
Show Notes
An account of our recent holiday in Guernsey - where I was, of course, constantly thinking about the CS and EBD. Kit, not so much.
Transcript available at https://topholepodcast.wordpress.com/2026/06/30/s3e18-to-guernsey/.
You can find Tophole on Facebook or email us at [email protected]. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
More from Tophole!
It's a Hayley week, and we're talking about what makes a headmistress in the Chalet School series.
And we're back! A little later than planned, because it's been quite the summer, but here at last, with a look at a non Chalet book which tackles the structural inequalities of the class system. Well, 'tackles' may be a bit strong...
It's got all the ingredients of a good Chalet School book - but there's something about the way they're combined, that I really don't like! My thoughts will probably crystallize properly in about 6 months' time (that's usually what happens) but here's what I made of Summer Term at the Chalet School to be going on with.
EBD wrote an adventure for boys - and Kit told me (after editing the episode) that it sounds far more brutal than any of the boys' stories he read as a kid. Time for a bit of international espionage as we travel with shipwrecked Hawk Chudleigh to an unnamed island somewhere near New Zealand.
A pivotal summer term book this time, as we look at the Chalet School's final term on St Briavel's - a book which might well have inspired Roald Dahl, given that it could be subtitled "The Chalet School and the Chocolate Factory". Subjects I had to google while researching this episode included how much milk a goat produces, 1950s university entrance requirements, the Allied occupation of Austria, and the actual definition of a step-sister.