OVERVIEW: Loyal to the School
Nov. 26th, 2023 02:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
feather_ghyllLoyal to the School: Angela Brazil
I’ll sum up my reaction to this book with ‘Oh, Angela.’ Overall, it contains a wildly unrealistic plot and some vivid portraits of what schoolgirls are like. The first chapter starts with Kathleen complaining to the rest of VA on the first day of term that Kingfield High School is rather stuck in its ways, and then she and the school are shocked to learn that headmistress Miss Tatham intends to shake things up, devoting one afternoon to self-expression (arts and crafts, music etc) and another to more intellectual pursuits (learning about the town’s history etc.) You think you know where things are going, but Brazil announces at the end of the chapter that, actually, the heroine of this story will be Kathleen’s friend, ‘the oldest girl at the school’, one Lesbia Farrar.
Yes, Lesbia. There are other girls in her form named Aldora and Calla, which are quite out there as names, but, Lesbia…
Poor Lesbia also has one of those mad girls’ own backstories, her father died when she was a baby, her mother remarried, but she and her husband died of influenza when Lesbia was about eight, leaving her to the care of her stepbrother Paul Hinton. Oh, and there was no money, so he had to shoulder the financial responsibility for her at well. It must have been about then that she was enrolled at the school, meaning that, even though she’s not quite 16, she’s been a pupil there for longer than any of the others.
Paul married and had three children, and Lesbia had been happy with her lot, childish for her age, increasingly thin-skinned, but when she overhears her silly friend Marion say that the Hintons are treating her as an unpaid nanny, she starts thinking herself ill-used. I only thought her ill-used when she was informed, ‘Oh, we’re going to emigrate to Canada, leaving the town and school you love, in only a fortnight. Come along and help with the packing.’ If this was a Bessie Marchant book, I daresay it would have gone differently, but Lesbia runs away from the steamer, turns up at Marion’s house, and only when she receives a surprised reception starts realising the magnitude of what she’s done.
Despite her stepbrother having allegedly adopted her, she ends up staying in Kingfield, living with distant relatives and an arrangement is made for her to stay on at the school as a student-teacher. Despite her not being a great teacher, being artistically inclined, she’s now woken up to the fact that there is no money and she needs an education to earn her keep. What a way to grow up!
But the heart of the story is Lesbia’s school life, as she and her form mates (Kathleen rather fades from the action) try to win a prize for a scrapbook, while the school goes in for ‘song-drama’ and Lesbia’s artistic talents come in handy for both. There’s a new girl, Regina, who rather worships Lesbia – which is good, because she and her family insist Lesbia come holiday with them in their second home in north Wales instead of being packed off to an elderly relative who will use her as a skivvy. They progress to the sixth, the headmistress falls ill and a less tactful replacement takes her place and finds fault with our heroine, sometimes fairly, sometimes unfairly. At the end of the book, there’s a fortuitous twist that will allow Lesbia to have the artistic training she longs for, but then there’s also a test to see how much she has grown up as she leaves school life behind her.
There’s also a lot of nonsense about Brazil’s beliefs about the make-up of the British character that also made me go ‘oh, Angela!’
Perhaps that was closer to a full review than an overview. Oh, well. I saw that Italy won the tie against Serbia in the Davis Cup yesterday, with Sinner beating Djokovic in three sets, even though Djokovic had three match points, and both men reappearing for the doubles, which Italy won in two sets.
I’ll sum up my reaction to this book with ‘Oh, Angela.’ Overall, it contains a wildly unrealistic plot and some vivid portraits of what schoolgirls are like. The first chapter starts with Kathleen complaining to the rest of VA on the first day of term that Kingfield High School is rather stuck in its ways, and then she and the school are shocked to learn that headmistress Miss Tatham intends to shake things up, devoting one afternoon to self-expression (arts and crafts, music etc) and another to more intellectual pursuits (learning about the town’s history etc.) You think you know where things are going, but Brazil announces at the end of the chapter that, actually, the heroine of this story will be Kathleen’s friend, ‘the oldest girl at the school’, one Lesbia Farrar.
Yes, Lesbia. There are other girls in her form named Aldora and Calla, which are quite out there as names, but, Lesbia…
Poor Lesbia also has one of those mad girls’ own backstories, her father died when she was a baby, her mother remarried, but she and her husband died of influenza when Lesbia was about eight, leaving her to the care of her stepbrother Paul Hinton. Oh, and there was no money, so he had to shoulder the financial responsibility for her at well. It must have been about then that she was enrolled at the school, meaning that, even though she’s not quite 16, she’s been a pupil there for longer than any of the others.
Paul married and had three children, and Lesbia had been happy with her lot, childish for her age, increasingly thin-skinned, but when she overhears her silly friend Marion say that the Hintons are treating her as an unpaid nanny, she starts thinking herself ill-used. I only thought her ill-used when she was informed, ‘Oh, we’re going to emigrate to Canada, leaving the town and school you love, in only a fortnight. Come along and help with the packing.’ If this was a Bessie Marchant book, I daresay it would have gone differently, but Lesbia runs away from the steamer, turns up at Marion’s house, and only when she receives a surprised reception starts realising the magnitude of what she’s done.
Despite her stepbrother having allegedly adopted her, she ends up staying in Kingfield, living with distant relatives and an arrangement is made for her to stay on at the school as a student-teacher. Despite her not being a great teacher, being artistically inclined, she’s now woken up to the fact that there is no money and she needs an education to earn her keep. What a way to grow up!
But the heart of the story is Lesbia’s school life, as she and her form mates (Kathleen rather fades from the action) try to win a prize for a scrapbook, while the school goes in for ‘song-drama’ and Lesbia’s artistic talents come in handy for both. There’s a new girl, Regina, who rather worships Lesbia – which is good, because she and her family insist Lesbia come holiday with them in their second home in north Wales instead of being packed off to an elderly relative who will use her as a skivvy. They progress to the sixth, the headmistress falls ill and a less tactful replacement takes her place and finds fault with our heroine, sometimes fairly, sometimes unfairly. At the end of the book, there’s a fortuitous twist that will allow Lesbia to have the artistic training she longs for, but then there’s also a test to see how much she has grown up as she leaves school life behind her.
There’s also a lot of nonsense about Brazil’s beliefs about the make-up of the British character that also made me go ‘oh, Angela!’
Perhaps that was closer to a full review than an overview. Oh, well. I saw that Italy won the tie against Serbia in the Davis Cup yesterday, with Sinner beating Djokovic in three sets, even though Djokovic had three match points, and both men reappearing for the doubles, which Italy won in two sets.
