by Sheila Ray
Of course no one, however devoted a fan, would claim that the Chalet School books have no faults: it is all too easy to point out the weaknesses and the many careless inconsistencies. Moreover, some of the later stories, to my mind, have little to offer. But there is no denying that “Miss Brent-Dyer certainly captured the imagination of vast numbers of girls to an incredible degree”.18 Nor that, while other popular series, both contemporary and comparable with the Chalet School, have now virtually disappeared from general view, the Chalet books are still being regularly bought and read by both children and adults.
In striking testimony to this, a Chalet School fan club — the Friends of the Chalet School — has now been flourishing for some years. It was founded in Australia in 1989 with just a handful of enthusiasts; but FOCS has grown so rapidly that today it is run by a committee of five — four in the U.K. and one (Ann Mackie-Hunter, the original founder) in Australia; while the membership, which increases literally every week, now includes many hundreds of fans in more than a dozen countries.
Most important of all: the books are not just being read but positively enjoyed. That the Chalet School continues to attract new readers, 70 years on, must surely speak for itself about the unquenchable vitality of the stories.
Meanwhile, although the basic facts about Elinor herself have been established and have now been corrected in several reference books, the search still continues, with scraps of new information coming to light from time to time. As when, for example, I at last managed to find and talk to one of those “missing persons” from Elinor’s past: Edith Le Poidevin who had been quite a close friend during the time at Western House School but had then vanished from Elinor’s life. In talking to the former Miss Le Poidevin (by this point she had been Mrs Brookes for more than 50 years) I learnt the answers to a few old questions, only to find them succeeded by new ones! Who was it, for instance, who invited Elinor to Guernsey, since apparently it was not Edith Le Poidevin who did so? And that’s just one of the queries that remain concerning Elinor’s life story.
Today it seems unlikely that these queries can all be answered. On the other hand, a letter that was read at the FOCS Centenary weekend in Hereford has helped to bring Elinor herself to life in a completely new and remarkable way. This letter — written by Mrs Chloe Rutherford, who from an early age knew and was much attached to Elinor — presents a picture that, to me, came as a revelation. For although a biographer may painstakingly uncover the facts of a life story and, by synthesising the impressions of others, may even provide a glimpse of the real person, only a friend — and a loving friend — could have created a portrait of this calibre. The full text of Mrs Rutherford’s memento will be compulsive reading for all Chalet fans, and it can be found in the FOCS special centenary publication. But here, to round off this account of my “Search for Elinor”, I should like to quote a few lines from Chloe’s affectionate tribute.
To a youngster, her outward physical appearance was rather daunting . . . [and] the face of unmistakable authority made her . . . an imposing and dominant presence . . . It took me quite some time to realise this was the outward mask of the working Headmistress. Behind that facade there lurked a complex, singleminded, lovable, clumsy, stubborn, forward-thinking, spiritual, dottily humorous personality of enormous charm and innate wisdom . . . [A] very kind and generous woman, a mine of information, and a fount of good common sense.
That depicts the real Elinor Brent-Dyer far better than I ever could.
NOTES
1. Alec Ellis, History of Children’s Reading and Literature (Pergamon, 1968).
2. Portrait taken 1963, property of W. & R. Chambers. Reproduced in final Chalet Club News Letter, no. 20, Nov. 1969 and in Behind the Chalet School (New Horizon, 1981), opposite p.24.
3. Mrs Phyllis Matthewman’s first letter to H. McClelland, June 1974.
4. Elinor Brent-Dyer’s obituary in The Times, Tuesday 23 Sept. 1969.
5. The talented child actress for whom Gerry Goes to School (1922) was written. Mother of actresses Kate O’Mara and Belinda Carroll.
6. The Exploits of the Chalet Girls (1933), p.81.
7. A Problem for the Chalet School (1956), p.110.
8. Ibid.
9. Three Go to the Chalet School (1949), p.54.
10. Chalet Club News Letter, no. 10, Nov. 1963.
11. Hereford Times, numerous dates from 1938 to 1948 including: 2 Apr. 1938, 23 Apr. 1938, 3 Sept. 1938, 17 Dec. 1938 (parents’ day), 9 Sept. 1939, 13 Jan. 1940, 21 Dec. 1940, 4 Jan. 1941, 6 Sept. 1941, 3 Jan. 1942, 12 Sept. 1942, 24 July 1943 (pupils’ pageant), 23 December 1944 (“The Youngest Shepherd”), 8 Dec. 1945 (carol concert), 6 July 1946 (speech day), 21 Dec. 1947 (parents’ day & prizegiving).
