Looking After Thomas

Quote of the Day

They were all perfectly well behaved except that madcap Sambo. He was off and up over a little hillock before you could say knife. We thought Dotty had lost him forever. But of course we had armed ourselves with a spare bit of chocolate left over from yesterday. Dotty put down such a huge lump that even Sambo couldn't resist it. He came over a hummock, his nose twitching with delight, and ate himself practically into a stupor. He was no trouble, Dotty said, on the way home.

From A GIRL WITH IDEAS, Chapter 4, King Arthur Lived Here.

The Attack

From Susan's Trying Term. Susan attacks Gabrielle because of one of her dirty tricks. Like many of the illustrations in the Susan stories, there is a goof in this one. On the front cover, when Gabrielle arrives at St. Ronan's, she has very short hair, but after only a few weeks her ponytail has grown back!

Quote of the Day

Gabrielle wasn't much interested in smugglers when she heard about the night's activities the next morning; anything in which she wasn't directly concerned had very little interest for her. But because the Bird-watcher had obviously taken a fancy to Charlotte, she said maliciously, "I don't know whether he's a smuggler or not, but the Bird-watcher is certainly bogus."

From SUSAN MUDDLES THROUGH, Chapter 6, Investigating Cap'n Dan.

Susan's Trying Term

This is a huge scan of the cover of Susan's Trying Term (1961). The spine shows the unlikely scene of Susan wiping a painting with a turpentine-soaked rag and discovering a long lost masterpiece underneath, while the front cover shows a rare comment on the changing fashions of the day. Susan and her friends retain their "sensible" girlish 1950s hairdos, but Gabrielle has lost her much maligned ponytail and cut her hair short, which meets with the disapproval of the other characters. In her previous stories, Jane Shaw had, through her characters, complained a great deal about girls and women wearing trousers, especially Selina and Gabrielle Gascoigne, and (for reasons best known to herself) girls with ponytails. In 1962 she relented on this latter point when one of her best-loved characters, Ricky from Crooks Tour, was given a ponytail. All this may seem a bit strange today, but when I was a child it was strictly forbidden for girls to wear trousers at school. I remember in the late 1970s a girl in my class coming to school in trousers and her mother insisting that it was too cold for her to wear a skirt. The teacher finally agreed to the trousers as long as she wore a skirt on top of them! Even into the 1980s this ban continued. I recall how a girl at a school near mine incurred the wrath of a traditional female examiner when she turned up for her Higher English test in jeans and was "banned for life" from Scottish Certificate of Education exams as a result. However, I'm sure such a ban could never be enforced. But that was what it was like back then.

Quote of the Day

By this time they had circled round Tugela Road, along Congo Road, and were about to come down Orange Road to Nile Road. A very ragged native boy leading a pony was leaving the road to go across the koppie when Susan rushed at him, barking loudly.

"Susan! Bad dog! Come here!" called Belinda.

Mike rushed up and seized Susan's collar. "It's all right," he assured the native boy, between barks, restraining Susan with difficulty, "she - isn't - savage - really - she only - looks - savage!"

From VENTURE TO SOUTH AFRICA, Chapter 8, Enter Stella. Susan, of course, is not Susan Lyle, but the Eliots' Airedale. Both Susans were created around the same time, in the early 1950s. Although only published in 1960, Venture to South Africa was actually written soon after Jane Shaw and her family moved to Johannesburg in 1952. Lutterworth bought it in 1953 but never published it. Her editor at Nelson Publishers purchased the manuscript in the late 1950s and made sure that it was put into book form. 

Something Happened After All: Jane Shaw in the 1960s

This is the cover of Nothing Happened After All, the second of the Dizzy and Alison books, published by Collins in 1965. Jane Shaw's heyday was certainly the 1950s in terms of sales. But she was just as prolific, if less successful, in the 1960s. We often talk of her winding down her career in the sixties, but when you add it up, she produced an admirable number of books during her last decade as an author. The Moochers and Penny series had drawn to a close, but the Susan series continued, albeit with less frequent publications and fewer sales. The sixties also brought the two Northmead books, Crooks Tour, Brer Rabbit, Left-Handed Tumfy and the Dizzy and Alison stories. There were also the two Spitfire paperbacks under the pen name of Jean Bell. Despite all these publications, her sales diminished as the years passed and her publishers do not seem to have gone out of their way to advertise her stories. Another factor that helped to keep her out of the limelight is that she stopped publishing short stories in the Collins annuals after 1963. My favourite story of hers was her last, A Job for Susan, published in 1969. It is admirable that the quality of her writing never diminished over the thirty years that she was a published author. There were minor hiccups like The Crew of the Belinda, and even a couple of dodgy short stories like The Onion Man, but in a general sense the quality of her writing was very high.

