REVIEW: Terry's Only Term
May. 30th, 2021 07:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
feather_ghyllTerry’s Only Term: Ethel Talbot, Blackie
I had a quick look at what I’ve had to say about Ethel Talbot’s books in the past, and realised how much she likes this ‘Girl’s name descriptive word Term’ formula for titles. I nearly always carp about her punctuation, and in this book, it was the overused semi-colon that irritated me the most. There is no reason to use it so liberally in a girls’ story book.
This is a school story, but with a strong familial background. From the way that Terry’s only term is set up, you have fair warning it’s going to be a book full of contrivances – mainly because of adults taking Terry into their confidence about matters she isn’t fully equipped to deal with, for she sometimes gets the wrong end of the stick from what they say, and Terry then not confiding in them when she really should. Though, in fairness, some of them are terrible at interrogating her and some make unfair requests of her. A bit of stealing (which is worse than not being ‘sporty’; it’s actually both crime and sin) is never addressed, let alone punished.
Terry is fourteen and has always been the responsible one, even though sister Gloria is years older than her. Gloria is just finishing at art school, where she is a promising sculptress, who is allergic to the verb ‘sculpt’ (the book only refers to ‘sculping’.) The two girls have been living in draughty, rented rooms since their father died, dreaming about a picture of a little house they found among his papers. Gloria gets a well-paid commission (if an unlikely one) in the States for three months, and so scrounges up the money to send Terry to a boarding school, Pinewoods School, run by a mistress from the boarding school Gloria attended when their father was alive. Terry will be admitted at reduced fees under the circumstances.
On the train to Pinewoods, Terry fatefully shares a carriage with snobbish Agatha and shabbily dressed, shy Edith, whom Terry much prefers. She soon learns that Miss Harburton only recently took the school over from a Mrs Crocker, who ran it along very old-fashioned and somewhat slack lines. Unlike Agatha, most of the girls are excited that Miss Harburton has introduced games, cricket this term, to the school, but the trouble is that there aren’t a lot of these girls, many pupils having left when the school changed management, and Terry and Edith are the only new pupils.
Terry clicks with Peggy, but shy and strange Edith sticks to Terry, and Miss Harburton asks her to be a good friend to Edith, giving Terry special treatment because she remembers her sister. I was surprised at how blasé the other girls were that Terry was so often being called to see Miss Harburton.
Terry, who prided herself on being the responsible one can often be a total nitwit, such as over all too precious bank notes that Gloria leaves with her, over not so veiled allusions and that there are people who would do shady things, some of them closer than she thinks. She was most spectacularly stupid over an experiment to prove a fire could be started a certain way. Careless, at least. The resolutions vis a vis Edith’s Big Secret, Agatha’s doings, the local post office and the dream home really strain credulity, and the belief that playing cricket will make all right is a bit ridiculous (I mean, yes, exercise and team spirit are good, but even with Peggy’s tactful guess about why Edith didn’t want to join in being proved right, there might have been plenty of other valid reasons for not playing the sport. Being unco-ordinated, or having sight issues, or being bad at it. None of which make you a terrible person.)
The name Gloria seemed odd to me for a character who we are informed is a young lady, but there’s a plot reason. We’re never informed what Terry, which Matron and the mistresses use, is short for. As she was ‘born abroad’, I’d guess it was short for Theresa. Talbot does a reasonable job in showing various degrees of friendship as understanding Peggy is more attractive to Terry than Edith at times, but that changes somewhat as Terry learns more about Edith and her store of kindness, and both friends are important to her at different times. But there is a convenient godmother for the school, among a heap of coincidences on the way to the happy ending. Not one of Talbot’s best at all. (And not a patch on ‘Terry’s Best Term’ by Evelyn Smith.)
I had a quick look at what I’ve had to say about Ethel Talbot’s books in the past, and realised how much she likes this ‘Girl’s name descriptive word Term’ formula for titles. I nearly always carp about her punctuation, and in this book, it was the overused semi-colon that irritated me the most. There is no reason to use it so liberally in a girls’ story book.
This is a school story, but with a strong familial background. From the way that Terry’s only term is set up, you have fair warning it’s going to be a book full of contrivances – mainly because of adults taking Terry into their confidence about matters she isn’t fully equipped to deal with, for she sometimes gets the wrong end of the stick from what they say, and Terry then not confiding in them when she really should. Though, in fairness, some of them are terrible at interrogating her and some make unfair requests of her. A bit of stealing (which is worse than not being ‘sporty’; it’s actually both crime and sin) is never addressed, let alone punished.
Terry is fourteen and has always been the responsible one, even though sister Gloria is years older than her. Gloria is just finishing at art school, where she is a promising sculptress, who is allergic to the verb ‘sculpt’ (the book only refers to ‘sculping’.) The two girls have been living in draughty, rented rooms since their father died, dreaming about a picture of a little house they found among his papers. Gloria gets a well-paid commission (if an unlikely one) in the States for three months, and so scrounges up the money to send Terry to a boarding school, Pinewoods School, run by a mistress from the boarding school Gloria attended when their father was alive. Terry will be admitted at reduced fees under the circumstances.
On the train to Pinewoods, Terry fatefully shares a carriage with snobbish Agatha and shabbily dressed, shy Edith, whom Terry much prefers. She soon learns that Miss Harburton only recently took the school over from a Mrs Crocker, who ran it along very old-fashioned and somewhat slack lines. Unlike Agatha, most of the girls are excited that Miss Harburton has introduced games, cricket this term, to the school, but the trouble is that there aren’t a lot of these girls, many pupils having left when the school changed management, and Terry and Edith are the only new pupils.
Terry clicks with Peggy, but shy and strange Edith sticks to Terry, and Miss Harburton asks her to be a good friend to Edith, giving Terry special treatment because she remembers her sister. I was surprised at how blasé the other girls were that Terry was so often being called to see Miss Harburton.
Terry, who prided herself on being the responsible one can often be a total nitwit, such as over all too precious bank notes that Gloria leaves with her, over not so veiled allusions and that there are people who would do shady things, some of them closer than she thinks. She was most spectacularly stupid over an experiment to prove a fire could be started a certain way. Careless, at least. The resolutions vis a vis Edith’s Big Secret, Agatha’s doings, the local post office and the dream home really strain credulity, and the belief that playing cricket will make all right is a bit ridiculous (I mean, yes, exercise and team spirit are good, but even with Peggy’s tactful guess about why Edith didn’t want to join in being proved right, there might have been plenty of other valid reasons for not playing the sport. Being unco-ordinated, or having sight issues, or being bad at it. None of which make you a terrible person.)
The name Gloria seemed odd to me for a character who we are informed is a young lady, but there’s a plot reason. We’re never informed what Terry, which Matron and the mistresses use, is short for. As she was ‘born abroad’, I’d guess it was short for Theresa. Talbot does a reasonable job in showing various degrees of friendship as understanding Peggy is more attractive to Terry than Edith at times, but that changes somewhat as Terry learns more about Edith and her store of kindness, and both friends are important to her at different times. But there is a convenient godmother for the school, among a heap of coincidences on the way to the happy ending. Not one of Talbot’s best at all. (And not a patch on ‘Terry’s Best Term’ by Evelyn Smith.)
