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It’s nearly ten years since I last reread ‘New mistress…’, and I had forgotten a lot of the detail. I have a hardback edition that my mother acquired many years ago. Kathie Ferrars is the main character in this book; unusually for this series, she is a new teacher rather than a new pupil for the school. We meet her in the first chapter at home with her aunt, who brought her up. I don’t know why it’s relevant that she was orphaned at a young age; Kathie is clearly very much loved, and adores her aunt and uncle.
She has just finished her teacher training and has been applying for jobs. She’s delighted to be offered the ones she wanted most, teaching at the Chalet School in Switzerland. Her aunt is very supportive; we next see Kathie en route to school. Her journeys have been explained to her, and she meets up with Biddy o’Ryan, an old girl (and the history teacher) who is not much older than Kathie. They get along well, and I liked reading some of their interactions. Quite a big deal is made about use of first names, something which I’m sure would be much less of an issue nowadays.
Kathie has been appointed as the form mistress for the newly-formed ‘Inter V’ form. As a child I thought of this as ‘Inter-vee’, but of course it’s really ‘intermediate five’. It’s explained, more than once, that these are girls who are either too old or too advanced academically for the upper fourth form, but are not ready for the harder work of the lower fifth. Schools weren’t so strict about age then, and the new Inter V has girls from almost thirteen up to sixteen working together.
Unfortunately Kathie has been given some unhelpful advice by her aunt, about staying dignified. And she went to a traditional day school where staff and students were unlikely to meet or become friendly socially. So she doesn’t understand how relaxed most of the staff are out of school time, and she becomes quite offended by Mary-Lou’s rather over-friendly manner.
I thought this was well-handled; Mary-Lou is an interesting character who is generally helpful and kind, but her classmates have told her before that she shouldn’t treat everyone as a best friend as soon as she meets them. But this is perhaps the first time it’s turned into a problem. Thankfully this is eventually resolved and discussed.
I’m not sure why this book is so appealing; perhaps it’s the different perspective, seeing everything from the eyes of a young adult rather than one of the girls. And while Kathie is new and inexperienced, she has no qualms or reservations about joining the Chalet School. Nor does she have any strange quirks; despite some mistakes, she’s evidently a good fit for the school.
Much of the story follows the life of the school, particularly the new Inter V who have to meld together somewhat. There’s a strange new girl called Yseult (pronounced something like Izz-ult, to rhyme with ‘result’, as far as I know). She provides some extra interest, as well as a lot of frustration as far as the staff are concerned.
Naturally there’s a dramatic incident part-way through, where danger is averted at the last moment - this is a common theme in these books - but other than that, it’s a fairly standard Chalet School book with the perspective of a member of staff. These books were written for teenagers in the early and mid part of the 20th century; this book was first published in 1957. Perhaps Brent-Dyer, a school head herself, hoped to give something of a teacher's perspective to give a new insight to teenage girls.
The pace is good, and although there are rather a lot of author asides, explaining why some of Kathie’s ideas are not helpful, I very much liked reading this book again. It could stand alone, although there are many references to earlier books (some of them with footnotes giving the relevant book) so on the whole I would recommend this as part of the series rather than by itself.
The hardback versions of this can be very pricy, and the GGBP paperback with the full text is out of print, unfortunately. But even an Armada abridged version is better than nothing.
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