Some links

[altariel]

A link from new_atalanta to a wonderful site about the life and works of Noel Streatfeild. It covers her children's and adult books. I'm going to have to pull Apple Bough off the shelf now and reread.

And I found this article about girls' comics at the BBC cult website last week. Make sure you read the bits about the Bunty strip 'The Boyfriend from Blupo', which is just hilarious.

Comments

[avon7.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I like Apple Bough, though to be honest I don't like the ending much - strikes me that Myra has the house, but that's about all. I reread Ballet Shoes and White Boots the other week. Problem is that I ahve them just about off by heart - though that was useful when I was visiting London and was suddenly wandering through Petrova, Pauline and Posy's world.

[avon7.livejournal.com]

Hmmm, very interesting site - there a couple of children's books there I didn't know about and haven't read. I've read one of her adult books, and that was definitely enough. Have you ever read The Vicarage Family? It's interesting (though I know her family dispute the accuracy of it) because she repeatedly recreated sections of her childhood in her books.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

I've read a couple of her adult books, and quite liked them. Saplings was reprinted recently by Persephone, and is about the collapse of a family during the war - very depressing read, but very well done. I haven't read The Vicarage Family; it sounds fascinating.

[avon7.livejournal.com]

The only adult fic I've read of hers is Aunt Clara and it's um odd. The Vicarage Family is fascinating - it's hard to know whether she is fictionalising the real characters and that's why they are so much like her book characters, or whether as I believe she creates much of her books out of her childhood. Greatnanny - her father's nanny is clearly the prototype for her various nannies while the two servants pop up in various guises again and again. I think Nicolette in Tennis Shoes might be closest to her portrayal of herself but all her misunderstood and overshadowed characters are Noel.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

From what I could glean about The Vicarage Family on that site, her family seemed to strenuously deny that it was a true portrait. I haven't read Tennis Shoes (although it appears to be in print in the UK). I don't think I'd realized until I looked at the bibliography just how prolific she was.

[avon7.livejournal.com]

Yes, from everything I've heard the family do disagree pretty strongly with her portrayal of how it was. My feeling is that the cousin-boyfriend may have been deliberate invention, but much of it is how Noel *felt* it was. I don't know if you've got many siblings, but in my experience without anyone lying there's still no one truth about anyhting that happened. We all experience it differently so it is different.

Small world, large project moment - when I was in England last a friend took to lunch at his stepmother's just outside Eastbourne, and it turned out that she had known Noel and was able to show me some of the places mentioned in A Vicarage Family.

I got a shock when I saw the bibliography too, though I did discover after some poking around that quite a few of the ones I didn't know were early readers. I think I've got about 15 of her kids' books - and I've just ordered the only Gemma book I was missing. They're not an outstanding series, but I'm fond of them.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

I don't know if you've got many siblings, but in my experience without anyone lying there's still no one truth about anyhting that happened. We all experience it differently so it is different.

Hoo boy yes - I'm the youngest of six, and a late addition to the family: my siblings were all born within seven years (poor mum), and I arrived seven years later. (Thinking about your other message about Myra and families splitting up, I wonder if this is why I'm more accepting of this: siblings were moving on all throughout my childhood, to university, marrying, etc., so I suspect I may have accepted this as the natural order of things.)


when I was in England last a friend took to lunch at his stepmother's just outside Eastbourne, and it turned out that she had known Noel and was able to show me some of the places mentioned in A Vicarage Family.

Wonderful!

I'm missing a Gemma book too - can't remember which now - I like them as a series too; they're very readable.

[avon7.livejournal.com]

Hoo boy yes - I'm the youngest of six, and a late addition to the family: my siblings were all born within seven years (poor mum), and I arrived seven years later. (Thinking about your other message about Myra and families splitting up, I wonder if this is why I'm more accepting of this: siblings were moving on all throughout my childhood, to university, marrying, etc., so I suspect I may have accepted this as the natural order of things.)