12. First Chalet Club News Letter, May 1959.
13. Joey goes to the Oberland (1954) p.40
14. Letter from Mrs Vivien Pass (née Jewell) to
H. McClelland.
15. The Chalet School Goes to It (1941), p.247.
16. The School at the Chalet (1925), p.12.
17. Letter to H. McClelland.
18. Letter from Judith Humphrey to H. McClelland.
Copyright. Some of the material concerning the research for Elinor’s early life was originally part of an article, “Questions about Elinor”, which appeared in the magazine Signal, edited by Nancy Chambers, in May 1988. Certain other biographical material has also been used previously in Behind the Chalet School and/or The Chalet School Companion (Armada, 1994). In all three cases, the copyright is the property of Helen McClelland, who is the sole owner of all rights.
II. EXCITEMENTS FOR THE CHALET FANS — CELEBRATING THE CENTENARY OF ELINOR M. BRENT-DYER
POLLY GOERRES
“I don’t like the look of that sky,” was the frequent comment of a Chalet School mistress, poised to take a party of schoolgirls on an expedition. On just such a day of ominous grey skies, a crowd of people gathered in a Surrey cemetery to attend the dedication ceremony of a headstone. It was to be placed on the grave of a woman most of them hadn’t known, a quarter of a century after her death. Even more unusual was the fact that it had been paid for by donations from dozens more people who hadn’t known her. But this is the power of Elinor M. Brent-Dyer.
The idea of celebrating Elinor M. Brent-Dyer’s centenary had come to me when, as a student, I read Helen McClelland’s biography, Behind the Chalet School. Then, I had been reading the Chalet School books for ten years. Unlike several other teenage fans I had gone on reading them unashamedly during adolescence. I had preconceived notions about the author, that she was upper middle class (the naive assumption afforded by a double-barrelled name), from the Home Counties and from a large, wealthy family. These were all speedily shattered when I learned from the biography that Elinor was the product of a lower middle-class north-eastern broken home. I wandered slowly round the students’ union bar, reading it avidly. I noted then that Elinor’s centenary would take place in 11 years’ time, and wondered what was being planned to celebrate it. Little did I think that I would be one of the instigators of a wealth of centenary celebrations.
I kept on with my Chalet reading in the years leading up to the centenary in 1994, my life being affected by several Brent-Dyer inspired events. The first happened when I established a valued correspondence and friendship with Elinor’s biographer, Helen McClelland. Secondly, with Helen’s encouragement and advice, I completed an undergraduate dissertation entitled Language, Traditions and Genre of the Chalet School Series, now held at Sheffield University’s Centre for English Language and Cultural Traditions (CECTAL). Then Helen put me in touch with Ann Mackie-Hunter who had founded a Chalet fans’ society and newsletter. The following year, 1990, as a result of reading the books, I spent my honeymoon in Pertisau-am-Achensee, site of the early Chalet titles. All the while I wrote to Collins (who published the books in paperback), Ann, Helen and others asking “What are you/we/they doing to celebrate Elinor’s centenary in 1994?” Ann suggested I should contact Gill Bil
ski, who was then UK secretary for the Friends of the Chalet School.
It seems a glib thing to say, but 16 May 1992 was a day that would change my life . . . for the next few years at any rate. This was the “Folly Day” at the home of Belinda Copson, co-editor of Folly magazine. Here I met Gill Bilski and coyly asked her what Friends of the Chalet School were doing to celebrate Elinor’s centenary in two years’ time. Gill seemed surprised to learn that it was to be the centenary, but a lively discussion followed. The assembled Fans Of Light Literature for the Young were keen to commemorate the birth centenary of such a great popular author. One of these fans was Clarissa Cridland, to whom I chatted enthusiastically about Pertisau, the Chalet series and, to her great surprise, football!
