The Best of Cat Girl

 This Sissy Gurl blog has always prided itself in being different than most in that it is more centred around the everyday life and interests  of being one, not least an age dysphoric one so we do talk about stuff like comics which is where we are today.

Girls comics tended to suit us better whatever the boys said about them and actually many a cartoon strip series could easily rival the very best boys comics and  so from the pages of classic 1960s girls' comic Sally comes the first ever collection of beloved British superheroine The Cat Girl! 

Cathy Carter is not your average teen. She can jump further, fight longer and climb higher than anyone she knows - with the aid of a magic suit, she is Cat Girl! 

Facing off in glamorous, globetrotting adventures against supervillains and master criminals, Cathy often finds the hardest fight comes from her bumbling detective father, who doesn't believe Cathy can fend for herself. Can Cathy save the world when the person trying to hold her back - is her dad?

This collection contains Cat Girl's latest adventure, Cat Girl Returns from the Tammy & Jinty special, as well as a purrfect selection of the best classic Cat Girl stories from Sally, and a brand new cover from Elkys Nova.

The Best Bat In the School

 Last week I have been reading a book in the St Brides/Maudsley series by Dorita Fairlie Bruce I started earlier on but with a twist.

This isn't a regular 'series' book so much as a compilation of a series of short stories originally published for various Girls Own publications such as yearly annuals she wrote and one which is more of a long short novel which is the main feature  and all involve the characters of we met in the St Brides boarding school  and Maudsley day school although there is sufficient information to make sense of the story if you hadn't.

The main feature, The Best Bat in the School, is set at Maudsley with Nancy, Phyllis, Lois, Charity and the gang and how measures the school adopted to deal with a severe outbreak of Scarlet Fever in the district-placing restrictions on the school girls movements lead  to resent and a girl disobeying them.

The focus of the story is on the cricket match between Maudsley and Larkiston which I'll be honest and say is not a game I have a clue about and the role Lois and Charity have as the girls in charge of making the teams selection.

The issue is Lois saw a girl who go to the theatre breaching the restrictions and feels by putting their own enjoyment over others respect for school rules should be dropped.

What unfolds is the lesson set out by the authoress  around  how a misunderstanding (which girl and why) leads to a condemnation of that particular girl unjustly, how that impacts on the relationships of all the girls bring various people under suspicion and puts into jeopardy the schools honour in the competition which with interventions by Charity working out the actual situation, they do win. 

It is I feel having read it, a very important lesson well told in  this story

Victoria Vixtrix is set at St Brides around a girl who badly needs to win a scholarship to go to University to complete her education when her family are through no fault of their own facing poverty.

We meet again Winifred Arrowsmith, disabled wheelchair user to use modern terms as I was for part of my childhood, crippled by polio, showing clear signs that the more regular, less pitied interaction has developed  into one more sympathetic, just one of the girls

A strength I feel of her work is both her clear understanding of social disadvantage such as poverty, the impact of illness and disability on family welfare and the emphasis on moral education which may perhaps to some today seem a little old-fashioned but one I wholly subscribe to so we better serve ourselves and others.

There is more to us than physical and intellectual abilities and needs. 

Nancy to the rescue

Seeing this is this month's first post we'll begin by catching up with a series of book reviews that by co-incidence is being printed at the start of the Autumn Term.

Following on The New Girl and Nancy, this installment is set at the start of the Autumn term with Nancy being moved to the Upper Fifth  Form with Desda (Desdemona) Blackett which is seen as being a more dull but worthy form more centred around academic work.

It is soon resolved however to do something about this not least by making a AM. group which is really an Amateur Dramatics and Arts group where they'd study to put on short productions, recitals and undertake some games.

Followers of the previous entries might recall this series started not at Maudsley Grammar school but at St. Brides and this past of Nancy's is a key theme in this edition as we are reintroduced to Althea who we learn has moved to Maudsley in somewhat distressing circumstances, her mothers ill health and given the era we are is the nineteen-twenties there is no Welfare State, they ate in a state of acute poverty where Althea and her mother at at risk of losing their rented home and from which Althea has had to leave St. Brides because of being unable pay the school fees.

Nancy's after school life involves her being in charge of ("Maid of Merit") of the Guildry where the adult Miss Knevitt, is talking about setting up a new unit and that it would involve some changes in unit leaders including Nancy.

