The coming of age of the Chalet School (by Elinor M Brent-Dyer)

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In my slow reread of the Chalet School books by Elinor M Brent-Dyer, I reached the one numbered 39 in the original hardback series published last century. I last read ‘The coming of age of the Chalet School’ towards the end of 2015, but it’s not one that I reread regularly. It was foreshadowed through a lot of the previous book, ‘Excitements at the Chalet School’ which I reread just over a month ago. 

This is the book where the Chalet School celebrates 21 years of existence. It was first published in the late 1950s. The school had come up with some ideas to celebrate, mentioned in ‘Excitements…’, and in this book it all happens. So earlier in the term, albums are made with information from old girls, and everyone is encouraged to avoid fines, so they can contribute to the fund for building two chapels. 

Old girls arrive, too, and stay at St Mildred’s, so the main Chalet School is quite crowded, with the St Mildred’s ‘finishing’ branch included. But we don’t actually see much of most of the old girls; the only ones given much space in the book are Jo Maynard’s three closest friends: Frieda, Simone and Marie. And they only really come to the fore towards the end, when the four travel, with the prefects, to Austria and the original location of the Chalet School.

Earlier in the book are some regular classroom antics; the twins Prudence and Priscilla have, at last, come to the Swiss branch from the UK one, and Prudence doesn’t like the fact that her peers have grown up. She likes to have fun and cause mischief, and she introduces pranks and irritations that get her into trouble - they’re not seen as amusing, in these books, but childish and silly. 

There’s also some discussion about the annual ‘sale’ done in aid of the sanatorium nearby. Everyone works at hobbies to create things to sell, and they hope to make it a record year. As ever, each form suggests a theme, and the prefects vote on it. It’s a tad ironic that the one representative without a form suggestion picks something randomly to propose, and has it accepted. 

So on the whole it’s a run-of-the-mill Chalet School book, one which I find hard to remember in much detail even though I finished it this morning, and read most of it yesterday. The trip to Austria is interesting, and I like the interactions between the four close friends (who have travelled alone, with no children or babies) and the prefects. There’s even an unexpected adventure for Joey and Mary-Lou. 

But there are a lot of details about the sale, which, for all its new theme each year, follows a fairly predictable pattern. There are stalls and competitions, and prizes awarded at the end. Towards the end of the book there’s also a sports day, on the final day of term, where team sports and races, including some ‘silly’ ones, are also explored in some detail. 

There are a couple of poignant scenes. One involves a character who appeared unexpectedly in 'Excitements...' and was apparently dropped. She reappears in this book a few times, and the author manages to make her so unfortunately circumstanced that I almost forgot her extreme unpleasantness much earlier in the series. The other poignant scene involves one of the pupils called home because her step-sister is dying. 

I mostly enjoyed the book while reading it, though it’s not one of my favourites. There’s a short story at the end, picking up on an incident mentioned in the main book but without any descriptions in the usual canonical books. So that was quite interesting, and works well in EBD style. I like the ‘Girls Gone By’ publications; in addition to the full, original text there are brief introductory sections, and an addendum with both corrections made and inconsistencies spotted.  The short story is a bonus in a lot of them.

‘’The coming of age of the Chalet School’ wouldn’t be a good book as an introduction to the series; it references a lot of previous books, with footnotes, and has quite a lot of characters, some of them only mentioned briefly. It’s good for fans like me, who love catching up with these people regularly, so it’s certainly worth having if you’re a fan of the series. But it’s not one I am likely to dip into at random. These were originally written for teenagers, but more likely, now, to be read by adults who remember them from their childhood. 

The original hardbacks of this book tend to be sold for extortionate prices, and the paperbacks are out of print; however both the abridged Armada versions and the full Girls Gone By editions can sometimes be found second-hand at reasonable prices. Apparently there are major cuts in the Armada version, so if you can find a GGB paperback, it's worthwhile doing so. 

Review copyright 2025 Sue's Book Reviews

The gift of pain (by Philip Yancey and Paul Brand)

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It’s nearly seventeen years since I first read ‘The gift of pain’, which was co-written by Philip Yancey and the late Dr Paul Brand. I found it eye-opening when I first read it, and almost impossible to put down. I decided it was well overdue for a reread.

