Darning free zone

Hello and hope you're having a jolly good day as we move into the fall.
The great thing about the fall is the colour of the leaves changing aided by low glowing sun but there's no getting away from it, it's a little cooler than it was.
That takes me to one of the essentials of my uniform, long over the knee socks to keep my legs nice and warm.

Well, a pair of mine were getting a bit of hole in them and with my paws I can't darn them  so in replacing them I give a hit of thought what they were going to go with and these go with my school skirt as well as my black pinafore dress.
With that I got two pairs of each from Sexy Minx - not all her stuff is suitable for children - but what the heck, she's a great etailer on ebay.
Rather dash don't you think?

Joanne is reading for pleasure

A return to work this week after being poorly but immersed in littleness for the preceding two  prompts this weeks entry.
Reading  for people like me who have difficulty recognizing words and following English grammar is hard going but we are getting somewhere as I actually enjoyed for once reading while unable to work.
A good while back we were talking in chat about favourite stories and Jennifer said she liked the Famous Five series to which my reply was one of once I'd finished paying back some money I spend on a big cd box set, I'd consider getting a set cos although I did read a few when I was officially younger, I'm missing a set.
The stories feature the adventures over their vacations of Julian ,Dick, Anne and George aka Georgina and her dog, Timmy. George lives with her father Quentin, a Scientist, next to Kirrin Island that George 'owns'. In total there are 21 stories the earliest being 1942's Five on a Treasure Island to 1963's Five are together again

That bundle of books is the "classic" edition which retains Eileen A. Soper's original illustrations not to be confused the 2011 significantly altered set and only set me back just under £25 shipped from Amazon that's really quite a bargain.
One bone of contention regarding all of Enid Blyton's books is, over the years some subtle and not so subtle alterations have been made.
While this set isn't too bad from that point of view with no loss of  or major changes in characters, some of those made make no sense such George - the girl who wants to present as a boy - we are told in this edition wears a jersey and jeans however the illustrations clearly show her in shorts (something boys under 14 in the UK did wear during the period these books were written) and further research I did showed this to a fairly recent alteration. Equally a reference to Quentin in Five on a Treasure Island  threatening a spanking to George for being very awkward as well as cheeky is removed (even though it would of been very likely to had been made back then) and yet in Five go off in a  caravan, Nobby the circus boy is still threatened with a whipping and gets it from Tiger Dan his circus step father.
For all cackhanded so-called Political Correctness though I'm enjoying reading these stories and it's interesting she made 'George' the way she did without any implied criticism. A heroine if ever one needed one.

Not unsurprisingly I love school stories especially boarding school ones and one series I've been slowly collecting inspired in part by our motley alg crew's tastes is by Anne Digby and is called Trebizon that runs to 14 stories.
If that sounds terribly Cornish it's meant to be cos it's based on this super school for bright girls next to the beach and being written and published between 1978 and 1994 covering a  period when I was in boarding school (yay!) we are treated to such cultural references such as British Rail, Wimbledon, duplicating machines with their stencils, cassette tape recorders and finally Television!

That is the 1993 first three stories in one hardback book edition as published by Deans.
The stories are centred around Rebecca who joins the school having been at a London Comprehensive following her parents stationing in Saudi Arabia with a common theme being her emerging talent at Tennis although (hurrah!) she does play Hockey too! Of the other major characters we learn about her best friends Tish Anderson and Susan Murdoch and her boyfriend Robbie. We learn about the trails of fitting in when you join a school in the second term after everyone's paired off with friends, about hard choices deciding what to major in and what you may need to drop to keep your schoolwork schedule manageable.

Important text recieved!

No doubt If I ever get around to having a Smartphone this would be the sort of thing I’d see upon getting it out and checking my messages. Just image if it was I was sat next to someone and it came  up in BIG letters!!!

Elizabeth in Joanne?