It was coming back from a meeting where this was being discussed that Nancy hears a flute being played as it happened rather well and upon coming across her realizes this is her lost friend from St.Brides who is malnourished  and Nancy takes her to a cafe for a drink and food and soon realizes things are very bleak.

Disturbed by this, she takes a long detour to Lord Woodridge a local land owner and 'big cheese' of the town and discussed her friend and mothers plight with him suggesting with his mothers knowledge of nature that an offer of the post of Curator of a museum he is about to open soon be given to her and with it a place to stay.

Like many of her generation Althea's mother would feel they could not just accept a place out of charity, it would have to be seen as being in exchange for her services and this way is accepted by him.

Equally Althea herself needs to continue in her education but there is a stumbling block which is that while a 'scholarship' can be issued for any form it is not generally accepted for 'upper school' which is where she belongs but it is in his remit to award one he does and so Althea now goes to  Maudsley Grammar in the upper fifth like Nancy.

Unfortunately, a small rather voracious group of girls lead by Elma hold to the notion that having a Free Scholar rather lowers the tone especially one held to do something vulgar like play a flute for money even though Althea only did this to raise money where her Mum was down to her last three pence and facing eviction and make things difficult by having so they would not play games with her so she helps the Fourth and lower Fifth out instead and having made a big deal in bring her poverty stricken flute playing out so embarrasses her that an offer to join the AM. for which she has considerable talents is just too embarrassing for her to take up.

In time however Althea joins the Guildry, just at the point Nancy is pondering a change to the 2nd new unit as it's leader so she feels supported although the behaviour of those other girls is really bad.

Just before the Museum is about to open and Althea's Mum has moved in, a mysterious Japanese man comes in a demanding a Cedar tree that her Mum refused to sell, refusing to leave until he's gotten it. Nancy and Althea trap him and just by luck Lord Woodridge comes by and has him arrested. 

It transpires what was so desirable about the tree was a Crystal which was buried beneath it as an insurance against hard times for Althea's Mum.

Althea's new found status as an heiress impresses those who so rejected her as the Free Scholar, the shallow meanness thereof not lost on Nancy and clearly transmitted in the book to the reader.  

A area competition for the arts is held called the Rosebury Festival and Nancy's name is put forward as a soloist but Nancy feels strongly this is Althea's time and so puts forward to the Head Mistress that really a change of entry to Althea is really called for as her skills as flautist are the stronger but she'd accompany on piano.

This is accepted so the pair go in the competition judged at City Hall and Althea wins the gold medal  and Nancy awarded a special commendation for the accompanying so the pair have brought honour upon their form and school.

Although in some respects it's a relatively simple book in the series, I think it's strengths are that it tackles head on social prejudice, and poverty in a compassionate, thoughtful  way that reminds me very much of what it felt like being 14 or 15 felt like, caring deeply about issues and each other, wanting to help in the way Nancy did her friend and mother, trying to make a difference for the good.

Making a stand for decency, treating people fairly are important lessons we need to learn to keep our society holding to civilized values.

The New Girl and Nancy

After a bit of a pause, today I have decided to write a bit about a book I have been reading this week.

The Nancy and St.Brides series of school based stories  by Dorita Fairlie Bruce is one I've been slowly making through since being presented  with one book and buying the others in a series of contemporary  high quality reprints.

We last left Nancy at Maudsley Grammar after a disastrous term at St. Brides, working on the resolving the feud between themselves and Larkistone through the Guildery movement and its ethos of moral  education and personal responsibility and the inter-school competitions.

This new term a heiress, Barbara Stephen, arrives and Nancy is involved in settling her in although the expression "two's company, three's a crowd" comes to mind as it place strains on her previous friendship with with Desda.

Things would of been so much the better if Barbara had not been so encouraged to see her role as that heiress, home taught by a Governess who very much indulged that very self centred, revolving all around her way of thinking who just wanted everything to be as it was so when she was spirited away from people who only wanted to be her parents for who she was for the Stephen's, she could not even see she had so much to be grateful for even for going to a lesser school.

An example of that defiant streak is her refusal to consider changing how she has her hair fixed as it is long and very wavy in a more grown up way while at school it would of been  a bit shorter and in pigtails or in a bob even though the signs from the other girls and even staff could not of been plainer.