The book is primarily autobiographical, based on extensive journals and recollections from Paul Brand’s childhood and early experiences as a doctor. Philip Yancey has turned it into a very readable and well-structured book that I have been reading over the past couple of weeks, a chapter or two each day. It's not like a typical Yancey book; he functions more as an editor. It's written in the first person with Paul Brand narrating. 

Paul Brand was born in 1914, in India, to missionary parents. In looking back, he sees a wonderful childhood, exploring the area barefoot, learning from conversations and observations. And then he was sent to boarding school in the UK, and to live with relatives. He says very little about those years, other than that he felt restricted, and often lonely. 

He didn’t intend to go into medicine, but by various circumstances, which he believes were divinely ordained, he started to study basic medicine and was hooked. He specialised in hand surgery, and planned to return to India. And ended up committed to helping patients with leprosy. 

Back in the 1930s, leprosy was widespread in India, with no known cure or even a way of stopping the progression of the disease. Gradually drugs were discovered that stopped it getting worse, and ensured that sufferers were no longer infectious. But if they had lost fingers or toes, or had serious scarring, they were unable to find employment or live anywhere other than a leper colony.

By extensive research, some of it funded by governments, Dr Brand gradually realised that it was the lack of pain that led to most of the disfigurement of people with leprosy. Without any sensation in their hands, patients would damage them by overuse, or by injury, and would not notice. They would develop ulcers on their feet, too, which would often spread and turn gangrenous. And even when medical staff operated on hands, or feet, the same problems would recur as patients could not feel any pain.

So alongside the biographical parts of the book are explanations about why pain is such an important benefit to the majority of us who feel it. The author goes into a lot of detail about how we feel pain, and I have to admit that I skimmed over some of the technical and medical details, as well as some of the descriptions of surgeries. I’m quite squeamish, and had no need to learn about which tendons had to be attached or removed. I also skipped over the sections about using animals for research, something which was much commoner then than it is now.

But most of the text is very readable, and once again I found it quite hard to put down at times. I knew the outline of the story - that Dr Brand was one of the pioneers in both surgery and healing techniques for people with leprosy. Without his research, and his extensive care and education of patients, leprosy would still be a much more widespread disease and problem than it now is.

I was also reminded about how important it is to listen to aches and pains. Brand explains that some are useful, and that our bodies respond by a kind of instinct - pulling a finger away from a hot surface, for instance, even though the pain of it may not be felt until some time later. He talks about three stages of pain, with the third one being the way we perceive it. Those who are positive and upbeat are likely to find a situation much less painful than those who dread it, or who are depressed about their illness. 

He also stresses the importance of support, of comfort, and of knowing that one can do something about a situation. He gives examples such as indigestion problems, where some people give in and assume they’re permanent, some want whatever a doctor can do, and some want to find out how to change their lifestyle to avoid future problems. 

Stereotyping, perhaps, and of course it’s not always that straightforward. But the principles are good. He points out, gently, that habits such as smoking or overeating will lead to health issues. However, he doesn’t do this from a moralistic point of view, and doesn’t pass judgement on his patients. And similarly with former leprosy sufferers, he helps them understand what they can do to assist their healing, without criticising or condemning them when they forget, or ignore his advice.

At the end is an epilogue comparing and contrasting the AIDS epidemic of the 1990s (when the book was first published) with leprosy as it was early in the century. Again, the author makes no judgement, but does make some interesting points. 

It’s a very readable book, and I would recommend it to anyone interested in this topic. There's an underlying Christian ethos, but it's very low key and not at all pushy.  

Review copyright 2025 Sue's Book Reviews

To the manor born (by Peter Spence)

(Amazon UK link)

I watched some of the BBC sitcom ‘To the manor born’ when it first came out, towards the end of the 1970s and early 1980s. We acquired a DVD set of the complete series many years ago, although we have not watched them for a while. But I don’t think I had realised that there were accompanying books, written by Peter Spence (who also wrote most of the TV scripts). 

I found the books at a church book stall some years ago, and finally decided to read the first one which is simply entitled ‘To the manor born’.  There’s a photo of Penelope Keith on the front, in her role as Audrey, and a letter at the beginning, supposedly from Audrey to Richard letting him know that the BBC was making a documentary about them…

The action then goes back a year or so, to the funeral of Audrey’s husband, Marton fforbes-Hamilton. Audrey - and I imagine her as Penelope Keith’s version, not dissimilar to Margo in ‘The Good life’ - is relishing her role as a grieving widow. But it’s clear that she isn’t really unhappy at all.

