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Chalet School - Complete
Visitors for the Chalet School
Elinor M. Brent-Dyer never completed her account of the term following The Princess of the Chalet School. Fortunately, however, she did leave some notes outlining the story, and using these and other clues, Helen McClelland has been able to reconstruct a fascinating account of that early Christmas term.
Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1995
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About the author
Helen McClelland
8 booksReal name: Helen Margaret Moncrieff; famed cellist who became children's author in her 60s as Helen McClelland.
Born into Scottish 'legal' aristocracy. Both parents encouraged her musical promise from an early age and after years at the private music school run by Ruth Waddell in Edinburgh, they insisted she take a music degree at the University of Edinburgh (which she considered a waste of time) and then study the cello with Pierre Fournier in Paris, where she lived for most of two years.
The experience in Paris was to influence not just her musical development but also her attitudes to life. She returned with fluent French and a lifelong attachment to foods then considered extraordinary in the British kitchen.
In 1957 she married Alexander Kelly the two, as a duo and in combination with well-known musical friends, made many concert and broadcast appearances.
Her writing was at first separate from her music: it was not until 2001 that she published a novel, Time and Again, under her own name. As Helen McClelland, she was best known for her biography of the school story writer, Elinor M. Brent-Dyer. In 1995 she published a pastiche novel, Visitors for the Chalet School.
Born into Scottish 'legal' aristocracy. Both parents encouraged her musical promise from an early age and after years at the private music school run by Ruth Waddell in Edinburgh, they insisted she take a music degree at the University of Edinburgh (which she considered a waste of time) and then study the cello with Pierre Fournier in Paris, where she lived for most of two years.
The experience in Paris was to influence not just her musical development but also her attitudes to life. She returned with fluent French and a lifelong attachment to foods then considered extraordinary in the British kitchen.
In 1957 she married Alexander Kelly the two, as a duo and in combination with well-known musical friends, made many concert and broadcast appearances.
Her writing was at first separate from her music: it was not until 2001 that she published a novel, Time and Again, under her own name. As Helen McClelland, she was best known for her biography of the school story writer, Elinor M. Brent-Dyer. In 1995 she published a pastiche novel, Visitors for the Chalet School.
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Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews
July 17, 2020
A lovely fill in for the Chalet School series, expanding on the short prefects' report Rosalie gives near the beginning of Head Girl and, apparently, some very brief notes left by EBD herself.
The familiar cast of Chalet characters is there, with Joey her usual ebullient self and the Middles making mischief (though not very exciting mischief, to be honest). Plus a Christmas pageant that would do professional companies proud in true EBD tradition. I would have liked to see more of Bette in her only term as Head Girl, but did enjoy the brief visit to the staff room with Maynie and Bill.
The new characters - visitors from a London school - were well done. I felt sympathy for Patricia, the heroine, from the first and liked how her story developed throughout the book. Her friend Joan was a hoot. I could have read a book centred on her quite happily.
The author says she made no attempt to imitate EBD's style, but it was sufficiently like to forget a lot of the time that this is not a "real" Chalet School book.
Enjoyable, great comfort reading, a worthy addition to the lore of the Chalet School.
The familiar cast of Chalet characters is there, with Joey her usual ebullient self and the Middles making mischief (though not very exciting mischief, to be honest). Plus a Christmas pageant that would do professional companies proud in true EBD tradition. I would have liked to see more of Bette in her only term as Head Girl, but did enjoy the brief visit to the staff room with Maynie and Bill.
The new characters - visitors from a London school - were well done. I felt sympathy for Patricia, the heroine, from the first and liked how her story developed throughout the book. Her friend Joan was a hoot. I could have read a book centred on her quite happily.
The author says she made no attempt to imitate EBD's style, but it was sufficiently like to forget a lot of the time that this is not a "real" Chalet School book.
Enjoyable, great comfort reading, a worthy addition to the lore of the Chalet School.