Quote of the Day

A pretty woman, chattering Italian with an English accent, accompanied by a young girl and a small boy, all chattering, asked, "Where is Susan Lyle?" The small boy was fidgeting with pens and register on the desk all the time that they chattered and finally knocked over a bottle of ink, so the reception clerk had the greatest pleasure in telling the whole chattering crew that no one of that name was staying in the hotel.

From WHERE IS SUSAN?, Prologue. The crooked desk clerk throws the Gascoignes out of the Hotel Soldati.

Susan and the Spae-Wife colour illustration

Quote of the Day

But for this night only, as Madame said when they sat down to dinner, they would speak English, although from to-morrow she dared them to let her hear a word of it, for how furious their dear parents would be if they returned to Scotland with their French no better than when they came!

From BRETON ADVENTURE, Chapter 1, They Arrive. Poor Madame at this point does not know that no matter how long they spend in France or Switzerland, none of Jane Shaw's characters would ever become fluent in French. Only Charlotte Carmichael, who went to study art in Perugia, would learn a foreign language, being forced to gain a little fluency in Italian.

Susan and the Spae-Wife

The heading and first illustration from the last of the Susan short stories, Susan and the Spae-Wife, published in the Collins Annual in  1960. This story is set on Arran just after Susan Muddles Through, following the departure of the Gascoignes after their two-week sojourn on the island. But if Susan is hoping for peace and quiet after the Ghastly family have left, she is in for a shock. The post office is held up and the fair is to be visited by the famous writer, Mr. Rock Carlisle. For further information about this short story, click here. Click on the picture for a much larger view.

Quote of the Day

The school reports really started it all: Susan's and Midge's were uniformly poor, but in French they both reached new depths. Aunt Lucy read them with gloom. "'Midge is lazy and inattentive...' really, Midge!"

"Susan's is worse." Midge produced the diversion hopefully.

"It worked. Aunt Lucy turned to Susan's report.

"'Susan is apparently too occupied with other things to bother about French. A very bad term's work,'" Aunt Lucy read out.

"Sarcastic old pig," said Susan. "Just because I had to do my maths prep during French once or twice-"

From SUSAN'S KIND HEART, Chapter 1, Haunted Château. I often wonder why Susan and Midge's parents spent so much money on private school fees for them, when they obviously learn next to nothing, and then "punish" them by sending them to France for the summer!

The Wilsons Won't Mind

In the first of the Susan short stories, The Wilsons Won't Mind, set between Susan Pulls the Strings and Susan at School, Charlotte's latest craze is cooking. Unfortunately, her artistic skills do not extend to the kitchen and the result of her cooking is an inedible disaster. The Wilsons Won't Mind is the only one of the fifteen Susan stories not to include the main character's name. It was first published in 1955 in the Collins Girls' Annual. It was republished in Collins The Treasure Book for Girls in 1958 and another collection in 1982 called Ballet Stories. Its final appearance was in Susan and Friends in 2002. The story has all the hallmarks of a Susan story, but is pretty run of the mill. Susan's School Play and Susan and the Spae-wife are better in my opinion.

Quote of the Day

However, it was a nice, mild June evening, the girls were in no particular hurry to reach home as they would immediately be forced by their mothers to do a lot of boring home-work when they got there, so they strolled on to the next bus-stop. Fay, of course, was right; they were mid-way between stops when the bus sailed past, and the argument started again at the next stop.

From Crooks Limited, the 1962 short story featuring Ricky, Julie and Fay, of Crooks Tour fame. 

Fourpenny Fair illustration

A picture from Fourpenny Fair. Penny and Sid put up a sign at the fair advertising the orphans' play.

Quote of the Day

Penny became even more gloomy. Honestly, she thought, life was too awful. Here she was, happily spending the Easter Holidays with Laura and John, doing nobody any harm, when suddenly this ghastly Talents Contest loomed up. Talents! What talents had she, she would like to know? Everybody knew that she was absolutely hopeless at everything - not like Jill, who was jolly good at everything, though a year younger. "I don't know what I'll do," she said. "I haven't any talents-"

"Well, we all know that, bird-brain," said Jill, "but I expect we'll be able to think of something that even you can do."

From FOURPENNY FAIR, Chapter 1, Fourpenny Fund. Penny has a trying time with Jill's insults.

Willow Green Mystery illustration

An illustration from The Chink in the Curtain, Chapter 4 of Willow Green Mystery. Thomas suspects that the house is occupied by "sinister Russians".

Quote of the Day

"Where shall I begin?" I said.

"Begin at the beginning," said my sister Clarissa, who can be rather nippy at times.

"But what is the beginning?" asked Tish. "Is it when we found the boy lying dead in the ditch?"

"Only he wasn't dead," muttered Thomas. (This seemed to be a disappointment that he wasn't going to forget in a hurry).

From WILLOW GREEN MYSTERY, Chapter 1, Boy in the Ditch.