This post has be coming to me this morning where I'm poorly laying across my Hello Kitty bed attire and new Duvet in my school uniform, so do bear with me.
Off and on, I've made reference to the books I read during my chronological childhood some of which I owned, some borrowed off friends or via the library of the boarding school I attended.
Indeed you may of spotted a few entries here about books by Enid Blyton that come in that category and how I've gotten new copies not least the second but last entry around St Clare's that with this rotten cold I'm reading, something that is a direct echo of my childhood in times when I read books in my dorm or the sick bay.
I recently got though a most interesting addition again an older edition with original illustrations that has taken me back with some startling observations.
With the final three in one volume of St Clare's (Back to St Clare's) was another three in one book.

This was a 1992 edition of first three The Naughtiest Girl stories (Naughtiest girl again, Naughtiest girl is a monitor and Naughtiest girl in the school)

The stories are set in Whyteleafe, a progressive co-ed boarding school that some feel has a striking resemblance to Summerhill school in Suffolk, England.
The main character is Elizabeth who you could say is a very spoilt child used to getting her own way often running with unchallenged ideas so much so she resolves to behave so badly she can't avoid being expelled from the school she never wanted to go to. The secondary character is her best friend, Joan Townsend, who tries to get her to behave which by the time Elizabeth realizes how lonesome she was as a only girl, she gets more onside with the other children and  is less of a problem to the staff.
Here's an earlier cover from one of the separate books:

Now the first think upon quickly skimming the book was I saw my reflection in in how she dressed in the original illustrations, not least the fully pleated skirt, the modern version of which I'm actually wearing. She's around nine or ten years of age so the first thing I am thinking is, *Something* around this age is lodged in me as I'm not a senior. The second  is that smile as she's doing thinks like flirting ink about - it comes to me that around this age I did some similar things with ink and it's her awkwardness is causing this lashing out as oddly enough it did for me.

E.A stood there on the left of this original illustration is the image of that era of my life, meeting together with satchel, sports kit and naturally full uniform.
One interesting aspect of the Whyteleafe school is that the children have meetings where they dole out pocket money (everyone has a certain minimum  because it is pooled and the case for more has to be accepted by the others first) and also they deal with infractions dishing out punishments which the Monitors have the power to as Elizabeth is reminded of when she acted silly.
In practise, in my school head boys and girls also did although it wasn't formally set up - effectively they stepped in and if didn't accept whatever the outcome was, it was reported to the staff.
On one  particular day I did do something really silly like get going calling one girl rotten names and it got a bit out of hand, as does some of Elizabeth's silly things but unlike it being raised at a Meeting I was called to see the Headgirl in private who wanted answers, insisted on an apology to the girl in question and used her hairbrush on me (which was as far as I was concerned better than some poxy letter from the Head to my folks who'd just send me to child welfare person dragging the whole thing out. At least it's all over with in one go.).
Like Elizabeth I got better after that as I learned to fit in better with people, having my rough edges smoothed and even became a year rep, greeting very important people which does help when as now I have to do groan up things.
Having this book has reminded me of the distance I've travelled emotionally, the difficulties I've overcome in the past through learning to be more mature in how I deal with situations. As well, it affirms what Joanne remains deep down - a little girl only just in double digits - and no one least of me should ever forget it.

Jo life: Transitioning from education to employment

To gauge the extent of some of my difficulties  you need to look at why it was the transfer from the world of Education to Work did not happen when one left the former.
As in many countries, here it is a government responsibility through the schools careers service and government departments to assist the process actively working with you access contacts that are about getting interviews, looking at career options to ensure their is in place a plan for you.
When like me you have multiple disabilities  this is more so and can cover things such as assessments of needs and  abilities that can be developed to aid employability but due to a mis-mash between being educated out of district I wasn't seen as their responsibility and I wasn't seen as that of the district our school was in and each believed the other was dealing with it.
It also was the case as not for the first time in my education, my parents were wonderfully detached from taking an active interest in this that in most situations would of resulted in this being chased up.
Thanks to this I spent the best part of eleven months out of school and out of any meaningful assistance in making a start in employment until I got a referral to a employment rehabiliation centre where I spent four months being assessed for the type of work I might be capable of, what barriers there might be and a formal plan produced.
While there, my difficulties with Math and English were noticed and so I was sent for assessment by a specialist who diagnosed I was actually dyslexic with very poor special awareness. This as with most things about me was ignored although I had suggested as much in my last year in school and rejected by my parents as having gotten one set of conditions they couldn't accept another.
There was remedial teaching in math and english offered as a part of my assessment going through basic addition, subtraction, multiplication and division plus spelling, grammar and punctuation. Although I suspect as an institution for school leavers and adults it probably wasn't meant to, like an number of school leavers there, I was smacked across the hand and given a clip around the ear  by the instructors who did treat us more like children which I guess was propably true at least for me cos I was still in a upper tween mindset.
It was the last institution I received any form of corporal punishment at.