February 18, 2023
I have mixed views on the Chalet School ‘fill-ins’
When I sat out to finally own and read all the Chalet books I initially avoided the fill ins but eventually decided to read some
I found this one of the weaker ones, even though partly inspired by idea that EBD had about a book for thus term
Too much time spent on the visitors rather than the Chalet School characters
When I sat out to finally own and read all the Chalet books I initially avoided the fill ins but eventually decided to read some
I found this one of the weaker ones, even though partly inspired by idea that EBD had about a book for thus term
Too much time spent on the visitors rather than the Chalet School characters
May 18, 2020
3.5/5
The tone of this is clearly not Brent-dyer's, its a little awkward for me and there was rather a tad too much tell over show however as the story moved along, I got into it and everything feel into place. It's a decent story to fit into the overall picture of Chalet school.
The tone of this is clearly not Brent-dyer's, its a little awkward for me and there was rather a tad too much tell over show however as the story moved along, I got into it and everything feel into place. It's a decent story to fit into the overall picture of Chalet school.
December 30, 2023
Enjoyable 1st ever Chalet fill-in. Glad to pick this up cheaply over summer at an English Heritage second hand bookshop. The author wrote the biography of EBD too which I've not read yet and despite saying in the forward that she deliberetly didn't set out to write like EBD it is very like.
June 23, 2024
I loved it.
December 22, 2024
A "fill in." Book #3.5 in the Chalet School series. Interesting, fit
s in pretty well.
s in pretty well.
September 24, 2025
This was the first ever fill in for the Chalet School series. A good read.
December 30, 2020
Very EBD!
July 7, 2014
The better fill-in books in the Chalet School series, as it turns out, are the ones which allow their authors a little room for creativity. Helen McClelland - herself a novelist under the name Margaret Moncrieff as well as author of an extensive biography of Elinor M. Brent-Dyer - has produced one of the better such efforts in Visitors Of The Chalet School, largely because she introduces us to a fresh, lively gang of new schoolgirls who interact with our favourites from the series.
In this instance, McClelland concocted a plot out of some very skeletal notes left behind by Brent-Dyer, possibly for a retrospective novel. The premise: Patricia Davidson, of London's posh Grange House, comes to the Tiern See for a month-long overseas tour with her school. There, she meets Joey Bettany, now a shining light of the Chalet School's Fifth Form, and ponders her own future: deciding, effectively, between being a doctor and a debutante. (That makes it sound frivolous, but it would certainly be quite forward-thinking at the time the novel was set - in the late 1920s - for women of an aristocratic social standing to contemplate real work instead.)
McClelland does a fine job in introducing us to Patricia and her predicament, not to mention her Grange House chums and mistresses - Joan Hatherly and Miss Bruce being particularly vividly drawn. Patricia's friendship with Joey is very well-developed, and there's much soul-searching to be had alongside the other events that take place during the term: from netball matches through to an emergency sleigh ride in the dead of winter. Showing her own writer's eye, McClelland captures Brent-Dyer's characters wonderfully - she portrays them as you can easily imagine them behaving, and refrains from the tendency to exaggerate certain characteristics that inflicts quite a few fill-in writers. (A particular highlight: the biting sarcasm attributed to Miss Wilson in parentheses throughout one scene.)
The book does peter out a little bit towards the end: the Christmas play is charming and wonderfully-written, but described as so huge a spectacle that one wonders if even Brent-Dyer would have managed this in the school's nascent years. McClelland's own style also seems to assert itself in the last few chapters of the book, as she tries to wrap it all up in a thinly-written, choppy epilogue, and it feels a little jarring. Not to mention the fact that, considering how affecting the friendship between Joey and Patricia is, it doesn't fit too well within the canon of the series for Joey never to mention her new friend again.
That being said, Visitors is still one of the most enjoyable, faithful and character-rich fill-in novels in the series yet, and well worth a read if you can get your hands on it.
3.5 stars
In this instance, McClelland concocted a plot out of some very skeletal notes left behind by Brent-Dyer, possibly for a retrospective novel. The premise: Patricia Davidson, of London's posh Grange House, comes to the Tiern See for a month-long overseas tour with her school. There, she meets Joey Bettany, now a shining light of the Chalet School's Fifth Form, and ponders her own future: deciding, effectively, between being a doctor and a debutante. (That makes it sound frivolous, but it would certainly be quite forward-thinking at the time the novel was set - in the late 1920s - for women of an aristocratic social standing to contemplate real work instead.)
