Triplets at Royders

by Margaret Biggs, Jacqueline Blairman

The triplets' father has been killed in the War, and while Sheila has won a scholarship to Royders it looks as though Robin and Anne will have to stay at their day school. But then they think of asking Uncle Peter to help, and he agrees, provided they can earn their places at the school by the end of their first year. Sheila has the scholarship, Robin is brilliant at music, but what about Anne?

Genres: School Stories

256 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1950

About the author

Born in 1929 in Orpington, Kent, Margaret Biggs was the daughter of a local Sales Manager for Chivers. Her family moved to Barnet, in Hertfordshire, in 1935, where she attended Queen Elizabeth’s Grammar School until 1946. When she left school, she went to work for the editorial department of the Evans Brothers publishing company, in Bloomsbury. She married David Cadney in 1953, and moved with him to Finchley, and then (in the 1960s) to Solihull, in the West Midlands, where she still lives today. She has one daughter and two sons.

The author of a number of popular and collectible girls' school stories, Margaret Biggs is probably best known for her Melling School series, which is set at a weekly boarding school and is unusual, in that it shows boarding school life and home life side by side. The interaction between girls and boys is also atypical of the genre at that time.

Reviews

[Jen Pritchard · Rating 3 out of 5]

It took a little while to warm up to the triplets, but once I did the book was enjoyable, although not as good as the other titles by Margaret Biggs.

[Helen · Rating 3 out of 5]

There is something artlessly charming about this book, which perhaps comes from the fact that it was written by two very young authors, one of whom was still a teenager at the time. The set-up is classic: Sheila is the confident clever one, destined to be head girl; Robin is charming and talented but mischief-loving; Anne is the quiet one who feels overshadowed by her brilliant sisters. The girls’ characters and friendships are well-drawn - in particular Robin is interestingly complex rather than just a bubbly extrovert, and Anne naturally develops into a more confident and settled girl without melodramatic heroics. Altogether a pleasant read.