Nancy takes a principal stand of not ganging up on her but carefully steering her toward the values of the other girls, seeing  past all that attitude she possesses, that there was a lot of potential good and she joins the Guildery where that hair creates problems for the unit inspection although to Nancy's surprise given the problems she had in Section 6  as "Maid of Merit" with unit discipline and even fighting, Barbara does emerge with some credit for her conduct.

That three's a crowd side rears its head when Desda decides to study for a Scholarship (what I understand to be a funded place based on ability) with an examination when Barbara decides to spit her in a battle for affections to apply too even though she really has no need to  given her financial security which indeed brings an attempted kidnapping and would crush Desda's ambitions.

During this period Barbara's relationship with school, the village she moved to and her new parents come under strain as her mind battles with the emotions her past way of life and that she now is in and expected to adjust to.

Indeed she even begs her Aunt to have her back and home schooled but the kidnapping puts that very much on hold as finding Nancy in who spent hours looking for her and her new friends tending to her injuries sustained from escaping the kidnapping,  she finds herself torn between her original aim and wanting to play for Maudsley in the inter school cricket match.

She finds even though she prepared for the scholarship exam revising, she struggles recalling information and understanding what the question is really requiring so she fails it. Pride isn't enough to get you through that.

Having recovered from her injuries, she plays excelling leading her team to victory, gaining acceptance from not just the other girls in the team but the whole school and soon she decides she really wants that school life as just a everyday girl part of a group than that exalted on display older girl as doll-child with all her refinery.

Indeed the end is quite moving that she decides to give away her fancy dresses for her plain girls wear and her uniform and lets Nancy cut her hair in a bob using a pudding bowl: she has given up the past, literally discarding it accepting being moulded anew apologizing to Nancy for how she treated her and the others.

Reading the story really made an impression on me, seeing family fortunes aside some similarities between myself and Barbara and where we were lost in self serving bubble that did us no good.

That Boarding School Girl

Recently I had actually gifted to me a book from their collection of "Girls Own" fiction, a genre I do so love by an author I had nothing  by but was part of that 1920's through 1940's boom of school based girls fiction rather like Angela Brazil.

It's a September 30th 2003 reprint by Girls Gone  By of a 1925 classic, the second in the  "St Brides" series of stories she wrote replicating the original text apart from two alterations at the bequest of the Estate of the author where the original text can be found.

Thank you so much for this.

A few notes on this: In some ways this and Nancy at St Brides (see separate review) are rather odd bed fellows with Nancy at St Brides being more a full account of her first term there and this being  the earlier novel that deals with the consequences of her having to leave and her being sent in some disgrace to Maudsley Grammar as a day student under that cloud, very much feeling the need work hard in lessons and keep the impulsive and easily lead of her personality very much under a lid.

Indeed so much did she try her darnmost that the gulf between her effort and the remainder of Form V.B. invited suspicions that when a conversation by arch rival  Larkiston school  students on the bus that included one who knew Nancy's past became common knowledge as it was overheard by Maudsley students, form V.B. become convinced she'd done something wicked.

In truth while what she had been responsible for did had very serious consequences, in reality it was more she wasn't sufficiently mature so failed to realize the recklessness of the situation she'd lead the others into.

It was the Head Mistresses perception she was not mature enough for boarding school that was the real reason she left. [She wasn't expelled according to "at St Brides", contrary to the claim in this novel more recommended not to return next term because of the Heads understanding of the real issue around her conduct].

When eventually the truth did come out  - and not being very happy over it - she is better understood for the grasping of the second chance given to her and becomes more an asset never more so when she steps in at the last moment in a inter school cricket match with Larkiston as Charity Sheringham had injured her hand leading her team to a draw with a memorable performance.

What Katy Did and Disabilities

I'm working on blog entries today as I'll be away for a couple of days so the the time I'd normally use will be taken up making arrangements and all that.

A favourite novel of mine is What Katy Did by the American authoress Susan Coolidge which was written in 1872 that I've had my current hardback copy from 1989 if I remember correctly although I sure had and read it during my childhood.

I wrote a little about the series in the early years of this blog but today we're going more into depth.