McClelland does a fine job in introducing us to Patricia and her predicament, not to mention her Grange House chums and mistresses - Joan Hatherly and Miss Bruce being particularly vividly drawn. Patricia's friendship with Joey is very well-developed, and there's much soul-searching to be had alongside the other events that take place during the term: from netball matches through to an emergency sleigh ride in the dead of winter. Showing her own writer's eye, McClelland captures Brent-Dyer's characters wonderfully - she portrays them as you can easily imagine them behaving, and refrains from the tendency to exaggerate certain characteristics that inflicts quite a few fill-in writers. (A particular highlight: the biting sarcasm attributed to Miss Wilson in parentheses throughout one scene.)
The book does peter out a little bit towards the end: the Christmas play is charming and wonderfully-written, but described as so huge a spectacle that one wonders if even Brent-Dyer would have managed this in the school's nascent years. McClelland's own style also seems to assert itself in the last few chapters of the book, as she tries to wrap it all up in a thinly-written, choppy epilogue, and it feels a little jarring. Not to mention the fact that, considering how affecting the friendship between Joey and Patricia is, it doesn't fit too well within the canon of the series for Joey never to mention her new friend again.
That being said, Visitors is still one of the most enjoyable, faithful and character-rich fill-in novels in the series yet, and well worth a read if you can get your hands on it.
3.5 stars
October 21, 2016
McClelland captures the tone and flavour of the original Chalet School series without the melodrama. Only one respiratory illness is mentioned, and that almost in passing. No terrible accidents, no one gets snowed in or ends up in a coma for a week. An entire group of English girls are capable of quite a mountain hike without acquiring so much as a single sprained ankle!
Joey, considered a budding writer, is too busy doing that and participating in school life to be the star this time around. I was amused, however, to read a letter from this future author to a school friend--it's all over the place, poorly written and full of dreadful slangy language; this from the girl who criticises said friend Patricia for not knowing how to write a letter! Not content with being an "excellent" writer, Joey is suddenly said to have a lovely singing voice, news to me having read the first four or five of the series. But then Joey does have a strong tendency toward Mary Sueness.
I was a bit surprised that the Advent crown is supposedly unknown to these Anglican girls. We certainly had one every Christmas at the Anglican church I attended for a couple of decades. The Christmas pageant is this time given in its full glory, but McClelland gives much unnecessary page-time to silly actions like straightening chair covers etc while in true Chalet School tradition, the much-anticipated visit to the puppet theatre is glossed over. They talk about it for days, and then you turn the page and Joey's back at school, the show is a thing of the past and not a word is said of what it was like.
Rather better than the original author's work, to be honest, which is not something I usually say.
Joey, considered a budding writer, is too busy doing that and participating in school life to be the star this time around. I was amused, however, to read a letter from this future author to a school friend--it's all over the place, poorly written and full of dreadful slangy language; this from the girl who criticises said friend Patricia for not knowing how to write a letter! Not content with being an "excellent" writer, Joey is suddenly said to have a lovely singing voice, news to me having read the first four or five of the series. But then Joey does have a strong tendency toward Mary Sueness.
I was a bit surprised that the Advent crown is supposedly unknown to these Anglican girls. We certainly had one every Christmas at the Anglican church I attended for a couple of decades. The Christmas pageant is this time given in its full glory, but McClelland gives much unnecessary page-time to silly actions like straightening chair covers etc while in true Chalet School tradition, the much-anticipated visit to the puppet theatre is glossed over. They talk about it for days, and then you turn the page and Joey's back at school, the show is a thing of the past and not a word is said of what it was like.
Rather better than the original author's work, to be honest, which is not something I usually say.
November 22, 2020
First of the "fill-in" titles, written to fill gaps in the original series by Elinor M. Brent-Dyer. This one takes places between The Princess of the Chalet School and The Head Girl of the Chalet School, and focuses on a group of girls, seniors from a London school who are spending the Christmas term on the Continent, including a month at Briesau. One of the girls, Patricia Davidson, meets Juliet in London before term begins. In the first two pages the reader learns a great deal about the relationship between Patricia and her mother, and their very different goals in life. Once in Austria, Patricia finds herself drawn to Joey Bettany despite the difference in age, and eventually confides in her. After various interactions between the Chalet School and the visitors, the story culminates with the annual Christmas play. The author remains true to the character of the original, and no one is forced to behave out of character. Highly recommended.