Into the village drives Richard deVere, a man made extremely wealthy by the food industry. He wants to buy something typically English and old for himself and his elderly mother to live in, and he’s seeing around the lodge that’s part of the fforbes-Hamilton estate. He is much more interested in the manor house where Audrey lives, and persuades the estate agent to let him look around. Then they get caught up in the post-funeral wake. 

I don’t remember if this is how the TV series starts - evidently we need to watch the DVDs again - but it makes a dramatic start to this book. I knew, roughly, how the plot was going to develop. Richard and Audrey would start with misunderstandings, leading them to dislike each other. Then one would make tentative approaches of friendship, and things would seem to go well, until something happened to drive them apart again. 

And, indeed, that’s what happens in the book. Richard is so wealthy he wants to help Audrey, whose husband left her almost penniless. But Audrey is proud and does not want charity. Nor does she want to work for him, although - sometimes - she’s willing to advise. 

Audrey’s butler, known as Brabinger, features significantly in the book - he’s quite deaf, and not very competent other than at serving drinks. He’s been in the family for decades, and is more like a family friend than a servant. But he and Audrey both believe in keeping their place, never allowing their relationship to become too familiar. 

Margery also appears - Audrey’s most loyal friend, though she’s a bit twittery and vague, and finds Richard extremely attractive. There are some amusing comments about Margery’s dress sense (or lack of it) which would not have been possible in the TV series, and I probably wouldn’t have noticed if she was dressed in ill-fitting garments. 

There’s a lot of gentle humour in the book. Audrey tends to take things literally (often deliberately) and this can lead to some dialogue that almost had me laughing aloud.  I remembered some of the stories from the TV series, but not all of them. Audrey’s pretentions are often quashed, but underneath her snobbery and the act she puts on, she’s basically a likeable person. 

I thought it might take me a while to read this book; it’s only a little over 200 pages in paperback, but looked a bit dry with quite small text. Instead, I found myself picking it up at every odd moment, and finished it in just a couple of days. I’m already looking forward to reading the sequel some time next month.

Recommended if you like this kind of light humour based in the upper middle classes of England in the 1980s, particularly if you liked the TV series. It's long out of print and online prices can be very high, but you might find it inexpensively at a charity shop. 

Review copyright 2025 Sue's Book Reviews

Out of the shadows (by Titia Sutherland)

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One of the good things about not reading a book for nearly two decades is that I’ve usually forgotten everything about it, other than that I liked it. I first read ‘Out of the shadows’ by Titia Sutherland in 2006 and did not recall anything in it. So it was as if I were reading a book that was new to me, knowing in advance that I would enjoy it. 

Titia Sutherland creates likeable, realistic people in her novels. Rachel is the main character; she’s in her fifties and widowed but not really grieving. She misses some things about her husband, but he cheated on her; worse things are implied about him, although never really explored. Her older son Simon is rather pompous, and keeps trying to persuade Rachel to downsize; the family home is quite big and he feels that it’s getting beyond her. But Rachel is fit and active, and has someone who helps in the house. She has no desire to move. 

Simon’s wife Camilla is a bit shadowy, but their daughter Emily, who is seven, is another major character in the story. I liked Emily very much. She’s intelligent, and outspoken, and also sensitive in a lot of ways. She’s not at all happy that her mother is expecting another baby, as Emily is not a fan of babies. Well, other than her cousin Robin (known as Bins) whom she adores. Emily regularly stays with Rachel in school holidays. 

Bins is the son of Rachel’s only daughter, Lisa, who is quite temperamental and sometimes leaves her partner after an argument. Rachel’s youngest, Christian, barely comes into the book - I’m not quite sure why he was included; he’s in the army but hopes to get out. Rachel loves him very much but is astonished when he lets her know what he’s planning to do in the future.

The story really starts when Rachel takes in a lodger, the handsome and helpful Tom. He does some odd jobs in the house, and advises Lisa on her relationship difficulties. He’s charming, perhaps a little too good to be true, but Rachel starts to fall for him.  And it seems that Tom, who recently went through a relationship break-up, is attracted to her too, even though he’s thirteen years younger. 