The Blot

This is a "cleaned up" version of an illustration from Northmead Nuisance. The ugly prefabricated building on the school premises is known to the girls as The Blot. It is destroyed during a storm. Northmead Nuisance is the second and last of the Northmead books and was published by Thomas Nelson & Sons in 1963.

Quote of the Day

The Moochers, having finished their packing, had permission to go down and say good-bye to the Pengellys, or to Mrs. Pengelly, rather, for they would see Mr. Pengelly later when he helped to convey bus-loads of Pendragons to the station. Mrs. Pengelly, true to form, had made them each a saffron cake to take home for Christmas.

"That's a real Cornish cake, a 'zaaffern caake'," she said. "I promised Jan I'd make you a Cornish cake. We'll miss you popping in, but you'll soon be back. Do you remember the first time you came - you didn't like Pendragon much then, did you?"

"Oh, we were potty," said Fiona.

From THE MOOCHERS, Chapter 11, The House Shield.

Grey Suit

A scene from Show-Down, Chapter 14 of Anything Can Happen. Alison returns to the hotel to find the evil Grey Suit ransacking her room and brandishing a gun. But Pierre and Monsieur Chanel are right behind her to make sure that he is arrested once and for all.

Quote of the Day

The hotel-keeper, a jolly little round man, wearing braces embroidered with edelweiss, gave them a tremendous welcome. He talked very fast, inaccurate English, and told them of the many amenities Rosenberg had to offer - the river and the small lake and mountains, so many, so high mountains, why, look there, face to face with them was the mountain called the Eiger, that terrible north wall of the Eiger which for many years no one had climbed, he had a book of cut-outs from the newspapers telling of the many times that men had not climbed it.

From CROOKS TOUR, Chapter 3, Crook in the Hotel.

Susan Interferes

The huge scan of the Children's Press laminated board edition of Susan Interferes with spine, circa 1965.

Quote of the Day

Apparently the cold weather had decided to reform, because when they woke on Easter Day, the sun was shining madly and the birds were singing madly too, and there were boiled eggs for breakfast, gaily-coloured, pink and green and yellow. There were other eggs too, Easter eggs - big chocolate ones from Dr. Carmichael, with chocolates inside; and cardboard ones decorated wth rabbits and lambs and yellow chickens with presents inside from Aunt Lucy, and the little presents that they had given each other.

From SUSAN'S HELPING HAND, Chapter 6, Susan is Inquisitive.

Northmead Nuisance

The frontispiece of Northmead Nuisance. The normally taciturn A. J. Wotherspoon confronts Gail about her selfishness.

Quote of the Day

Here was a fix. They couldn't take an infectious Deborah across Europe, giving her germs to every child they met; Frau Walther at the Gasthof Alpenrose hadn't a corner to offer them. But when the Gräfin heard, she laughed. "Everybody will pack up and come to us," she said. "It is very appropriate that you should be our firsts guests at the Schloss Adlerhorst, new style!"

From FIVEPENNY MYSTERY, Chapter 13, Rescue.

Laminated Boards

Last week I received an e-mail inquiring about the different editions of the Susan books and whether the Children's Press editions had illustrations and dust jackets. I never really used to give much thought to the editions. As I live in Brazil, there's no way I can go around charity shops and second-hand book stores to compare editions, etc. When I started collecting Jane Shaw, I was happy just to get my hands on the books and read the stories. But after a while I began to take an interest in the editions. The original Collins books were often lavishly illustrated and even had colour frontispieces. The original Children's Press books from the late 1950s had dust jackets but were often bereft of illustrations. My copy of Susan's Helping Hand, for instance, has a DJ but no internal pictures. My Seagull Library edition of Susan at School has the illustrations and DJ, but no frontispiece. The same goes for Susan Muddles Through. From Susan's Trying Term onwards, all my books are original Collins editions and I don't imagine they were issued in any other format. However, in the mid to late 1960s, several of Jane Shaw's books were issued in cheaper hardbacks with laminated boards. They had no internal illustrations, but the covers are very colourful and lively. I have Susan Rushes In in this edition and also Crooks Tour. The Jane Shaw books issued in this format are:

Susan Pulls the Strings
Susan's Helping Hand
Susan Rushes In
Susan Interferes
Crooks Tour

All of Jane Shaw's books published by Nelson (Penny, Thomas, Dizzy and Alison) were never issued in cheaper editions. Collins, obviously set on getting as much mileage as possible on the stories, also considered putting out the early Susan stories in Armada paperbacks in the 1970s, but for reasons unknown this idea was shelved.

The Mysterious R. H.

