School stories: The ideas cauldron strikes again

Old is good, but can it appeal to readers in the 21st century?

I’m delving into my big ideas folder at the back of the drawer again this week to bring you another of my worldbeating plans. But this time it’s not an one-off, it’s a whole series…

The ‘school story’ genre has a long pedigree but it’s rather fallen out of fashion. My idea is to follow a similar route to the British Library’s hugely successful crime series of titles from yesteryear, but with girls and boys school stories from the earlier parts of the 20th century. One of the chapters in my A Book of Book Lists (out now in paperback for the first time) covers popular books children took out from libraries in 1940 and features authors such as Winifred Darch, Angela Brazil, Dorita Fairlie Bruce, Harold Avery, and Elsie J Oxenham. I don’t think any of them are in print now and maybe they would be popular again?

There are similar authors, especially adventurous derring-do fiction for boys. My feeling is that in the same way the new Ladybird pastiche series has been a hit with adults these books would also be bought by grown-ups (I know several people of around my age who still happily reread the original Malory Towers series). Certainly Winifred Darch’s girls’ school stories were popular with both younger and adult readers, and more recent writers like Robin Stevens and Katherine Woodfine show there is still plenty of life in the genre.

There are a couple of small publishers bringing out exactly these kind of reprints (e.g. Girls Gone By, mentioned in a previous newsletter, and The Elsie J Oxenham Appreciation Society) but on a pretty limited scale. I think we could go much bigger.

And not all of them have to be that long. Baxter’s Second Innings (1892) by Henry Drummond is very short (only about 50 pages and in a small format too, rather like those ‘Guide for American Servicemen in Britain’ guides at bookshop tills) and follows a young boy called Baxter who is knocked out while batting in a cricket match. He is then taught about life’s temptations (in a very general way rather then with specific juicy examples) by his Captain and how to beat them using good Christian morality. It is deliberately a bit preachy, but it’s a nice lollipop.

I think there would be particular interest in Angela Brazil. She led the way in writing school stories which were full of character, adventure, and in many ways very feminist, rather than the humdrum Victorian ones which were very morally didactic (in fact the books were seen as a bit ‘fast’ by some adults and some schools refused to stock them).

Two suggestions from the Brazil back catalogue. A Pair of Schoolgirls (1912) is set in a day school and follows Dorothy who is a strong but not perfect character (it’s a very good depiction of a moody teenager!) and there is a spectacular plot twist to her parental mystery. Although much of the story revolves around a school election - which Dorothy loses early in the book - the main thread is the development of her close friendship with a new girl. It also features some quite exciting adventures, caving and falling into a river - scenes of mild peril! The concept of a code of honour and the background of the girls is very strong in this one too.

The Secret of the Border Castle (1943) follows Vanessa who joins a school evacuated to Scotland during WWII with two interesting twists - she is in on the key to the mystery from the start whereas the reader doesn’t find out what it is until very near the end, and the school is actually made up of girls from two different schools which adds an extra dimension to the ‘making friends’ theme. The benefits of Girl Guides activities are strongly emphasised.

Dimsie Goes to School (originally The Senior Prefect) by Dorita Fairlie Bruce, first published 1921, might also be a good one to start with partly because it’s the first in a series (of nine) so if it did take off there would be an immediate natural progression.

Dimsie (a nickname based on her initials) is a remarkably boisterous but charming 10-year-old new girl at boarding school, though actually the joint heroine of the story is her namesake cousin Daphne - the two main strands track the mystery of Dimsie’s parentage and Daphne’s battle with bolshie prefects and one especially bad girl in particular. The key themes are honour and the importance of loyalty to family and again there are lots of staples of the genre (midnight feasts, breaking bounds, importance of games/hockey, etc). The friendships between the girls are really well done. An interesting meta element is that Dimsie is surprised that the school isn’t like the ones in the school stories she has read. As the series progresses she works her way up the school, eventually becomes Head Girl, and even comes back as an old girl - most of the same group of characters grow with her which provides nice continuity for the reader.

There are a few problems. Some language cuts would be needed to avoid offending modern sensibilities, and while the girls stories are really quite good, the boys stories feel much more ancient and creaky - for example, The Fifth Form at St Dominics (1881) by Talbot Baines Reed is the book that, along with Thomas Browne’s Tom Brown's School Days (1857), kickstarted the boys' school genre (PG Wodehouse was a fan) but it's far too wordy and slow for all but the most determined modern reader. Here are three others that I think might work a lot better…

Head of the School (1912) by Harold Avery is a little like Anthony Buckeridge’s Jennings series only set 50 years earlier. The book follows the boarders of Bridgewood School throughout a single year, especially the problems of head boy John Herritson who tries to prevent the possible loss of the school playing fields due to younger boys’ pranks and keep his cousin Gerald on the straight and narrow. There is plenty of humour - one boy appears to have been at the school far longer than the others and keeps harking back to the ‘good old times’ and incidents which nobody else can remember - and various episodes which examine the importance of honour and playing the game (though this is not shoehorned in unnaturally). A key character is Egerton, an outspoken self-appointed leader of the younger boys who is a superb sportsman but a thorn in the side of the sixth form prefects - the book follows his fortunes from hero to zero to hero again. It’s a pacey read with a good ending, and though obviously from a very different time, does not jar - there is some jargon, but it’s atmospheric rather than intrusive. It’s definitely very readable for an adult audience.

Secret Service at Altonbury (1937, though I've only read the abridged 1961 version) by Anton Lind is not as sophisticated as Avery though lots more sport. It's all a bit more Scooby Doo (one of the baddies does actually say 'We would have got away with it if it hadn't been for those confounded kids') though the central mystery about the fate of a very destructive high-tech weapon (which is bashing local houses, pubs and churches for no apparent reason) is quite exciting  It's one in a series of Altonbury School books featuring two friends in particular, Dingy and Pips (who is hilariously loud at school sports matches), but also a regular collection of their friends. Lind is a slightly mysterious author - I can't track down dates for him (last book published 1939). 

Three School Chums (1907) by John Finnemore (1863-1915) is the first in a series of books charting the adventures of Teddy Lester at Slapton School from newcomer to cricket captain (he even gets to bat with the remarkable real life CB Fry). Teddy is William Brown meets a less malign Dennis the Menace, keen to fight his own corner, gets into scrapes (he gets pushed into a lion's cage at a circus…), chirpy verging on cheeky, but is essentially a good boy. This first one is very episodic with lots of sport and a recurring theme of dealing out retribution to school bullies and cowards. I think it's great but the main problem is that the older boys cane the younger ones quite frequently, especially in the first half of the book, and there's one particularly nasty whacking (though this does lead to the bully in question's expulsion). These elements would need to be carefully edited.

Finally, I’ve not read any books by F.A.M Webster who was a major figure in UK athletics in the early 20th century, but his books for younger readers also sound entertaining - he specialised in lost civilisation stories (Toltecs in Brazil, Viking Amazons in Africa, a lost race living inside a volcano, etc).

What do you think?