Janie Steps In (by Elinor M Brent-Dyer)

(Amazon UK link)

Although I read a couple of the ‘La Rochelle’ books by Elinor M Brent-Dyer as a teenager, and managed to acquire one or two of them a few years ago, it wasn’t until last year, with the help of an online sales forum, that I managed to get hold of the rest of the books - seven in all. I’ve been reading them in order this year, about one per month.

I finally picked up ‘Janie Steps In’ a couple of days ago, and have just finished it. It makes an excellent finish to the series, introducing seventeen-year-old Nan Blakeney (who features in some of the Chalet School books). Nan, when we first meet her, is staying with her cousin Rosamunde. She’s grieving her mother, who died in a car accident a few months earlier.

Rosamunde feels that Nan should have got over the worst of her grief, which felt a bit hard-hearted to me at first. Nan was an only child, and was extremely close to her mother. But it seems that Nan is not just sad, but listless, barely eating, and starting to look very run-down. Rosamunde thinks she would be better in a different climate - and she also knows that she (Rosamunde) looks very like Nan’s late mother. She suspects that this resemblance may be making it more difficult for Nan.

So she sends Nan to stay with her friend Janie Lucy who lives in Guernsey. Janie is now the mother of four children, including Julie, Betsy and baby Vi, who also appear in many of the later Chalet School books. She and her husband Julian are young at heart but welcome Nan into the family, involving her in the children’s escapades, asking her to help in various ways. And gradually Nan starts to take more of an interest in what’s going on around her, as well as finding the sea air rather better for her.

It’s not just Nan’s story: there are some mildly amusing incidents when the Lucy children get into mischief: they are, as Janie explains, obedient but not usually good. If something is forbidden, they don’t do it - instead they come up with new and original ideas which nobody thought of forbidding. I find Elinor M Brent-Dyer’s insistence on unquestioning obedience in small children a bit forced at times, and her belief in a good spanking, on occasion, somewhat disturbing. But for the era - this book was first published in 1953 - she was quite progressive in her ideas about raising small children.

Janie’s older sisters Anne Chester and Elizabeth Ozanne also feature; they live nearby, and have large families of their own. There’s another subplot involving 12-year-old Beth Chester, Anne’s oldest, who has become very jealous of her baby sister Barbara who is frail and sickly. This makes a good storyline in its own right, and I felt it was handled sensitively and well; it’s also very interesting as background to me as a Chalet School fan; Beth, later on in the books, becomes an au pair, and Barbara has her own book in the series when she is finally well enough to go to the Chalet School.

While, as usual in this author’s books, there are a few inconsistencies (EBD-isms, as they’re known by her fans) none of them was particularly disturbing. I felt the main characters were well drawn, and there are some quite poignant scenes. Of course the 1950s upper middle class society in which the families are firmly placed seems odd, almost hypocritical today. Anne’s husband Peter works as a doctor, constantly busy and - one assumes - well paid. They own their own house, too, paid for from a legacy. But they are seen as impoverished because their savings were embezzled; they ‘only’ have one maid, now, and Beth goes to a small and not very good private school. Apparently a state school was not even an option.

But one has to accept the world in which a novel is placed, and the society where the characters belong. As such, I thought this overall a very enjoyable book, one I am pleased to have read - and I look forward to re-reading the Guernsey books in the Chalet School series, which I will begin re-reading all over again next month.

I would recommend ‘Janie Steps In’ to anyone, adult or teenager who likes these 20th century ‘Girls’ Own’ books, or who remembers them with nostalgia from their childhood. This one stands alone, as all the ‘La Rochelle’ books do; but there are a large number of minor characters who were introduced in earlier books. So it would be best to read, as a minimum, ‘Janie of La Rochelle’ (sixth in the series, and actually my least favourite) before embarking on this one.

The other books in the series are:

• Gerry Goes to School
• A Head Girl’s Difficulties
• The Maids of La Rochelle
• Seven Scamps
• Heather Leaves School

These books were never published in Armada editions, but had something of a revival in recent decades when they were re-printed by 'Girls Gone By'. They are not always in print, but can occasionally be found second-hand.

Review copyright 2019 Sue's Book Reviews