In Susan at School, Susan and Tessa come across an old map in the library. It is a map of St. Ronan's from long ago and on the map a cryptic message has been scrawled: R. H. Here. The girls decide that it is the hiding place of the legendary treasure known as Ronan's Heap, hidden from the messengers of King Henry who went about the country dissolving the monasteries and plundering their treasures. The hunt for the treasure culminates in a hilarious scene in which the girls dig up rusty old kettles and pap boats. However, a couple of questions are left unanswered. First of all, who wrote the mysterious message and why didn't he go and dig the "treasure" up himself? Susan and Tessa do indeed give some thought to this, with Susan reaching the conclusion that the unhappy treasure hunter of yesteryear died, possibly of old age, before he had a chance to get his hands on the gold and jewels. After feeling sorry for this person, the girls give him no further thought and concentrate on digging. But who wrote the message in the first place? I imagine a former pupil on a rainy afternoon puttering about in the library and doing it for a joke, maybe smiling at the idea of a future pupil taking it seriously. And did Ronan's Heap really exist to begin with? In Jane Shaw's world, it would be safe to imagine that it did, and that Susan was meant to find it in a later story. The author undertook to write four or five books set at St. Ronan's, although only two ever materialized, and I can imagine the treasure being found. In The Moochers, Fiona and Katherine found the famed Pendragon Hoard, so there would be a good chance of Susan uncovering Ronan's Heap in her blundering way.

Quote of the Day

"Oh goodness, I shouldn't think so," said Aunt Lucy distractedly, "I promised to make ten pounds! Here, have a look at the leaflet, it tells you all about the fête." As if she was going to make the sweets that minute, she stuffed her last piece of toast in her mouth and got up. "Oh, and don't forget to tell the Gascoignes about the fête - they might like to come and I told Mrs. Mountford-Jones that I'd bring as many people as I could--"

There were rebellious mutterings and angry murmurs from the family. They couldn't even enjoy a fête without these Gascoignes, it seemed.

From SUSAN RUSHES IN, Chapter 5, Buried Treasure.

Anything Can Happen illustration

A scene from Chapter 11 of Anything Can Happen, Madame Bertholet Regrets... Dizzy and Alison enjoy a surprisingly friendly chat with the concierge at Madame Bertholet's block of flats.

Quote of the Day

Well, of course, everything now was absolutely clear. Really, this bracelet was creating quite a disturbance. Fancy old Grey Suit padding up and down the Rue de Rivoli for - how many days was it? - on the off-chance of seeing us again! Which of course he had, often. It wasn't so surprising, really, when you think how we haunted that street. I blushed to myself for having the conceit to think that Grey Suit was following us for our irresistible beauty, so I quickly said, "Oh, Monsieur, but of course. Of course we'll bring back the bracelet. As a matter of fact, we saw your---"

"We'll bring it tomorrow," Dizzy interrupted firmly.

From ANYTHING CAN HAPPEN, Chapter 9, Up Among the Gargoyles.

Where is Susan?

Susan at School (Review)

Susan at School, published by Collins in 1958, is the fifth book in Jane Shaw’s Susan series, although chronologically it is the second. The story backtracks to early January just after the events of Susan Pulls the Strings and The Wilsons Won’t Mind to chronicle Susan’s first term at St. Ronan’s.

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.

Jane Shaw Encyclopedia: Mrs. Carmichael

Mrs. Carmichael is the deceased mother of Charlotte, Midge and Bill Carmichael, wife of Dr. Charles Carmichael and sister-in-law of Margot Lyle and Lucy Carmichael. She is only referred to in the stories as having passed away when Bill, her youngest child, was very young. Very little information is provided about her. She studied at St. Ronan’s and was in St. George’s House. She probably studied with Lucy and Margot and it is likely that they introduced her to her future husband during visits to their home during the school holidays. All the children appear to have come to terms with her passing and the hole that she left in their lives is partially filled by Aunt Lucy. It is likely that the author decided that the Carmichael children would have no mother to enable their household to be run by an “eccentric” Aunt Lucy, as Lucy’s behavior in Susan Pulls the Strings would be more acceptable coming from an aunt than a mother. However, the concept of an eccentric Aunt Lucy soon fell away and she became a more “sensible” maternal figure, and in the subsequent books the absence of the children’s birth mother was always quickly explained away in the opening pages. The cause of Mrs. Carmichael’s death is not given, nor is her first name, although it was possibly Margaret.

Quote of the Day

Susan too found it very disappointing; so far as she could judge, Tessa's tales were all a lot of rot, boarding-school was just as bad as day-school had been - boring to a degree - hours and hours, days and days, weeks and weeks passed without anything exciting happening at all; instead of mistresses with sinister secrets there was nothing but boring old lessons and prep; instead of prefects persecuting girls and making their lives a misery the boot was on the other foot, as she heard that afternoon when Diana came in and, with a gusty sigh, flung herself as usual into the one armchair.

From SUSAN AT SCHOOL, Chapter 5, Miss Johnson's Secret.

Crooks Tour Retro Press

The Retro Press cover of Crooks Tour. The spine shows a scene from Chapter 2, Crook in the Station, where Julie, Ricky and Fay collar the young man rushing through the train station at Basle. Thanks to Jan Johnson for this nice scan.

