Luella Was a Land Girl by Josephine M Bettany

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She sells pictures of her sheep. Take a look!

Title: Luella Was a Land Girl

Author: Josephine M Bettany 

Publisher: not known 

Source book: Lavender Laughs at the Chalet School by Elinor M Brent Dyer (Chalet School #17)

In Highland Twins at the Chalet School (Chalet School #16), set in the autumn term, we learn that Jo Maynard, mother of triplets, has 5 gaily jacketed books to her name. She expects a sixth (unnamed) book to appear in the next month, and has plans for a seventh. But the book which she is currently writing, which involves a lot of reading and research, is about the South Sea Bubble of 1720. Now, I don’t remember any other reference to this book in the whole Chalet School series. Which is a pity. It might be rather interesting. I think EBD probably forgot about it. She forgot about a lot of things.

Also in Highland Twins EBD describes Flora and Fauna’s bedroom at Plas Gwyn in minute detail. It must be a very large room because besides the two beds, there are five chairs, a dressing table, two wardrobes, and of course a fireplace. We are told there is a small bookcase too, holding a dozen books of various kinds. I wonder if EBD ever got up off her chair and counted the books on her shelves? My smallest bookcase, and it is quite small, holds over 100 books. Admittedly quite a lot are paperbacks, but even so, quite a lot are chunky old fashioned hardbacks too. And this is just one of Jo’s spare rooms!

In Lavender Laughs at the Chalet School, which takes place in the following spring term, Jo says she sent off the manuscript of Luella Was a Land Girl just before Christmas. Elinor Brent Dyer was unusual in that she included many details about WWII in her Chalet School stories. Other children’s authors writing at the same time often ignored the war completely. So, it’s nice to see Elinor’s fictional author character, Josephine M Bettany, following her lead. It looks as though Luella is a stand alone character and her book might not have lasting success after the war is over, except as a social document. And I don’t think any people in Chalet School land are shown reading Luella in later books. 

It’s interesting that Jo writes about Luella working on the land (which must have been terribly hard work, long hours and probably very isolating), but apart from the endless knitting of grey scarves, the major characters in Chalet School land are not shown signing up for war work. Or getting called up either. There doesn’t seem to be any question of them working in factories or joining the ATS like Princess Elizabeth (later QEII) did. They just carry on having yet another baby, and acting as hostess to an endless series of visitors who have been bombed out, or can’t follow their husbands to a restricted area. Madge doesn’t even join the WVS.

Two new girls, Jessane and Lois, are characters in The Lost Staircase by Elinor M Brent Dyer. When they become pupils at the Chalet School they recount their adventures to Jo, in the hope that she might turn their adventures into a book. Jo tells us she will be busy until after Easter (that’s Chalet School code for she’s going to have a baby), and in due course the adventure becomes The Lost Staircase by Josephine M Bettany, also, I imagine, featuring Jessane and Lois. Jo is still writing it in Jo to the Rescue (#19).

Some of Jo’s books are offered as prizes for a bagatelle competition at a tea party for new girls, and they include The Robins Make Good, which has never been mentioned before, but it looks as though it’s another Guide story; Gipsy Jocelyn, which was Jo’s fourth book; and Indian Holiday* which was inspired by a trip to India that Jo took not long before the war. Lavender, also a new girl this term, badly wanted to win a book but the prizes went to Jessane and Gillian.

After an incident with a snow drift, when Lavender is confined to bed for a few days, she has the opportunity to read Gipsy Jocelyn in which Jocelyn Wyatt has exciting adventures on her caravan holiday (somehow I always imagine an old fashioned horse drawn caravan, although I don’t think we are ever told), and begins Nancy Meets a Nazi, although it’s a sort of sequel to Patrol-Leader Nancy that Lavender has never read, it includes some of Jo’s own adventures when she had to escape from the Nazis in Austria, and Lavender really enjoys it. It’s so satisfying to read a book written by someone you actually know (I have a friend who is a very successful author), but I expect Lavender is used to this: for lots more information about Lavender and the books her Auntie Sylvia writes, see this separate post.

*The story goes that EBD wrote a book about Jo visiting India and staying with her brother Dick and sister-in-law Mollie, but the manuscript was mysteriously lost. Perhaps EBD had Jo write Indian Holiday because of this. But there is a ‘fill in’ book available: Two Chalet School Girls in India by Priyadarshini Narendra if you are interested to see what might have happened in Indian Holiday.