Elinor Brent Dyer and the Chalet School Part I

Elinor was born in Newcastle in 1894..She was the author of numerous “girls” books mostly school stories and had an enormous fan base in the UK in the middle years of the 20^th century.

There were many other writers in this field at the time, such Angela Brazil, Elsie Oxenham and Dorita Fairlie Bruce.  In the early 20^th Century, it became increasingly common for middle class girls to go to school, usually boarding school and to receive a better education than they would get from a governess.

So the school story became popular among girls whose families could afford to send them to school and to many girls from poorer families, who couldn’t.  Most of these “girls” writers produced series of books about a particular school and often followed their girl pupils into adulthood.

However Elinor’s books seem to have lasted long and are still popular, whereas the Brazils etc. have become of interest only to collectors and ardent fans.  Even nowadays almost 50 years after her death, there are 2 clubs of fans which take a great interest still in Elinor’s  work.

 One of the novelties about her writing, which gave it a special fillip, was the creation of the Chalet School.  The first in this series - “The School at the Chalet” was published in 1924.  It led to a series of 59 books about a multi lingual school founded by an Englishwoman, in Austria.

 At the time, Elinor had taken a rare holiday abroad and had visited the Tyrol, and realised what a beautiful place it was.  In the post war years, it was quite cheap to live there as the currency was not as strong as the English pound.  So she had the idea of her character Madge Bettany, needing a way to earn a living and look after her delicate young sister Josephine (Joey).  The Bettanys are middle class but not well off. Dick, the only male of the family, is like many young middle class men in the 1920s,  employed in India.  So Madge and Joey need to find somewhere inexpensive to live. 

 Madge decides to go and live in the Tyrol and set up a school.   Its selling point would be that it offered something of an “English education” for continental girls and would also offer English girls the chance to study abroad for moderate fees and to learn foreign languages.  The girls were expected to speak French and German on various days during the week, and were fined for speaking their own languages.  So with this “immersion” method of learning, it helped girls who had had little language training.

  Madge has no teaching experience, but there was no requirement at the time for teachers to be qualified.  She has the assistance of a French friend Mademoiselle Lepattre, who is probably a former governess.  Mlle Lepattre has a young cousin, Simone who (together with Joey) is in need of a good school. Joey and Simone are the first pupils and are sooner joined by some Austrian girls.  The school prospers, and Joey gradually becomes the heroine of the series. 

Like Elinor, she wants to write and becomes an author on leaving school. 

 Another factor in making the Chalet series interesting was the connexion with the “San”.  At the time, the only treatment for TB (for those who could afford it) was rest and care in locations with “mountain air.”  Soon after the foundation of the Chalet School, the Bettany girls meet an English doctor, James Russell, who sets up a Sanatorium for TB sufferers in the Alps.  He and Madge fall in love and she becomes his wife.  She gives up teaching, leaving the school’s management to her partner and co-owner, Mlle Lepattre.

 Joey (like other ex-pupils or mistresses) also finds a husband from the Sanatorium’s staff.  She marries Dr Jack Maynard whose brother is a Chalet school mistress Mollie Maynard or “Maynie”.

 She produces a "long" family of 11 children, including two sets of twins and triplets. 

Unlike some other school story authors, Elinor did not ignore World War II; she had to bring her school back from Austria, when Hitler marched in, and found another location for them, in the Channel Islands.

When the Channel Islands were invaded by Germany, the school had to move again to the UK mainland, near the Welsh border.

Some years later, Elinor found a new and interesting location for her fictional schoolgirls... Due to an outbreak of problems with “drains” in the large house where the school is located, they make a temporary move to an island near Wales, St Briavels.  This gives her the chance to allow the girls to take part in boating and swimming and other water based activities, and to live on an island!  (This is always exciting for young readers).

 However the Chalet School’s owners (Madge now is the head of a “limited company” which manages it) always hoped to go back to the Continent.  So finally in the latter years of the series, the school settles in the Swiss Oberland... where there is a new Sanatorium.  Elinor kept on writing the stories till the end of her life in 1969.