The New Chalet Club

Three Go To The Chalet School

Key Facts (Possible Spoilers)

School facts:

Miss Annersley and Miss Wilson are joint Heads of the School.
The school is in Armishire at Plas Howells.
Gillian Culver, later secretary at St. Mildred's, is Head Girl.

Series Character whereabouts:

Madge Russell and her family are at the Round House, near the school.
Joey Maynard has six children - Len, Con and Margot (aged seven and at school) Stephen, Charles and baby Michael.
Peggy Bettany is in the Fifth form.
Sybil Russell is thirteen.
Josette Russell is nine, and in Mary-Lou's form.
Gillian Linton is on the staff, and is Mary-Lou's Form Mistress.
Grizel Cochrane is on the staff as Music Mistress, and is much feared for her sarcasm.

Spoilers The school goes back to the practice of being tri-lingual (which had fallen away since the school arrived in England), German, French and English being spoken on different days. Verity-Anne, out of misguided patriotism and with no one of her own to talk her out of it, refuses to speak or sing in German. This leads to a major row with Plato over the Christmas concert.

Although the age difference means Mary-Lou and Clem are in different forms, they are still great friends outside of lesson, but Clem's attempts to help Mary-Lou catch up to her in school lead to unexpected consequences.

Mary-Lou and Verity Anne are brought closer together by tragedy, which also proves to being the means of settling Verity-Anne in as a Chaletian - finally. By the end of the book, not only is there a friendship between Clem, Mary-Lou and Verity-Anne, but also between all their families, which leads to further changes for them all in their home lives over their years in the Chalet School and beyond.

E.B.D-ism - Clem is 11 in chapter one, but by the time she arrives at the school after half term, in the ways of CS ageing, is miraculously 13.

Omitted in the paperback

Clem's godfather, an artist like her parents, comes to visit Clem at school, and falls in love (instantly, of course) with Gillian Linton. She and he are engaged by the end of the book

contributed by Helen T. Bradley, Scotland ^__ working from a hardback edition