When, in a subsequent FOCS newsletter, Gill appealed for a committee to plan and co-ordinate centenary events, I assumed that she and her book-dealing contacts had by then effected a grand stratagem. Not wishing to be left behind in this, I wrote a desperate letter to Gill offering all the help I could with the centenary plans and hoping it wasn’t too late to become involved. I need not have worried, for only one other person had offered to take on the daunting challenge . . .
Clarissa and I were brim-full of bright ideas for commemorative plaques, a travelling exhibition, trips to Elinorcentric locations, Christmas cards and a calendar, all of which we discussed at length on the telephone. But we were both hampered by time, distance and full-time jobs. We decided against turning our attention abroad, and instead focused on two principal areas: Hereford, where Elinor had lived and worked for over thirty years, and South Shields, her birthplace. Letters were written to both local councils, again in the style of “What will you be doing to celebrate the centenary . . . ?” We also tentatively considered Guernsey, the site of most of Elinor’s La Rochelle series and of wartime Chalet episodes.
The first major breakthrough came when my letter to Hereford City Council ended up on the desk of Jenny Houston, Promotions Officer in the Environment Department. Jenny’s great-aunt had been Miss Rose Farr Smith, an old friend of Elinor’s. Jenny had met Elinor, but paid her only the amount of attention that any eight year old would to the friend of a great-aunt. Miss Farr Smith had been the dedicatee of Elinor’s book Excitements at the Chalet School (1957). For the love of her Aunt Rose and the promotion of Hereford as a tourist centre, Jenny agreed to meet the newly formed Elinor Brent-Dyer centenary committee, to discuss a weekend celebration in Hereford. With Clarissa away on business, I took a local member, Val Mackay, with me on that first Hereford reconnoitre; her local knowledge was invaluable.
Jenny put us in contact with the City Museum and Library for our exhibition, with caterers and hotels, and offered help with the provision of a commemorative plaque on the site of Elinor’s former Margaret Roper School. She also had good ideas of her own, such as an illustrated talk which would involve the people of Hereford. Clarissa and I made several subsequent visits to Hereford, originally hoping that our party could stay at Belmont Abbey School or the Royal National College for the Blind, both boarding establishments. Those who had been at boarding schools would be able to relive the illicit pleasures of midnight feasts. Those, like me, who had only ever dreamed of attending a boarding- school would be able to revel in the experience.
Father Peter Fell of St Francis Xavier’s Church in the centre of Hereford, where Elinor had worshipped, agreed to let us hijack his Sunday morning Mass during our weekend. The museum and library building would hold our small exhibition, and we hired the Bishop’s Palace for two illustrated talks — one for the general public and one for our members. One Saturday in July 1993 we attempted to plan a coach tour around Elinor’s Golden Valley, the scenery often mentioned in her Armiford Chalet books. Accompanying us was Joy Wotton, who had spent several childhood summers in the Hereford area, and we drove around winding lanes in the pouring rain, trying to put Chalet names to real-life places. But perhaps we should not have attempted this. Elinor had a vivid imagination, and used it to transplant real-life houses into different locations. Later in the day, Jenny Houston joined us to advise on the locale. However, we concluded that the tour of the Golden Valley should be a sideshow to a main feature, and not a feature of the weekend itself. We could use it as the route to Hay-on-Wye, second-hand book capital of the western world.
We wrote to people who had bought books from Gill Bilski’s catalogue and written fan letters to Helen McClelland about the biography to tell them about FOCS’s existence and our centenary plans. There are many hundreds of Friends of the Chalet School throughout the world who are known to us. How many hundreds more fans are there with whom we haven’t made contact? When Chalet School fans find out about the society, they seem absolutely thrilled to know of its existence. We received many letters saying “I-had-no-idea-that-FOCS-existed; I-joined-immediately”, many tell us that they had believed they were the only ones who still read children’s books and were delighted to find so many kindred spirits.