Lots of editions have been produced but I love the simple unaffected illustration on the front of this one because it's inviting but clearly is of the era showing Katy Carr outside the picket fence with the traditional timber framed house in the background.

I have been re-reading this because this is book that spoke very directly to me as a disabled child where generally speaking we were not inked in the world that children saw so it was this book and the English (they'd never say British) satirists Flanders And Swann that showed we had place people could accept.

Chunks of Katy, the twelve year old, struggling at 'self-improvement', having grandiose aims and rather dashing them badly not really a bad girl but carried away at times was and indeed is me all over: Mischievous boy in a dress, getting into trouble but remorseless upon being found out, it's just so familiar because it's not that you don't have a conscience, you do, but it kicks in too late!

The other thing is really from the second half of the novel, something truly awful happens to Katy very much by accident as she goes in the Swing that she was told not to go on by her Aunt Izzie  who just expected a child to just follow the instruction rather than saying it was unsafe.

The line comes out from the staple that was designed to secure it as she soars, so she falls at speed to the ground striking her spine. It leaves her unable to walk and more or less confined to her upstairs bedroom  for a long period whereupon she is visited by her family.

Re-reading that moved me because it's similar to what happened to me just a couple years older than Katy where something went wrong with a swing and I hit the asphalt beneath with speed and at force. 

It didn't paralyze me although I was bruised but it left me drifting in and out of consciousness for about ten hours living permanently with significant brain damage where head struck the surface.

Part of the novel talks about how that experience affected her being in pain, feeling bitter and about how she adapts to becoming disabled when her beloved cousin Helen who also is disabled comes over explaining to her she needs to adapt, making the most of the situation she is in or risk losing the love and affection of her family though her own attitude.

Some have criticized the emphasis around her learning patience, learning to be cheerful, having hope, trying to keep things neat and getting on life as it as part of the "sainthood" attached to disabled people as if that's their only value.

To me it's to miss the point entirely which is life as a disabled person is harder, comes with disappointment, doesn't exempt you from general expectations and in my experience and a few others you just have to adapt to what is. It's a brutal truth.

It is certainly the case in the novel the idea Katy could of been looked after downstairs wasn't looked at nor is any kind of physical therapy (UK: physiotherapy) looked at which today we sure would because that was too new in the late nineteenth century.

We learn later on, Katy after Aunt Izzie dies, does begin to learn to walk again, taking on the running of the house which to me then was a sign at least you *could* have a life where you did contribute.

To me although criticized for what is seen by some as late nineteenth century (UK:Victorian) moral instruction, it's a enjoyable inspirational story whose values do align more with the 'real world' when it comes to offering the disabled reader some comfort and life lessons.

That's why I always loved it.

Fur limed reading

 I did get the second Valerie Hastings piece of classic G.O (Girls Only)  fiction in a 1968 hard back edition

You know all about me and G.O fiction, the stuff I read at school, especially boarding school so I was super pleased about that.

It's really about the strange goings on at Hazelmere, Jill's boarding school where it transpires an arts competition is being used to smuggle out two stolen works of art from a local art collector and the perils for Penny Maxwell of having her Mum on the school's governing body interfering  in the Fourth Forms lessons like the music lessons topics and the Horse Riding plus wanting to fix things for Penny where this will only undermine the sense of fairness seen by the remainder of the form.

I don't think I mentioned for a good while I do have a number of Angela Brazil's masterpieces of the genre in Armada paperbacks, the copies I had living as a child (well we can't truthfully say growing up!)

I wrote about this several years back , a gripping tale of intrigue, inheritance and the lives of schoolgirls and recently re-read it.

I did mention about having some things at Christmas  and these were the fleecy booty slippers I had from Mummy which are a snug fit being UK size three through five  and I'm a five having relatively small feet and small paws too!

They're not to be honest big in support like a traditional plimsoll type usually is which is what I was brought up with but they are as warm as toast once on you.

Malory Towers revisited

After all the excitement of last weekend out I'm writing what in some ways is a continuation piece from a 2011 entry of mine that kind of gives you an idea of just how long I've been blogging.

When I wrote way back in more or less exactly five years ago about Malory Towers, the  six part series of novels by Enid Blyton, I remarked about a couple of things I had noticed since originally encountering them in childhood.

