The Chalet School books

They were some of my favourite books, in the early 1960's the setting, Switzeland, seemed such an exotic faraway place. As for a finishing school, a girl from a coal mining town in the East Midlands could not begin to comprehend the lives that the Chalet School girls were living.

How i loved these books!! Off to the library i would trot, to haul as many back as i could carry. I loved the characters, the girls portrayed seemed so friendly.
I was raised in a very poor, noisy busy household, we had nothing, barely enough food or clothes to go round. So the escapism in these books was wonderful. Did I ever imagine I would go to a finishing school in Switzerland? I must have thought anything was possible back then, 50 years ago. Ah life, where have you gone, so quickly and fleetingly?
Its so lovely that some of you know these books and have read them. I ask friends and colleagues, and nobody has heard of them. I thought they were better than anything Enid Blyton did, although to be fair, her age range was much younger. I may re-read some of them, do you think that's a good idea? Let me know, lovely ladies

I loved those books and borrowed them from the library in order if I could. That might be where I first heard of continental quilts?

Yes! I was a big fan and used to get them from the library.

I didn't realise there were so many Grandmabatty . Google tells me that there were 64 published between 1925 and 1970 so I barely skimmed the surface as I probably stopped reading them in the 1950s.

I have about forty of them! I loved them as a girl and found the idea of a boarding school in the Alps very exciting. The description of the cakes used to make my mouth water. The author Val Mcdermid is another fan