February 28, 2008
This is what I've termed book "3A" in my Chalet School re-reading project (although I haven't actually read all the Chalet School books before, so it's not really entirely re-reading, but I'm sure you know what I mean). This book is written by Helen McClelland, and fills in the term between Princess of the Chalet School and Head Girl of the Chalet School. This term is briefly summed up in Head Girl as uneventful, and it's a credit to McClelland that she manages to create such a interesting book from that description and Brent-Dyer's notes she had made about the term.
It's very true to Brent-Dyer's style - not only her prose, but the way school terms unfold in her books. The characters are just as Brent-Dyer writes them, and McClelland has really placed them well in their development in the series. I also really liked her description of the nativity play the school put on at the end of the book - it seemed just like one of Brent-Dyer's productions.
Next, on to Head Girl!
It's very true to Brent-Dyer's style - not only her prose, but the way school terms unfold in her books. The characters are just as Brent-Dyer writes them, and McClelland has really placed them well in their development in the series. I also really liked her description of the nativity play the school put on at the end of the book - it seemed just like one of Brent-Dyer's productions.
Next, on to Head Girl!
June 7, 2015
I have the original Bettany Press edition, and I was staggered to see that it is now 20 years old. Good grief.
I don't remember being as excited about its publication as I should have been - possibly because I had only just finished collecting the last of the Armada paperbacks (so I still had a lot of Chalets which I had only read once), possibly because I wasn't convinced that anybody other than EBD could write a proper Chalet school book. But I couldn't not buy it ...
And it doesn't disappoint. It's quite clearly not an EBD, but it's authentic, and deserves its place on the shelf between Princess and Head Girl. And this was the first fill-in, the one that showed it could be done, and paved the way for all those 'missing term' books Chalet fans can now enjoy. Grateful thanks.
I don't remember being as excited about its publication as I should have been - possibly because I had only just finished collecting the last of the Armada paperbacks (so I still had a lot of Chalets which I had only read once), possibly because I wasn't convinced that anybody other than EBD could write a proper Chalet school book. But I couldn't not buy it ...
And it doesn't disappoint. It's quite clearly not an EBD, but it's authentic, and deserves its place on the shelf between Princess and Head Girl. And this was the first fill-in, the one that showed it could be done, and paved the way for all those 'missing term' books Chalet fans can now enjoy. Grateful thanks.
January 21, 2013
Had I not known that this wasn't written by EBD, I would never have guessed. It does everything a fill-in is supposed to: it's inkeeping with the themes, the tone, the characterization, while adding some really nice things as well, there are some times when I could tell the author favoured some bits over others and that's great too, it made a very good story. I loved Patricia, a girl who longs to be a doctor but isn't helped by her upper-class mother whose sole wish is to see her daughter do a good Season. The flash-forward at the end of the book was unexpected for me and very interesting as it's a glimpse of things to come (we see what becomes of Patricia during WWII). Lots of school things too, which is always welcome as far as I'm concerned. Really good addition to the series.
Read
April 21, 2011An addition to the Chalet School series by able Brent-Dyer biographer Helen McClelland. (Real name: Margaret Moncrieff, 1921-2008.) Taking place between _Princess of the Chalet School_ and _Head Girl of the Chalet School_, it boasts the presence of schoolgirl Joey and other favorite characters, and takes place in the beloved Tyrolean setting of the early books. Patricia wants to be a doctor, but her mother expects her to be a society matron. Like other fiction written by McClelland, this book has the style and flavor of the original series, and should not disappoint Chalet School fans.
April 29, 2009
A fill-in that actually fit in very well with the series, I thought.
November 8, 2016
A good addition.
This. Book is a good addition to the already successful chalet s book series. Written very much lime the others.
This. Book is a good addition to the already successful chalet s book series. Written very much lime the others.
Read
March 30, 2017Although not written by EBD, the author's extensive reading and research mean that her distinctive style is copied quite faultlessly! I really enjoyed this one, just as much as any EBD epistle. Unlike some of the others, and as explained as a deliberate choice in the foreword, there are no 'major catastrophes' in this one, which I liked, as it gave a more everyday feel to it. Took me right back to the early days of my love for the Chalet School!
Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews