Wizzo School Hols Adventure!
 

I say, chums, its the hols, don't you know! Hurrah!

Let's go to the sea-side for our holiday!

We've got sandwiches and lemonade, and a warm coat each, so hop on your bicycles and let's go. We can get ice-cream along the way, too. It'll be champion. Tell Mummy and Daddy we shall be back in a week.

Who's coming?

Will there be dope?

Of course.

Timmy is bringing his model aeroplanes, and he will need his dope to glue them back together if they crash.

What, is there some other kind?

I'm not sure what it is, but I'll be there.

Do I need my own sandwich, lemonade, bicycle, warm coat, and ice cream money? You weren't clear whether there were enough of those items to provide for everyone.

Never go with a hippie to a second location.

;)

I'll bring stuff for s'mores.

Will there be lashings of ginger beer?
I'll bring Titty and Fanny, if that's alright with you.
Can't say "okay", Matron fines us for using slang!

I'd love to bring Diz, but a dog is better suited to these jolly romps.
Mater will look after him in the mean time.
Perhaps someone else will bring one - it wouldn't be such a wizard time without a dog chasing a ball along the sand.

Talking of balls, make sure your friend Sheldon comes.
We all have a rather gay time when he's about.
Top hole!

Sounds like one may need a passport from The Empire before they attend.

Lashings of Ginger beer and Uncle Quentin's finest LSD! Hurrah!

Oh I do hope Timmy will be there. He's such a licky dog!



@ Sundae. But you can't bring Titty. Don't you remember? She was unfairly accused of cheating and only escaped being expelled when she inadvisably climbed a mountain and went down with brain fever. Matron woulld never let her out for a romp like this.

Splendid! That's the spirit.

I haven't seen Fanny in ever so long, do bring her, Sundae.

To where shall we go? I have an Uncle in Boxtonfarnsworthwich-on-sea, we could stay with him for a while, but it is a terribly long ride. It takes such a long time to read the road-signs along the way.

This reminds me of the "I'm Sorry, I Haven't a Clue" episode when they were at at theatre near Eton, and one of the rounds had to do with translating incomprehensible babble that was allegedly Etonian slang.

Oh I do so like to listen to I'm Sorry I haven't a Clue! It's tophole it really is!

Zen, as Dani sez, Titty is in the San, but Fanny has a healthy, rosy glow about her! And don't worry, some of Nanny's buns will soon sort the rest of us out.

Just none of you sneak on us to the others.
That's a dashed rotten trick, and we'd have to send you to Coventry.

I just know we're going to have a jolly time, which will end up with us all tired, but happy.
I hope fishing is involved! Cook got her hands on a lovely pair of pollocks the other night - gosh, I hope they didn't come from a poacher! She's a good old sort, but of course I would need to visit the local police house if I suspected her. Servants are generally sound, but you have to keep your guard up.

The trick with servants is to treat them with respect; just as if they were a proper person.

Haggis!! Dana!!! OMG!


I say, Miss Dana, are you sure?
Grand-Papa always taught us, be strict but fair, and always be consistent. Keep your distance, too, it helps them Know Their Place. They like it that way. One must keep up Proper Discipline.

Sundae, I am worried about bringing Fanny. I was going to invite Dick along, but I think they had a falling out. I'm not sure how it happened; they used to have such a lovely intercourse, but one day he was being terribly tiresome and she grew somewhat heated. I think he withdrew then and hasn't shown much interest since. I've encouraged him to keep his end up, but no luck. Its jolly rotten, but we shall have to make do.

I suppose that's better than bottomhole.

Oh Dick and Fanny! I don't know which one to handle any more - I've never known such queer goings on.
Never mind. Just make sure you invite Neil, Bob and Roger.

ETA - if this sounds a bit practised, I actually have notes on writing a Chalet School/ Enid Blyton Cellar episode. It was supposed to be "one for the ladies." Which is why I've subverted the thread with innuendo I suppose :)

Problem was, it had a Nazi sub-plot, and I felt bad about casting villains. Wolf was going to be Matron though. Forever giving the girls sedatives (as per real boarding school stories!) Shawnee was the school secretary, about the same age as the girls, and sympathetic. Bri was the bad girl, in a St Trinians' style. Ducks & Ali made an appearance as obligatory new girls from a backwards country. Dana was a Commie spy, outwitting the Nazis. And Bruce - of course. The mild-mannered janitor. Saving the day, and thereby teaching Dani the error of her ways - capitalism is best.

You know what? The synopsis makes it sound so much better than it ended up.
But I think I was was right not to write it, given that it seems only Brits & Aussies get the genre!

Was it a musical?? The Nazi bit immediately made me think of Sound of Music. No, go for it, I just found the slang a little thick slogging.

What ho! sounds like a treat, and by goodness yes there is another kind, but a few snorts of the good stuff should do the trick at any rate old chum. ;)

My mum had a whole heap of those types of books which I've inherited although bugger me if I can't remember where I've put them now, but anyway, my favourite was Lucy Brown and all her adventures.

I only read one or two, they have some jaw-dropping lines by today's standards.

Paraphrase from a Famous Five:

Georgie (Georgina) "You can't do it, Susan (or whatever her name was), driving a horse-caravan is a man's job."

Susan "But you're not a man. You're not even a boy. You're just a girl."

Georgie scowled. She did not like being reminded she was just a girl....

I loved George when I was growing up. I liked the fact she was 'almost as good as a boy' at a lot of stuff.

I loved the Famous Five, the Secret Seven, the Find-Outers and of course The Magic Far-Away Tree. But crikey they were books of their time in terms of gender roles.

But the Chalet School stories were the most priceless.
I collected them, then gave them away when I moved here - something about Mum's horrified expression at the amount of books I owned.
Their moral code was so warped by today's standards.

And girls were regularly "dosed" when they cried too much.
And were "delicate" and caught ill from a window being open, standing in a draught or getting their feet wet. Even sometimes from just staying up too late.
And all the "old girls" (previous students) met and married men a year after leaving school and had twins and triplets - usually in the same family.
Oh and parents died and their spouses remarried ALL the time - very few girls had both their original parents. Which led to very complicated families, even in pre-divorce days.

Superb.

Anyway, as you were.

Were the teachers mean? strict? etc.?
Did this result in you & your friends expecting your parents to die? I remember there was so much stuff about "helping kids deal with divorce" floating around (I'm talking mid to late 1970s here) that it almost seemed surprising my parents DIDN'T divorce.

ETA: I'm now unable to read this thread title without thinking of the "Wizzo Quality Assortment" from Monty Python's crunchy frog sketch.

Oh no, the teachers were just concerned about the gals. But the books started (I think) after the Great War, when ladies did have emotions, but by goodness it was unhealthy to exhibit them. They were given sedatives to help them you know. Til they got old enough to be Memsahibs and dose themselves with gin...

And no, we were aware of the curiousity of a lot of the situations. We were reading in the 70s after all. Although I wrote a priceless piece of coursework about being abused as a child because my parents were still around, therefore I couldn't experience any of the adventures of the children in our set texts. It was deliberately tongue in cheek (yes, I got an A).

But it entered into my consciousness when I didn't expect it. Only a couple of years ago I found a list of all my daughters' names. And I had two sets of twins and a set of triplets. I wrote it when I was FIFTEEN for goodness sake! And I'd had them all by the time I was 32. Then again, I was going to be a vet or a missionary...