Quote of the Day

Susan didn't want to be a dog-in-the-manger, but really it was asking more than flesh and blood could stand to stay and watch Tessa playing in B game, and she certianly wasn't going back among the rabbits in G game, she was tired of scoring goals. Nobody would miss her, she thought, mournfully, feeling feeling sorry for herself; she would go for a long walk to Maidstone perhaps, or to Tunbridge Wells.

From SUSAN AT SCHOOL, Chapter 3, Tessa is Promoted.

Bernese Adventure (Retro Press)

In 2008, as part of their Retro Press series, Robert Fredrick Ltd. published Bernese Adventure and Crooks Tour in the United States. Why only these titles were selected is not clear. The covers are very nice laminated boards and the texts are unabridged. Thanks to Jan Johnson for the idea for this post.

Quote of the Day

Eventually she stood on a chair, and with a lot of puffing and blowing and straining she managed to heave her suitcase and hook it on to the front of the wardrobe. She had just got down and pushed the chair away when suddenly to her horror the whole contraption, wardrobe, suitcase, dresses, the lot, swayed slowly forward and crashed to the floor.

From FIVEPENNY MYSTERY, Chapter 2, What Happened in Athens.

Crooks Tour (Children's Press)

The 1969 edition of Crooks Tour, published by the Children's Press. A drawing very similar to the  original drawing from 1962 is used, but the girls have had their clothes and hair modernized.

Quote of the Day

They all bustled about getting more stuff to burn, and then at last Cousin Barbara thought the potatoes would be ready. She poked them out of the fire with a long stick. "Oh, just a minute, Susie!" she cried. "They're burning hot, let them cool a little!"

"But it's half the fun, surely," said Charlotte, "to get your fingers burnt---" and she seized the charred object, which didn't look as if there was an edible bite in it, and broke it in two and began to eat the delicious, flurry inside. Cousin Barbara came in for much praise for her excellent timing, the potatoes were cooked to perfection.

From SUSAN'S HELPING HAND, Chapter 7, Bonfire.

SKH on Goodreads

This week is carnival week in Brazil and we had a big holiday. I used some of my time to apply for librarian status on Goodreads and it was granted. There wasn't all that much about Jane Shaw on the site beyond the Susan books and one or two other titles, so I set to and added all the Penny books, Venture to South Africa, the Dizzy and Alison stories and a lot of reviews and comments. The works. So now Jane Shaw's page on Goodreads has been beefed up. I wrote a new review for Susan's Kind Heart as well:

When Aunt Lucy receives Susan and Midge's dreadful report cards and sees that their French marks have dropped to an all-time low, she decides to "punish" them by sending them off to Brittany for the summer. The traditional Jane Shaw mixt of adventure, hearty meals, smuggling, ghosts and treasure keep the girls busy throughout their time in St. Close on the coast of Brittany. And of course, they don't learn much French. St. Clos is a thinly disguised Binic, Jane Shaw's beloved haven in Brittany, which had already been the setting for Breton Adventure (1939), The Moochers Abroad (1951) and Twopence Coloured (1954). As all the author's other heroines had visited Binic, in 1965 it was time for Susan to venture to the sands across the sea. Like all of Jane Shaw's books, this one is tightly plotted and entertaining. Susan's Kind Heart is the 9th book in a series of eleven, all of which were of very high quality. This book is a must for all Jane Shaw enthusiasts.

http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/534885599

http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/305257.Jane_Shaw

Threepenny Bit frontispiece

A nice cleaned up scan of the frontispiece to Threepenny Bit, showing the shop opened by the le Rouxs.

Quote of the Day

"Och, I'm not going to spend your old five pounds," said Susan, "but we could get five pounds' worth of pennies and go through them quietly at home for the important dates--" Tessa supposed there could be no harm in that, "--and if we had no luck we could take them back and change them for another lot--"

"Give ourselves hours of harmless fun," said Midge sardonically, but as she usually found that it saved  trouble in the long run to give in to Susan's dotty ideas, she didn't object, and the girls and Bill made their way to the bank.

From A JOB FOR SUSAN, Chapter 9, Easy Money.

Venture to South Africa

A very high resolution (200 dpi) scan of the frontispiece of Venture to South Africa. The illustration is of a scene in Chapter 12, Big Game. Ten miles from Skukuza, they come across giraffes, which Belinda claims she wanted to see more than anything, even the lions. By the way, there is no grammatical error in the subtitle. The children discover that people out in the big game parks do not talk about "a lion" or "lions"; instead, they call them simply "lion". The same goes for the other animals, so when you're out in the big game camps, it's correct to say "I saw giraffe".

Quote of the Day

Lilias was often deeply impressed by Pip's knowledge of practical matters; but she scarcely ever let her suspect it. Indeed, when she was cross with her, she often managed to convey the impression that the things Pips knew weren't worth knowing.