It’s a character-based novel, exploring different dynamics in the family as they relate to each other. Rachel, who does research for other people’s books, is fascinated by some records about people who used to live in the house. And the reason she starts this is one that is not at all common in this genre of fiction: there are ghosts, mainly on the top floor of her house where the old nursery was. Rachel is aware of a scent of perfume and cigarettes, and sometimes finds things moved, although she thinks these ghosts are benign. She hopes to find out who they were, and why they’re still about.

Simon scoffs about this, and doesn’t believe in ghosts at all, but Emily has always been aware of them, and can even sometimes see them. Lisa can also sense them, and has an affinity with one of them who had a similar name, and was of a similar age. And it’s a testament to the writing that I almost believed in these restless spirits as part of the cast of the book - they’re discussed rationally, and until towards the end seem entirely harmless.

Perhaps there’s not a lot of plot; yet I found myself entirely caught up in the story, caring about most of the characters. There’s a section where Rachel and Tom go to France for a couple of weeks to do some of the research into former occupants of her house, and I thought it very well done, showing their affection for each other and also the beginnings of cracks in their relationship. I didn’t find Tom an entirely believable character, but he functions as a catalyst for some of the decisions Rachel makes. 

Once again I did like the book, which I found quite hard to put down at times. I expect I’ll read it again, hopefully in a decade or so, rather than another twenty years.

Review copyright 2025 Sue's Book Reviews

The horse and his boy (by CS Lewis)

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I’m very glad I decided to re-read the Narnia series by CS Lewis. I loved them as a child, and I appreciate them more each time I read them. ‘The horse and his boy’ was probably my least favourite when I was younger; I’m not sure why. Perhaps because it didn’t have any scenes set in the ‘real’ world - or perhaps because it didn’t fit neatly into the chronology of the others. It’s set somewhere towards the end of ‘The lion, the witch and the wardrobe’, which I re-read last month. 

But last time I read ‘The horse and his boy’, I was surprised to find how much I liked it. I appreciated it even more on rereading in the last couple of days; so much so that I could barely put it down. And I knew the overall storyline so it wasn't as if there were any surprises.

The story starts in Calormen, in the south of the world where Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy are reigning as kings and queens in Narnia. Shasta lives with a man he calls his father, and since he’s never known anything different, he’s not too unhappy. However he has to do a lot of chores. His father often becomes angry with him, and beats him, so Shasta has learned to keep out of the way, and not answer back. 

One day a wealthy man arrives, and offers to buy Shasta… and Shasta, to his astonishment, learns that the man’s horse is a talking horse from Narnia who was captured some years before. So the two decide to escape together. 

The bulk of the story covers their lengthy journey. At first they’re worried about being followed, but soon other problems occur: Shasta has never ridden a horse before, so he has to learn and becomes very sore. They have to find places to sleep, and things to eat when the supplies in the saddlebags have run out. They meet wild animals, and they keep away from other riders, until they’re unaccountably forced to join up with Aravis, a young and haughty girl around Shasta’s age, and her horse Hwin, who is also a talking Narnian horse. Aravis is escaping from an arranged marriage to someone she despises.

The story is an exciting one with a good pace; I could feel some of the excitement and also their anxieties, particularly as they approach the city of Tashbaan, and realise that they will have to go through it in order to continue their journey. They make some plans but inevitably things go wrong, and they are separated…

It’s a wonderful story, one that could stand alone as well as being read in chronological sequence (as I am trying to do). It looks at issues of slavery, of greed, of corruption, and so much more. It contrasts the freedom and friendship of the Narnians with the coercion and distrust of the rest of the world. There are also lessons to be learned by the main protagonists. Shasta has to become courageous and honest; Aravis has to learn not to be snooty and rude. Bree has to swallow his pride, and Hwin has to realise her value. 

There are, no doubt, negative racial stereotypes that might offend some. But this book was written in 1954 and the attitudes were probably typical of the era. And Lewis was far from racist: his books involve individuals from not just the human race: as well as the talking animals who are wise with strong personalities, there are fauns, centaurs, giants and others. The king of them all is Aslan the lion. 

These books can be enjoyed and appreciated at many different levels by people of all ages. They make great read-alouds to children of about seven or eight and upwards; fluent readers from around those ages can also like them. As a child I read them as exciting stories; as a teenager I became aware of the analogies and metaphors inherent in all Lewis’s fiction writing. As an adult, I see more in them each time. 

Definitely recommended. 

Review copyright 2025 Sue's Book Reviews