Admitting one’s “Chaletomania” to the non-converted does not always happen easily; although I have never hidden my love of the Chalet School series, I have often felt that many people do not really understand why I still read them. Others do not find it so simple. A leading book dealer who went to the Hereford weekend explained that she had not told her boyfriend where she was going, fearing what he might think! Similarly, when the centenary committee tried to gauge interest in printing Christmas cards and calendars showing illustrations from the delightful Nina K. Brisley dustwrappers, one member wrote to explain that she would not buy any because she could not possibly admit to her business colleagues, to whom she would be sending Christmas cards, that she still read children’s books!
When we held our first meeting in December 1992 we had received other offers of help from would-be centenary committee members. By then, however, we had decided that we had worked well as a duo for several months, and logistically it was easier to keep it to two, although we could not possibly have achieved what we did without the constant support of Gill Bilski and Ann Mackie-Hunter and help from others on an ad hoc basis. The mid-April Hereford weekend was to be the focal point of celebrations, which would kick off with a plaque unveiling in South Shields the week beforehand. Guernsey was to be the venue for a La Rochelle trip, and we thought we could round off our celebrations with a memorial service, since September 1994 would see the 25th anniversary of Elinor’s death.
We decided to hold a special dinner on the Saturday evening of the Hereford weekend, and had two guest speakers in mind: Helen McClelland, who is now Patron of Friends of the Chalet School, and Luella Hamilton who, as Luella Gresham, had been a pupil at Elinor’s Margaret Roper School in Hereford during the last war. As I left Clarissa’s house after that first committee meeting, I asked her how many people she thought would wish to come to Hereford. “I don’t think we’ll get more that 20 or 30,” she replied. Neither of us thought that over 160 Friends of the Chalet School would make the literary pilgrimage to Hereford 16 months later.
The planning stage stepped up a gear during summer 1993. Mo Everett and Joy Wotton helped us by making preliminary investigations about a trip to Guernsey for late summer 1994. Clarissa wrote to the priest of the church of the Holy Family in Reigate, where Elinor’s funeral had been held, regarding a thanksgiving service. After several letters to South Tyneside, I made contact with Tom Fennelly, a director of tourism from South Shields, about a possible plaque unveiling there.
Clarissa, meanwhile, had discovered that the exhibition area in our hoped-for venue, the Bethnal Green Museum of Childhood in London, was now a cafeteria. We weren’t disheartened and got in touch with the Curator of the Edinburgh Museum of Childhood. The Edinburgh connection was an appropriate one, since Elinor’s main hardback publishers, W. & R. Chambers, were based there.
One area which certainly captured members’ interest was the idea of a headstone. Many people were distressed to learn that Elinor had been buried without one, and we appealed for donation
s which flooded in until we had raised over £1,100. We chose a stonemason near Hereford, Diana Hoare, who specialised in memorials for people in the arts world. The figure raised purchased a large slate headstone with a simple inscription: “In Memory of Elinor M. Brent-Dyer, Author of the Chalet School Series, 1894-1969”, with the FOCS logo incorporated into its arched top. It also paid for erection costs and transportation to the Redstone Hill Cemetery in Redhill, Surrey.
In July 1993 we made a three-day trip to investigate Edinburgh and South Shields. Clarissa arranged to meet John Hayes, the Curator of the Edinburgh Museum of Childhood, and Diane Peacop of W. & R. Chambers. En route home from Scotland we planned to meet north-eastern Friend of the Chalet School, Carol Mee, who had done some preliminary reconnaissance trips around Elinor’s former homes in South Shields. Tom Fennelly of South Tyneside Metropolitan Borough Council also wished to meet us. We hoped to try to persuade his council to provide a commemorative plaque for Elinor, just as Hereford City Council had done.
The Edinburgh meetings were highly successful. Diane Peacop lent us some fascinating artefacts for our exhibitions, such as contracts and manuscripts. To Chalet fans like Clarissa and me, these were revelations. We hadn’t known that The Chalet School in Exile (1940) had had the original working title of “The Chalet School and the Nazis”, nor that Elinor had been paid so little for her manuscripts. John Hayes was so amenable to our suggestion of a Brent-Dyer/Chalet exhibition that he offered to hold it for six weeks during June and July 1994. We would have many display cabinets and a children’s prize quiz; we would also give an illustrated talk to the Friends of the Museum.