From THE CREW OF THE BELINDA, Chapter 4, Belinda. 

New House at Northmead (frontispiece)

A nice cleaned up scan of the frontispiece to New House at Northmead.  Newly arrived from Africa, where she was used to having servants chasing after her, Lynette is having trouble adapting to the English way of life.

Quote of the Day

The next half hour was very confusing for Susan and very nasty, a muddle of strange stairs and strange corridors leading to strange dormitories while crowds of strange faces loomed at her, grinning, and disappeared again, rather like the faces in the kind of dream you had when you had a high temperature or had eaten too much supper, she thought.

From SUSAN AT SCHOOL, Chapter 1, New Girls.

Buried Treasures 11

The frontispiece of The Moochers Abroad (1951), showing Binic Harbour and the lighthouse at the end of the Jetée de Penthièvre.

Quote of the Day

At that moment we heard quick footsteps echoing in another part of the villa, and a door at the far end of the gallery opened and a man, tall, dark-haired and long-nosed strode in and stopped abruptly at the sight of us. He was the most tall, handsome, saturnine and thrilling creature that I had ever seen in my life, but obviously, alas, I wasn't having the same startling effect on him, because he was staring at me with such a look of malevolence and cold fury that I took a nervous step backwards - of course on to James' toe but I had more on my mind than worrying about him.

The Renaissance prince - for that's what he looked like in spite of the superb Italian men's suiting - spat something at me in Italian. My jaw dropped even lower. I tried to take another step backwards only I couldn't because James was in the way.

From the unfinished manuscript THE MAN AT THE VILLA CARLOTTA. This manuscript is undated but was probably written in the early 1960s because of all the references to art and the fact that the heroine, Flora Hamilton, is older than Jane Shaw's previous heroines. Flora is going to work as a governess in Italy and is travelling on her own. She also has two possible love interests by the end of the first chapter, which would certainly not be the case in any story penned in the 1950s. It is a very promising story, but not without the usual flare for the ridiculous. An Italian woman that Flora befriends, a certain Signora Pacitti, is convinced that she has a genuine Bellini painting hanging on her wall. However, despite the fact that the painting has been featured in an English newspaper, the Signora is convinced that no one will ever try to steal it, even though other thefts in the neighbourhood having occurred recently. It's a real pity that this story was never finished because the characters and premise are very interesting.

Jetée de Penthièvre

The Tackle

An illustration from The Prowler, Chapter 9 of Threepenny Bit. Piet and Marietjie mistake each other for burglars and Piet tackles his sister and knocks her down the stairs.

Quote of the Day

"Oops - here it is!" Tessa passed the thing up to Susan.

"But - but," said Susan, examining it, "this looks like a kettle! A kettle with a hole in it!" That was rather an odd thing to find in Ronan's Heap, surely? She hadn't thought of there having been kettles in Henry the Eighth's time, it just showed how ignorant she was - all this fnding of treasure would be good for her history.

"Here comes a jug," said Tessa, passing up a tall, narrow-necked jug, with a lip and a handle, "and here's... something... else." She dragged at the object and handed it to Susan, another small round pot with a broken handle.

But that last effort was too much for the sides of their excavation. With their support dug away and nothing to hold them up, the walls of earth fell in, almost covering Tessa.

From SUSAN AT SCHOOL, Chapter 10, Ronan's Heap.

Places in Jane Shaw: Binic Harbour

Binic Harbour at low tide. This harbour will be a familiar sight to Jane Shaw readers because it features on the cover of Breton Adventure and is the frontispiece of The Moochers Abroad. The southern quay is called the Quai de Pordic. The northern one, with the lighthouse at the end, is the Jetée de Penthièvre.

Quote of the Day

"And he'd clap us in irons and batten us to the hatches and keelhaul us, and make us splice the mainbrace," said Belinda, getting a bit mixed up. The children had caught glimpses of the Captain as he made his round of the cabins each morning and found him a grim and terrifying man.

From Venture to South Africa, Chapter 3, Cheering up Jennifer.

Fula fiskar, Fifi!

A better scan of the cover of the Swedish edition of Susan Muddles Through than the one I posted some time ago.  This illustration is a depiction of a scene from Chapter 13, Stowaways by Mistake, with Pea-green, Bill, Susan and Midge watching the crooks. At first they think they are smugglers, but it turns out to be a Cold War defection that they have stumbled on.

Quote of the Day

Everybody says that the chairman of the governors, a benevolent old boy called Lord Dulwich, who had a daughter at the school away back in the dark ages, would give us a hall right away but that he is restrained by the clerk to the governors who is a very disagreeable lawyer called Pennington-Smith and who says that the school can't afford any extras like building a hall. We know he's disagreeable not only because of not letting us have a hall, but also because his daughter Hermione is a prefect in our house and she's ghastly.

