest confided to a very old friend his deep conviction that he would never return. The friend, who was on leave from France at the time and had survived for more than three years on the Western Front, tried to reassure him. But it was barely a week after his arrival at the Front when Ernest Farrar was killed in action. The date was 18 September 1918. And by another of life’s strange coincidences, Ernest’s widow, Olive, was to die on exactly the same date, sixty years later.

  Some of Ernest Farrar’s music, including ‘Brittany’, had been published at various times, beginning in his student days. And after his death the Carnegie Trust sponsored the publication of other works; among them a full-scale setting for soloists, chorus and orchestra of The Blessed Damozel. Farrar’s name and music were still widely known in the years between the wars. Today both have fallen into obscurity. And there is no doubt that Elinor’s frequent references to Ernest Farrar in her Chalet School books now constitute his chief memorial.

  CHAPTER VIII

  STEP-RELATIONS AND SISTERS-BY-MARRIAGE

  IT had been in January 1913 that Ernest Farrar married Olive Mason. And Elinor’s feelings on this occasion remain her secret. But it can be said with assurance that her reactions were mainly unfavourable on 12 June that same year when another marriage took place: that between her mother, now genuinely widowed, and a Mr Septimus Ainsley.

  Elinor seems always to have disliked Mr Ainsley. And to have made no great secret of this. One old lady recalled with some disapproval how Elinor used often to declaim, ‘I hate my stepfather’. However, in fairness to Mr Ainsley, it should be said that Elinor would probably have reacted in the same way to any man who became her stepfather.

  Not that notions of loyalty to her own father would have entered into things at the time of the wedding: in 1913 Elinor can have known few of the facts about Charles Dyer. But where step-relationships were concerned, she had got off to a bad start with the trouble over her half-brother, Charles Arnold Lloyd Dyer. That had always been in the background of her childhood. And however little she was told, and whatever may have been the rights and wrongs of the case, Elinor must have felt the repercussions from it; and have been influenced unconsciously in her attitudes.

  The surprising thing is that step-parents mostly emerge quite well in her books. Far more often it is the stepchildren who cause trouble. But there is an indication in the stories that Elinor did have an inner reservation about step-relationships. For it must be significant that in describing one that is exceptionally happy she never allows the actual word ‘step’ to be used. Two of her characters, anyway, go to extraordinary lengths to avoid it.

  ‘I must go and rout out that . . . sister-by-marriage of mine, Verity Carey’ [Mary-Lou Trelawney announces in A Problem for the Chalet School (1956). Adding helpfully] ‘Her dad married Mother, you know, and that’s the nearest relationship we can come to.’

  And, in The Chalet School Wins the Trick (1961) the same Mary-Lou astounds a new girl, Audrey Everett, by using this particular expression:

  ‘Your sister-by-marriage?’ Audrey gasped.

  ‘Yes; her dad married my mother. We aren’t real sisters and we’re not stepsisters, of course [HMcC’s italics]. That was as near to it as we could come. See?’

  ‘Yes, I think so.’

  Well — Audrey may have seen. But for most of us it remains a puzzle; because in the circumstances that Mary-Lou describes she and Verity quite clearly were stepsisters. So the inference must be that Elinor herself found something off-putting about the word.

  And Elinor certainly managed to create one exceedingly unpleasant step-parent in the Chalet School series — that stepmother of Grizel Cochrane’s who ‘had never forgiven her husband for not telling her of Grizel’s existence’ (see Chapter I).

  Admittedly the second Mrs Cochrane had been much wronged. In real life it seems she might have had a legal right to get the marriage annulled. But the impression conveyed of her character makes it hard to believe that she would ever have treated a stepchild with much warmth, even had her husband not deceived her. ‘Mrs Cochrane was never actively unkind, but she possessed a sharp tongue, and . . . the wilful, high-spirited [Grizel] . . . gradually became a frightened, nervous creature, who did as she was bidden with a painful readiness.’ (The School at the Chalet, 1925.)

  Nor was Grizel alone in dreading Mrs Cochrane’s ill-temper. ‘Now you’d better go, Miss Grizel’, warns the kindly ‘Cookie’, the one person to treat Grizel with any affection at home. ‘The mistress only went down to the butcher’s, and she won’t like it if she finds you here.’

  Grizel nodded. ‘Too well she knew the scolding that would be the portion of both of them if her stepmother caught her in the kitchen.’

  And into the bargain Mrs Cochrane was two-faced: ‘she was always gracious in public’. So that, although grown-ups in the little town were ‘beginning to conjecture at the causes for . . . [Grizel’s] loss of spirit,’ two schoolgirls are flabbergasted when Grizel announces her delight at being sent to boarding-school in Austria:

  ‘Grizel!’ gasped Rosalie. ‘Glad to leave home and go right away!’

