Cecily Holds the Fort by Josephine M Bettany

The Achensee in Austria where the Chalet School books were first set

Title: Cecily Holds the Fort

Author: Josephine M Bettany

Publisher: Not known

Source book: Jo Returns to the Chalet School by Elinor M Brent-Dyer (Chalet School #12)

Josephine (Joey or Jo) Bettany is the main character of the Chalet School series by Elinor M Brent-Dyer. When her sister Madge decides to open The Chalet School near Innsbruck in the Austrian Tyrol, Jo becomes the first pupil. From a rebellious Junior, to naughty Middle and then (almost) responsible Head Girl, the reader follows Jo’s career through the school. Jo leaves school but accidentally becomes a teacher at the Chalet School the very next term. Luckily she still has time to start writing her first book: Malvina Wins Through (featuring Malvina Featherstone, Flavia Meredith and Rosetta Fernandez. Oh dear). Malvina is consigned to the garden incinerator. Matron does not approve, and she’s right: Malvina is far too goody good and her enemy Rosetta is far too bad, although I like the name.

Jo’s next effort, Cecily Holds the Fort, is accepted by a well-known children’s publisher (I don’t think we ever learn the publisher’s name), and Jo’s career as an author gets off to a flying start. She dedicates her first book to ‘my darling sister Madge’.

Cecily is an ordinary schoolgirl. She and her friends attend St Michael’s High, a day school, and we are told their exploits are those of ordinary schoolgirls, very likely less extreme than those of the Chalet girls who get up to some really improbable antics at times. Cecily is made to dislike science, and she is frequently at war with Miss Travers, the science mistress (obviously based on the Chalet School’s own Miss Wilson), and somehow manages to blow up the science lab. Cecily also makes an enemy of one Sylvia Richardson who starts a whispering campaign against her. Cecily confronts Sylvia, and the quarrel is made up, but not before she’s been through some unpleasant moments.

The dust jacket shows “a jolly schoolgirl bearing aloft a standard”. 

Jo marries Dr Jack Maynard very soon after she leaves school for good, and although she has what seems like dozens of children, she never lets them get in the way of her writing. You can tell she has a lot of childcare.

Let's see if I can remember all Jo's children. Triplets Helena (Len), Constance (Con) and Margaret (Margot) born in Guernsey after Jo and Jack escape from Austria just before WWII; Stephen, Charles, and Michael (singletons, as Jo always says), born near Armiford on the Welsh borders after the family escapes from the Nazi invasion of the Channel Islands; twins Felix and Felicity born in Canada; and lastly Cecil, and twins Philippa and Geoffrey born in Switzerland. And then she adopts Marie-Claire de Mabillon (rescued from a railway accident), Erica Jane Standish (daughter of a friend, Dacia-Denise, who Jo met in India before she was married), and of course Ruey Richardson and her 2 brothers after their father decides to fly to the moon. So that's 16!

I have read all the Chalet School books more than once but I might have overlooked some of Jo's books if not for this handy web page written by a true fan... but there are others which I found on another list (this one includes Lady of the Plantation which I don’t remember at all).

Edited to add: since this post was published in 2020 both these links seem to have broken irretrievably and all the useful information is lost to us, probably forever. That’s very sad.

Without reading every single book myself all over again I cannot offer a definitive list so this is the best I can offer at the moment, although I think all these lists are different. I really need to read all the books again and make my own list.

Patrol Leader Nancy 
Tessa in Tyrol
Gipsy Jocelyn
None So Pretty
Indian Holiday
Nancy Meets a Nazi
The Robins Make Good
Luella Was a Land Girl 
The Lost Staircase
The Secret House
The Fugitive of the Salt Cave
The Leader of the Lost Cause
The Rose Patrol in the Alps
Swords for the King (or Swords for King Charles)
Dora and the Lower Fifth
Audrey Wins the Trick
Buttercups and Daisies
Ruth Goes Camping
Werner of the Alps
King's Soldier-Maid (or A Royalist Soldier-Maid)
Swords Crossed
Mystery at Heron Lake
The Secret of Castle Dancing 
The Golden Staircase (an anthology of less well-known poetry: Jo finds compiling it is a lot of work but feels very honoured to have been asked)

Jo and her friends Frieda, Marie and Simone are also said to have written a cookery book.

*** I could have created a separate page for each of Jo’s books back in 2020 when I first wrote this post but I thought even the most ardent of Chalet School fans might have found that a bit over the top, and the casual reader would no doubt have lost the will to live. Since those links no longer work I need to go back to the Chalet School books to check I have got Jo’s books listed correctly. I will post more of Josephine M Bettany’s books separately as I come across them in my reading. 

Guernsey second site of the Chalet School (images borrowed from the Internet)