From SUSAN'S SCHOOL PLAY, a short story written in the first person by Midge. This is the first story based at St. Ronan's and, consequently, the first mention of Hermione Pennington-Smith. She has not yet been given the nickname of H. P. Sauce, but it is already clear that she and Susan and Midge will never get on.

Escape from the Manoir de la Falaise

An illustration from Rescue, Chapter 14 of Twopence Coloured. Louise makes her dramatic escape from the Manoir de la Falaise and the evil Black Maria.

Quote of the Day

Actually, they all came rushing out of the little log hut. When they saw Dizzy and Clare standing there, with guns in their hands, they looked a little taken aback, to say the least of it.

"Where did you get those guns?" Rod demanded.

Dizzy gestured rather helplessly towards Rupert and the pony. "In the saddle-bags," she said. "All covered in mealie-meal."

From NOTHING HAPPENED AFTER ALL, Chapter 12, Mealie-Meal.

Places in Jane Shaw: Arran

Aerial view of the west coat of Arran, the setting for Highland Holiday. Note the Drumadoon and the golf course. Click on the picture for a much larger view.

Quote of the Day

As it happened, they were both sheltered from the rain and at the same time quite hidden from the big door leading into the street. The rain was coming down, like slate pencils said Fay, but the girls were nicely sheltered in their doorway, and Julie was feeling  much better now that the rain was not going down her neck any longer.

From CROOKS TOUR, Chapter 13, Crook in the Rain.

Adventures of a Snowman

Quote of the Day

Next morning we went into the village to buy our lanterns for the celebration of the Swiss National Day. The lanterns were nice, like round paper balls with a candle at the bottom and with sticks with which to carry them. They were all different colours, but the ones we liked best were the striped ones and the red ones with the white cross of Switzerland on them. They were rather expensive, we thought, so we only bought one each.

From THE TALL MAN, Chapter 8, The First of August.

Binic at Low Tide

A recurring theme in the books set in Brittany is that it is impossible to go bathing at low tide because the sea simply disappears. In Breton Adventure, Sara decides to test whether this is actually the case, as she finds it a little hard to believe. In Chapter 2, They Meet Artichokes, Ajax - and Raymond, it is stated that:

"Sara, who liked to prove things for herself, declared that they ought to put this to the test: Caroline thought it was probably a waste of time, but wanted a bathe anyway, so they put on their bathing dresses at the grève, although the sea was not actually in sight. They walked hopefully over wet sand for what seemed about a mile, and less hopefully over sand and sea-weed for another: they did finally reach the sea, all right, but as it obstinately refused to  become any deeper than knee-high, they gave up in disgust, before they reached home and mother, Caroline said. And Sara thereafter was more ready to believe that when Madame said there was no bathing, there was no bathing."

However, at low tide, the Roches de Saint Quay islands appear, allowing the characters to go on la pêche, or shrimping.

Quote of the Day

The journey to the art room was not nearly so spooky as she had imagined, and she was half-way along the covered way that led to the classrooms when suddenly, over to her left, a strange and brilliant flash illuminated for a second the ancient cloisters that were part of the original old house of Northmead.

From NEW HOUSE AT NORTHMEAD, Chapter 7, Danger! Girls at Work.

Places in Jane Shaw: Mont Saint-Michel

Today's quote is from Chapter 13 of Breton Adventure, describing Madame and the girls' arrival at Mont Saint-Michel off the Normandy coast. Madame signs up for a guided tour, during which Caroline "drinks in every word". But Sara is bored, and manages to slip away from the tour guide at the impressive Crypte des Gros Piliers. 

Quote of the Day

They left the car, and passed through the Porte de L'Avancée, the only opening in the ramparts, and Madame rather proudly pointed out to the girls the two cannon which the English had abandoned when they had unsuccessfully besieged the Mont St. Michel in the fifteenth century. Caroline was frankly incredulous that the English had besieged any French stronghold without success, but she had no time to argue, for they went through two other ancient picturesque gateways, and the sight of the one street, a narrow lane with gabled and overhanging houses climbing up at its farther end by slippery and cobbled steps to the Abbey, was greeted with a chorus of Ohs and Ahs of appreciation.

From BRETON ADVENTURE, Chapter 13, Sara Does Some Rescue Work.

Twopence Coloured

Drumadoon Point (2)

The Drumadoon, where Sara wrote her play in Highland Holiday, on a more typically Scottish day than the abnormally long sunny spell the girls enjoyed in the story. The golf course is on the left. Click for a larger view and see the flags.

Quote of the Day

"Oh, come off your high horse, Liz-bags," said Pips, without animosity. "I'm not going to rob them. In fact I'm going to be the little ray of sunshine in their lives. How their eyes will light up on dull wet days, when they see the gay Loch Lomond Library boat plunging eagerly towards them out of the mist--"

"Someone a bit speedier than you two will have to rowing that day," Lilias remarked.