  ‘ ’Tisn’t like your home,’ replied Grizel sombrely. ‘You’ve a mother!’

  ‘Well, but you have Mrs Cochrane, and I’m sure she’s awfully sweet to you.’

  ‘Yes, when there’s anyone there to see it,’ replied Grizel recklessly. (Now, somehow, it didn’t seem to matter [their knowing]. She would not come home for more than a year.)

  The two schoolgirls stood in horrified silence.

  Not a likeable person, Mrs Cochrane. But perhaps she was a reaction from the second Mrs Temple, who makes a brief but sweet appearance in The Maids of La Rochelle. This was published in 1924, and Mrs Temple thus ante-dates Mrs Cochrane by a year. Agnes Temple really is too
selfless and understanding to be true. And she does not have a tenth of Mrs Cochrane’s impact.

  On the other hand, Sigrid, the Norwegian-born second wife of Sir Piers Willoughby in Seven Scamps (1927), represents a genuine attempt on Elinor’s part to portray realistically a young stepmother and her problems. Sigrid starts off with an extra disadvantage in bringing her own daughter, Britta, into the family circle. And Britta, not one of Elinor’s ‘angel-children’, at first proves most unpopular with the seven young Willoughbys. Inevitably Sigrid is allowed in the end to win her step-family round; but it is by gradual and quite convincing stages.

  Mr Ainsley, on the other hand, does not appear ever to have won Elinor round; at least not completely. And it is difficult to know how far his own personality entered into this, especially as there is no one living now who knew him well. A very much younger friend of Elinor’s can just remember from her childhood that Elinor’s stepfather was ‘very big and solemn’, and that Elinor ‘didn’t like him much’. Neither did she.

  Her description fits with that given by a business acquaintance of Mr Ainsley’s, who used the phrase ‘a big, dark, saturnine-looking man’. Altogether, size and darkness seem to be part of most people’s recollections, adding up to a rather sombre impression.

  All the same, it is not hard to see that in material and social terms Mr Ainsley had much to offer. He belonged to a family that was highly respected in South Shields. Moreover his father, Thomas Liddle Ainsley, had owned a flourishing optician’s business in the town, as well as two similar firms in Wales and various other successful enterprises. Thus the estate shared by the Ainsley family following their father’s death had been considerable. And although Septimus was literally the seventh child, his portion was eventually much increased by the early deaths of several brothers and sisters.

  Understandably then Mr Ainsley never appears to have worked regularly in any trade or profession, although he was qualified as an optician and may for a time have joined the family firm. But the description that usually follows his name in street directories is simply ‘Gentleman’ — a term reserved for those without gainful occupation. Obviously there had been no pressing need for him to work. And it does seem also that Septimus Ainsley had poor health. Many people confirm this. Ironically though, as often happens with those accounted delicate, Mr Ainsley was to outlive many of his heartier-seeming contemporaries and to reach his seventies.

  At the time of his marriage to Nelly Dyer, Septimus was forty-seven years old, and still a bachelor. Had he perhaps been waiting for a long time to marry Nelly? Certainly he had known her since childhood, when his family had lived just round the corner from the Isaac Rutherfords.

  Since those far-off days the Ainsleys had moved many times. Septimus himself had lived at several different addresses in both North and South Shields. But during the years immediately preceding the wedding he had once again been close at hand, living in a pleasant house only a few roads away from Winchester Street. He could well have considered installing his wife and stepdaughter here. Most likely, though, both he and Nelly thought it preferable to begin their married life somewhere that had no associations with the past.

  Accordingly, after the wedding, Elinor and her mother said goodbye to 52 Winchester Street with its patchwork of memories, and moved into a house Mr Ainsley had recently acquired, 5 Belgrave Terrace.

  This really was mounting several notches up the ladder. Belgrave Terrace may not have been quite as grand as the name somehow suggests, but it was a highly superior road, definitely on the right side of the tracks. And number 5 had just the right air of quiet middle-class respectability. Nelly and her daughter had really arrived.

  CHAPTER IX

  ‘A VERY ECCENTRIC AND DIFFERENT SORT OF PERSON’

  TODAY Winchester Street has all but disappeared and the area surrounding Elinor’s first home is covered by a car-park and a large council housing estate. Belgrave Terrace, on the other hand, is still there, and, although a little run-down in appearance nowadays, is still recognisably the same street as in the days when the Ainsleys lived at number 5. Their house, like the others, stands back discreetly from the road and has gardens at back and front. All rather different from Winchester Street, where the front doorsteps often led straight on to the pavement. Inside there were changes too, and for the better. Even in 1913 the Belgrave Terrace houses would have had both inside lavatories and bathrooms. Thus in terms of comfort, let alone social status, Nelly Ainsley and her daughter were now better off than they had ever been.

