The story begins
with Aunt Lucy dropping Charlotte, Midge and Susan off at St. Ronan’s.
Susan is soon introduced to many of the most memorable characters in the series.
First of all, there is her dreamy friend and fellow newcomer, Tessa. Then there
are Charlotte’s fellow prefects, the boisterous but likeable Hippo and the nasty
Hermione Pennington-Smith, known to her many enemies as H. P. Sauce. Susan also
befriends Ann Burton, the girl with a lisp, and Elizabeth Rogers, the budding
actress. However, and unusually, it is on Susan and Tessa that the story mainly
focuses, with Midge in many chapters taking a back seat. Other characters that are
still remembered years later by readers are the teachers: Miss Phillimore, the
imposing head mistress, “Dotty” Johnson, the Latin teacher and the dreaded Miss
Ferrier, a.k.a. the Ferret, the maths mistress.
The story that
follows is one of Jane Shaw’s most humorous and is also interesting because it goes against the grain of the school story genre. The girls do not form a tight bond
with the school. They tend to be underachievers and very little learning takes
place. They go through prep and classes with the minimum possible effort. But Susan
does win her place on the hockey team and is anxious to help provide funds for
the new and badly needed school hall. Not surprisingly, there is a long-lost
treasure supposedly buried on the school grounds that can help achieve this. And
there is the added mystery of dotty Miss Johnson’s mysterious comings and
goings to an old shed.
Unlike other Jane
Shaw stories, this tale thrives on anti-climax. Miss Johnson’s supposed secret
has Susan and Tessa chasing all over the place, but turns out to be an ancient
car that everyone else in the school already knew about. And the most hilarious
is the uncovering of the so-called Ronan’s Heap, the long-lost priceless
treasure. Susan and Tessa are convinced that the location of this collection of
jewels and gold is marked on an old map they find in the school library by the
cryptic message “R. H. Here”. A hilarious scene has the girls unearthing a
collection of broken kettles and other 19th century trinkets. However, not all is lost, as
these items turn out to be worth a few pounds. The story rounds off with a
triumphant Susan helping her team to win a hockey match away from home. Even getting
to the hockey match involves adventure, with Miss Johnson’s ancient car saving
the day, transporting Susan and the team’s equipment to Moreton Grange just in
time.
The book is not
run-of-the-mill Jane Shaw in other ways too. The author gently pokes fun at the
school genre throughout the story by having Tessa compare everything that
happens to her with what she has read in her mother’s old books about boarding
schools (supposedly books penned by the likes of Angela Brazil). Everything that
happens in Tessa’s books is in contrast with the reality of St. Ronan’s. There
is no permanent threat of expulsion, the mistresses have no big secrets and the
prefects do not bully their charges, rather it is the younger pupils who get
the better of them. This story also depends more heavily on slapstick comedy
than any other Jane Shaw story. A lot of humour is derived from Tessa’s slow
intellect, and there are times when this is laid on a little too thickly. A final
point of note is that it is at St. Ronan’s, ironically, that Susan actually
excels at something, i.e. hockey. In all the other stories, her busybody nature
usually does more harm than good, with only the predictable coincidences saving
her at the last minute, but here she actually has a skill that she can proudly
call her own.
Although the
author claimed that she did not enjoy writing school stories, Susan at School
is an excellent, well-plotted piece of work and was a huge success in its day
with many memorable characters. I give it a ten.
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