From THE CREW OF THE BELINDA, Chapter 9, Pips Has An Idea.

Family Trouble illustration

A scene from the 1961 short story. Nicky sneaks up behind Ruth and speaks in a witchy voice, frightening her sister. This delightful short story is set in Cornwall, the location being described as just over the fields from the sea, just within sight of the isle of Lundy on a clear day.

Quote of the Day

"Oh, John!" said Sara, in an agony lest her long-cherished dream of nonchalantly handing over a bunch of crooks to Scotland Yard was to be denied fulfilment by over-caution on John's part. "Of course we know they're crooks, and the book will prove it, somehow. And look - if we don't lay too false a trail, just enough to give us sufficient start to collect the evidence in Rhöndorf, then we could have them arrested when they make up on us!"

"I'm having no dealings with foreign policemen if I can help it," said John, with a firmness which brooked no argument. "With the language difficulties and so on, you never know where you'll land."

From BERNESE ADVENTURE, Chapter Twelve. 

Buried Treasures 10

Only the original Collins edition of Susan at School has this wonderful colour frontispiece. Both the frontispieces of the St. Ronan's stories depict scenes in the school library. The scene pictured here is from Chapter 4, The Mysterious Map. While reading a book about the history of St. Ronan's, Susan and fellow new girl Tessa come across a map with the cryptic message "RH here" in faint writing. Susan immediately jumps to the conclusion that the map points to the legendary buried treasure known as Ronan's Heap. This treasure is supposedly made up of gold chalices and jewelled cups and gold plates.

Quote of the Day

The stone hut where we were to spend the night was not so much a rondavel as an oval-davel. It had once, according to Rob, been very nicely equipped by the Natal Mountain Club with mattresses, stores of food, wood and so on, but the Basuto tribesmen had found all these things too temptng, and now all that remained was a dubious-looking pile of coir in a corner, which was, all the same, a softer place to lay our sleeping-bags than on the floor. The tribesmen had even found the windows too tempting, so the hut was, to put it mildly, a trifle draughty.

From NOTHING HAPPENED AFTER ALL, Chapter 10, Don't Get Mixed up in Politics.

The Book of Hours

Many of Jane Shaw's stories involve restoring the fortunes of impoverished middle-class people. This theme is touched on in her very first book, Breton Holiday, when Raymond wishes to join the cavalry but the family does not have enough money, so he has to sit a civil service exam instead. A little treasure would change all that. In Susan and the Home-made Bomb, the Harding family are unable to afford to send Jennifer to the Sloane School of Art because of her grandfather's unusual will forbidding the sale of their large house. The discovery of a Fra Angelico hidden under a hideous painting solves the Hardings' problems. And in No Trouble for Susan, poor, forgetful Mrs. Gregson is about to be evicted from her cottage by the heartless Sir Arthur Symes and is saved at the last minute when John Hunter announces that the little book she had found among her late husband's belongings and had hoped to get a few pounds for turns out to be a Book of Hours, worth £15,000.

In previous posts, I've looked at the dubious claims made in Jane Shaw's books concerning the value of the treasures her characters uncover and compared them with how much they are worth in real life. Her claims in Where is Susan? that an 1862 one-shilling Deep Green stamp was worth £900 and in A Job for Susan that a 1954 half-crown was worth £12,000 turned out to be totally untrue, with the real value being only a fraction of the prices stated in the books. Therefore, I began to wonder about the Book of Hours.

A Book of Hours is a medieval prayer book, elaborately written by hand on vellum and lavishly decorated. They were originally commissioned by devout catholics who wished to follow a monastic prayer cycle, hence the name. However, they soon became the status symbol of the Middle Ages, the medieval equivalent of a Rolex watch. The longer and more lavishly illustrated, or illuminated, they were, the higher the price. They were mostly owned by royalty and the nobility. As the fifteenth century progressed, shorter and less luxurious books appeared and they became more affordable. They are by no means rare. The fact that they are made of vellum means that they are durable, and the fact that they are considered by many people to be the most beautiful books of all time has resulted in their careful preservation and enduring popularity among collectors.

But how much are they worth? A little research shows that the less lavish books can be had for a sum in the low five-figure range. The highest price ever paid for a Book of Hours, according to Abe Books, was £8,600,000 for the Rothchild Prayerbook in 1999. So we have a wide range of prices to work with. The really high prices are paid for the larger and very lavish books that are illustrated by famous artists. Mrs. Gregson's is constantly described as being small but beautifully illustrated. The fifteen thousand pounds that Sir Arthur ended up paying for the book would be equivalent to around three hundred thousand today. I suspect that this figure is somewhat inflated but theoretically possible. So, unlike the 1862 one-shilling Deep Green and the 1954 half crown, the Book of Hours in No Trouble for Susan may, with a little stretch of the imagination, actually be worth the price it is given in the story.