Back to St Clares!

Apologies for the brevity of this weeks edition but I'm unwell with seems to be a bad cold but never fear Joanne always comes up with something.You can thank her boarding school for that!
Picking up with the themes of returning to school where I've been trying last week to get to grips with times tables, the little adventure dayout and so on, I decided to take stock of my small book collection.
Actually it came to me last night, there were two reasons why some of the first books I bought at the end of my formal education were more like textbooks, first first being my problems in reading meant something more simplified like a study aid was easier to follow and the other was - wait for it - an early indication that really I wanted my childhood back by having some of the books I had or read at the time with me.
Anyway, I found a few books that I never read much because as good as they are (some won literary awards), they're too far above my reading age meaning I struggle to really follow them so I'm replacing them.
Why replace them rather than just give them away? Simply I realize that reading is something I need to do to improve within my own learning disabilities restrictions, my ability to read, follow and understand stories.
What I decided to do was to get the older two book collections of the original 6 story edition of St Clare's by Enid Blyton because it's a  bit more wordy than some of her other stuff so it gives me a bit of a word workout (I can look up the words in my new Dictionary and learn their meanings) and a school, based adventure story is the kind of thing I love to read (which helps keeping the interest up).
They were issued several years back with new computerized art covers however I feel they just don't look right and also Pamela Cox ghost wrote three new stories for that series that aren't really essential.
These are my 'new to me' editions:

This edition has the first three books in a single  volume namely The Twins at St Clare's, The O'Sullivan Twins and Summer term at St Clare's, written between 1941 through 1943 although many more memorable characters such as Claudine, a mischievious French girl and feather-headed Alison also feature in a world of tricks and jokes, midnight feasts, sports matches, thrilling rescues, fun and friendship as well as hard work, exams and snobbery!

The final volume has Second term at St Clare's, Claudine at St Clare's plus Fifth formers at St Clare's written between 1944 and 1945. I remember the fifth form vividly!
It's a bit odd for missing out completely the third form  but perhaps everyone leapfrogged it?
The school predates Malory Towers and is seen by parents as being  a "very sensible sort of school one  not to pander to children who feel their above everyone else.
The school Headmistress Miss Theobald is a believer  in the idea people get out of life what they put into it, telling her pupils: "Do your best for us and St. Clare's will be able to do its best for you!  Oddly enough that was what my Head teacher said too!
These editions came out in 1993 but with the artwork still looking a bit more in keeping with the period they written and the stories themselves still hold up. Indeed many 9 through 11 year readers today have written glowing reviews as have parents whose children having gone though today's supernatural based stories were given these only to find their offspring can't get enough of them.

It's not all bad, actually

I'm pretty open to people having genuine differences of points of view however one area I find I have big issues with is the almost blanket "you must never spank a child" and it's following "we must make it illegal" and even "must remove all references to it in literature" approach.
Society is less than settled on this issue with many parents taking exception to such approaches although although we'd all agree no child must be permanently harmed through abuse.
I was of the generation whose adults were at cross purposes over this.
For instance my infant and junior schools did smack you and I was smacked in class for refusing to do my math something that I'd say hasn't made me a bad person, most say I'm one of the kindest they've met. My secondary school left it very much up to individual staff and heads of form and some of the verbal rollockings I got affected me much more emotionally in a bad way than the the odd spanking, although those who did the former thought they were more humane.
Some just said they were disappointed in me and then kept reminding me and every class they taught about what I'd done year after year. Frankly I'd rather had gotten it all over and done with with a good spanking with nothing ever said about afterward which ironically what the equivalent of Form Prefect at the school did with me anyway as I could do that or get reported to the staff.
I just feel it ought to be an option.