OVERVIEW: Nelson's Budget for Girls

[feather_ghyll]

Nelson’s Budget for Girls

I very rarely buy annuals or collections of stories like this as I generally dislike short stories, so the balance of stories I like to the ones I don’t makes me wish I hadn't bothered to purchase a book that takes up more space than a more satisfactory long story would. This book is massive. Put this purchase down to a moment of weakness.

In fairness, my favourite stories were by authors who I knew, but Bessie Marchant is responsible for the OTT ‘The Triumphs of Tillie’, the nadir of the collection, and the opening tale. I don’t know how much thought was given to the order of the 11 stories collected here, but the weaker ones tend to come first, and a good guide to their terribleness is whether they’re set in the Canadian wilderness or not, ‘Tillie’ and ‘Redder than Red’ are both set there and terrible. While ‘The Avalanche’ is not as bad, like many of the stories, it would have worked better with a title that doesn’t give the ending away. I didn't much love the title of the best story of the lot, ‘Christopher’.

‘Christopher’ is by Christine Chaundler and is set at a boarding school, expanding on the idea that the second term is the worst for a shy and fearful creature like June ‘Niobe’ Osbourne, as schoolfellows don’t feel obliged to be as kind to her as when she was brand new, and she hasn’t struck up friendships. When a change of personality comes over her, the reader can work out why, but the other girls in Four B think she’s gone mad until all is resolved. This is markedly better than the other school stories, which feel much more contrived.

I also very much liked ‘Camp Keena finds a Guardian’ by Elsie J. Oxenham. It’s a Camp Fire story, and I need to think more about the Camp Fire organisation that Oxenham was so supportive of, which now smacks of cultural appropriation at the least. (I have a proper Camp Fire Girls book that I hope to read over the Christmas holidays.) This story has a sense of place and character as two sisters interrupt an outdoor meeting of Camp Fire girls in need of a Guardian. Marion Mason proves she has the leadership abilities that would make her fit to be that Guardian in a story that feels much more real and less silly than most of what’s on offer, although several authors would argue they were being ‘humorous’.

‘Camp Keena’ touches on the rivalry between the Camp Fire and guiding. ’A Guide is Loyal’ is a Guide story in which Guides fail at observational skills and it is by happenstance that the heroine solves a mystery, while in ‘The Tussle for the Mallery Cup’ I wondered how Marcia was in charge of the hockey team, let alone being the head girl. Like ‘The Triumphs of Tillie’, it is a long enough story to have ‘chapters’.

Words like ‘posh’ and ‘snarky’ carry a slightly different meaning than they do today, and there’s a bit of racism of the time to wade through.