Chalet Girls Grow Up : A Summary
The Eighties: Chapters 23 - 35
In 1980, Jo takes a job as a dinner lady at an infants' school in between writing novels that are always sent back. Len works part time as a supply teacher and language coach. Margot returns to England after the Falklands War. In 1982, Margot and Pauline are sent to jail after breaking into a US airbase at Greenham Common during a protest. Bernard bails them out.
In the summer of 1983 Con went on a conference lecturing in romantic fiction in New York and had an affair with another lecturer. He said he was separated from his wife and about to divorce, but the wife came home from holiday early and caught them! On the way back to London she meets Ros Lilley - now married (almost straight from school) with three children. She is invited to Ros' Silver Wedding anniversary and meets Mary-Lou there - she dumped Reg a while back.
After returning home from the party, Margot is waiting for Con at her doorstep having quit the Order. The Church got annoyed with her protesting and were going to send her to Canada and waste all her tropical disease training - Pauline continued in the Order but was persecuted. Margot goes to work in Edinburgh.
In 1984, Maggs (Len's surviving twin girl - now 18) returned from Lausanne on a working holiday pregnant - she was meant to study English at Birmingham. The father dumped her - an American half-Negro. She has a boy called Robin. Birmingham give her a year off to look after the baby. Jonno (Len's oldest boy) visits Reg in the US - Reg is going to get married again to a 25 year old. Richard (Len's second boy) is working at a local stables.
Margot has an affair with Bernard (who is thinking of applying for laicisation - allows him to marry but continue to lecture) - she hopes to fall pregnant but doesn't - she's 44. Bernard marries someone else without telling her. She collapses and goes to Plas Gwyn. She decides to leave her work and go to work for 'Medicins sans Frontieres'.
Frances (Len's youngest - now 17) takes a pill at a dance party and ends up on life support. She comes out of the coma, and whilst she is in hospital Jonno tells Len that Reg died of a heart attack.
Maggs decides to do Open Learning at home and not attend University as she doesn't want to leave Robin. Frances begins to have panic attacks and can't continue her further education for a time.
In 1987, Josette Russell writes asking if her son, James, and a friend, Spike, could camp at Len's whilst touring the U K. Maggs and Spike get involved, and get married in September with Spike adopting Robin. They return to Australia to live.
Con gets dropped from the romance writing publishers after 27 books - she's apparently too old to write 'modern' novels - unlike Yseult Pertwee who is now a famous 'Danielle Steele' type author. She decides to start the Great Novel she's meant to write all her life on the two Mary's - Mary Wollstonecraft and Mary Shelly - mother and daughter.
Jo is now very absentminded (possible Alzheimer's) and takes Len's car and kills a sheep by driving on the wrong side of the road. She is brought back by a policeman who suggests a 'home' for Jo. Jonno gets his girlfriend pregnant, and eventually decides to marry her.
Jo dies of a stroke later that year (1988). Jack had willed Plas Gwyn to Jo for her lifetime; the house was then to be sold and split between all the eleven children. An argument occurred over the split because Len had looked after Jo and therefore had no savings.
Len lives at Plas Gwyn until after Frances finally takes her finals at art school. Frances then gets a job as a nanny but will continue her studies in Barcelona with the family. Len gets a proposal of marriage from a member of her language class - he's 70 - she declines.
Con decides they should have a big party at her flat to celebrate their joint 50th birthdays. She also decides to pay for them to revisit the Tyrol. The School has been bulldozed along with Freudesheim for ski fields and modern buildings.
Epilogue: 1990
In 1990, Margot is working with TB patients in London, Con finishes her biography and Len is to move with 'Plas Gwyn' finally selling. The triplets visit Miss Annersley - now 90. Tony Barass turns up on their doorstep; his wife died nine months ago of ovarian cancer. He takes a new photo of the triplets under the plum tree. The book concludes with him asking Len to marry him and Con thinking about marrying Tony's old flatmate - now her publisher.
contributed by Sandra Fitzgerald, Australia __ working from the paperback edition