Actually now you say that I remember it. Oddly enough I'm also the youngest of a mostly older family - when I was born my siblings were 10, 9, 7 and 4 - and it's precisely that being left behind bit that made me so clingy with my fictional families, I suspect. As a kid the two guaranteed tear-jerkers for me were characters growing up (still can't get through the last Christopher Robin chapter without howling) and animals dying. Ah well - it'd be a boring old world if we were all the same. ;-)

[altariel.livejournal.com]

I admit I like the end of Apple Bough: I think Myra gets both the house and the sense of stability that she has been craving since they moved. Also, although the family are not there all the time, she functions as the person to whom the family will always return. Mm, I'm really wanting to reread it now...

[avon7.livejournal.com]

I admit I like the end of Apple Bough: I think Myra gets both the house and the sense of stability that she has been craving since they moved. Also, although the family are not there all the time, she functions as the person to whom the family will always return.

I'm very soppy about endings and families splitting up - I don't care for the ending of Ballet Shoes, either. I know it's supposed to be happy, but it isn't for me.

[aervir.livejournal.com]

Yay for girls' comics! Especially for "don't eat prawns, or you'll get eaten by gigantic alien prawns, after being dipped into garlic sauce" variety.

Why did storylines like this never appear in my comic books (which were only full of snottish rivals and pretty little horsies)?

[altariel.livejournal.com]

I used to read 'Misty', it was brilliant... if a little strange.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

Oh you must get hold of Skating Shoes (I know it as White Boots) again, it is quite wonderful! I've not read Dancing Shoes/Wintle's Wonders.

I also sympathized with Petrova, surrounded by all these shining children. Perhaps Pauline eventually gives up films and comes back to have a brilliant autumn-of-her-life career on the London stage, with plays written for her?


And my horror when I learned that shillings no longer exist and it wouldn't any longer be possible to get "two and six" for pocket money - one of the great disillusionments of my life ;-)

LOL! That's 'old money' - I'm too young to have had my pocket money come in shillings and pence!

[altariel.livejournal.com]

I will bring my 1981 edition with good illustrations to Britain and you will read it! :-)

Cool, thank you!


Hmmm...perhaps some fan-fiction is required

;-D I wonder if any was written for yuletide?

Spoiler for 'The Painted Garden'

[avon7.livejournal.com]

S'alright - Noel took care of Pauline. At the very end of the book she tells Jane that everything always works out - she's going to get to play Juliet in New York and then maybe London.

Avon

Re: Spoiler for 'The Painted Garden'

[avon7.livejournal.com]

*clonks self in head* Tells Rachel I mean.

Re: Spoiler for 'The Painted Garden'

[altariel.livejournal.com]

Hurray!

[(Anonymous)]

(Katlinel at work)

Thanks for the pointer to the site - I'm getting behind again.

Lots of fascinating stuff there. I'd love to get hold of the follow-on short stories and find out what happened to Lalla and Harriet. And several of the others.

I can lend you my copy of The Vicarage Family. :-) I don't have the others in the series. And which Gemma book are you missing? I should be able to get to The Old Children's Bookshelf before I next see you, and see if they have a copy.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

I wonder if Persephone could be persuaded to reprint some of her short stories...

I'd love to borrow The Vicarage Family, although you might want to wait until I've returned at least some of the current pile :-D

It seems to be 'Gemma and Sisters' that I don't have, although I can't lay my hands on my copy of 'Gemma' at the moment. The shelves with the children's books really need a good sort-through.

[(Anonymous)]

(Katlinel at work)

And I also loved both 'Spellbound' and 'Misty'. I used to borrow a friend's copy. She'd save up a pile for me, and I'd read several months' worth in one go.

I never ever got into the teen magazines with their photo-stories and obsession with getting a boyfriend. I still wanted to read about girls having adventures of one sort or another, and boys were a very poor substitute instead.

Thanks again for both the links.