  Understandably, though, Elinor did not relish her position here; for not only was she the stepdaughter of a man she disliked, she was also largely his dependant. Of course she did earn some money of her own, but her salary as an unqualified teacher was small; and any writing she did at this time — stories for the Sunday Companion and the like — cannot have brought in much, either.

  All the same, by present-day thinking it is hard to see why Elinor stayed. She had good health, did not lack ability and she was nineteen years old. Girls younger than that are leaving home every day in the 1990s to make their own lives; some succeed very well. However in 1913 things were different. Then, a middle-class girl in Elinor’s position had few chances to achieve independence. In order to take up any career or job she needed not only her parents’ approval, but usually their financial backing as well. And this was to remain true long after the Great War.

  Elinor personally cannot have found her opportunities greatly extended by the war. Her character and tastes make it hard to visualise her working, for instance, in a munitions factory — not that the Ainsleys would have allowed it. And although they might have reacted more favourably to the idea of nursing, Elinor never seems to have shown any leanings in this direction, nor towards any of the women’s services. Nevertheless a majority of the men in her stories were to be doctors; and many others in the services, most often the Navy.

  Of course getting married had always been the classic escape route for girls. Elinor, however, was neither pretty nor well-off; she was hardly the type to make an early marriage. And later she was to join the ‘two million surplus women’, so many of whom were condemned to involuntary spinsterhood.

  Altogether it is perhaps less surprising that Elinor stayed at home, than that she did twice get herself away, and for considerable periods. The first and shorter of these began in September 1915, when she temporarily gave up her various teaching jobs in South Shields and entered the City of Leeds Training College. By this time she had gained more than three years’ experience of teaching. And unquestionably she had natural gifts as a teacher: a genuine love of children — which remained with her to the end of her life; tireless energy and enthusiasm; and, something her severest critic could not deny, a lively imagination. Oddly enough Elinor, who in many ways was old-fashioned, might well have fitted better into the present-day teaching world with its less formal approach. For those long-ago days her methods were decidedly unconventional. Two former pupils, now husband and wife, who were both taught by Elinor, ‘remember her as a very eccentric and different sort of person’. Another recalls that:

  Miss Dyer was no end of a character, very unlike other teachers. She would go wandering round the classroom and sitting on the desks while talking to us. And one incident I will never forget was when she sat down on an inkwell and ruined the cream tailored dress she wore. You can imagine the hilarity and the joy of lessons coming to an end.

  That particular episode with the inkwell was something Elinor apparently did not forget, either. Her school stories are dripping with spilled ink and similar disasters. One of the messiest of these occurs in The School at the Chalet (1925). Here Bernhilda, the prefect in charge of stationery, is seated on the top of a step-ladder tidying the higher reaches of the stationery cupboard when Grizel Cochrane, ‘in her capacity as ink monitress’, arrives to collect the week’s supply for the classrooms.

  Grizel had very nearly finished, when Bernhilda gave a sudden shriek, and dived for
ward, nearly collapsing on to Grizel, who echoed her shriek. At the same time there was a crash as the large pint bottle of red ink fell heavily against the step-ladder, and smashed, sending a fountain of red ink in every direction. Bernhilda’s tunic suffered, but the one who came off worst was Grizel . . . the ink deluged her — hair, frock, hands, even her legs were dripping with it.

  Poor old Grizel — but at least her tunic was brown, and it probably survived better than Elinor’s cream-coloured dress can have done.

  Another character who spills ink is Jennifer Craddock, in the little-known and almost unobtainable School by the River (1930). Her experience is comparatively trivial, though.

  ‘Come Jennifer! . . . Where have you been all this time?’

  ‘Mopping up my ink. I caught the bottle with my arm, and it wasn’t corked, and went in every direction. You never saw such a mess!’

  However in other books plenty of people do see similar and worse messes. And it is not only ink that gets spilled. In The Chalet School and Jo (1931) various girls are swamped with paste. And in a later book, Lavender Laughs in the Chalet School (1943), Jo, now grown-up and married, manages to dislodge from some high shelf a bowl full of extremely fast green dye, and is needless to say drenched by the contents. (Elinor’s editor at Chambers, Mr Thomas Collocott, claimed — perhaps not too seriously — to see a Freudian significance in Elinor’s timing of this incident, which takes place when Jo is on the point of producing her eldest son.)