One was about the illustrations which I feel is relevant not least in the Country I presently reside in because for a school based series, you see, you may well have personally even worn, the uniforms many schools have so have a mental image of what a school boy or in this case a school girl generally looks like. 

The tendency for cartoonish illustrations in particular used on the  first decade of this centuries editions of this series  particularly made them look cheap and detached them from their era.

I'd never of bought them as a boy cos I wanted something that looked presentable and clearly hooked me into the story.

I saw the paperbacks with those images and bought at the time a nicer looking set of softbacks from 2004 that served me well until something else came very much to light.

Like with a good number of her books, the text had been altered with no clear indication and so I did pick up a 1987 omnibus edition of the first four novels published by W H Smith but printed by Methuen Children's books under license.

I didn't actually realize Dean's who were an imprint of Methuen's  did a complete  set in the form of two hardback books until very recently and given these were from the early 1990's was a bit concerned about those troublesome alterations and updates.

The first volume not so imaginatively titled Malory Towers came out in 1991, a year later than the separate six volumes issued in their Rewards series with more modernish but generally tasteful front covers.

I did check the text over as in the first novel, First Term at Malory Towers, there are clear references both to Darrel's behaviour that are toned down in modern editions and the threat to spank with a hairbrush common enough when first published but removed completely in newer editions. 

That was big shock I found moving to the 2004 set to that incomplete omnibus late 80's edition because it does alter the feel of those schoolgirls in a boarding school, like I was, and makes the adults responses more understandable.

This 1991 set surprisingly uses the same text as if they had used the same typesetting as that and had carried it over to the 1990 Rewards too and keeps a good number of the original black and white illustrated plates by Jenny Chapple.

While the cover looks slightly too contemporary to my eyes, the advantage of having the second volume over the 1987 is in part less weight for having just three novel per volume compared to four and again it uses a less modern so-called politically correct text.

My suspicion are that actually these three in one omnibus editions and the 1990 separate ones are just repackaged editions of the versions Methuen  had out during the 1980's with newer covers for sale by certain book sellers who specialized in discounted hardback books aimed at adults buying for children.

 Now that is the original hardback dust jacket from Third Year at Malory Towers which I feel sums up the feel of playing sports together at an all girls school wearing era specific uniform.

While to be honest I'd sooner they had used front covers more in that style for these two three in one omnibus editions, they do make for a good way to get relatively recent pre-political correct text versions often been found for just a few pounds each in good condition.

They do match my St Clares and The Naughtiest Girl Dean's omnibus editions being from the same era with their vanilla coloured spines.

I was very glad to spot these just before I went away.

More Girls Fiction for the Sissy Gurl

I've been reading a few books this week of which I think I'll review this.

This lesser known author wrote Jill At Hazelmere in nineteen sixty-four and Jill Investigates both borrowing from the Girl comic strip series Wendy and Jinx school based adventures where both are Forth Formers.
It's the very sort of book I love and actually it's the first time I've owned a copy - mine's from nineteen sixty-six  although I'm sure saw a copy at boarding school in the Seventies

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Sadly the Girls Comic site which had extracts from many British girls comics including Girl that was published between nineteen fifty-one and nineteen sixty-four has disappeared as has the middlescommonroom.com site where mainly older  junior fiction was discussed.

Trying to find a G.O* or mainly G.O discussion board where such staples of the junior fiction I read back then is proving difficult.

*G.O = Girls Only, the very girl centric type of novel or comic writing usually about schools, horses and princesses that feminine gurls like me just adore.

Trebizon: Modern Girls Fiction

Not unsurprisingly I love school stories especially boarding school ones and one series I've been slowly collecting inspired in part some friends 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 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. 

Nancy at St. Brides

This month I am going to write a bit about a book which taps into part of me but was even when I was growing up was seen as part of a series that were more in the past more what we'd be handed down or bought second hand. This copy is the 2002 Girls Gone By paperback reprint.

 Nancy at St. Brides is the second in this series but in a lot of ways the first proper book in that this is where the main character Nancy makes here appearance as a relatively unschooled 14 year old dispatched to St.Brides  with instructions to be kept an eye on being very ahem spirited which soon shows in the dares she was only too willing to perform and caught out by the Sixth form prefects.

You could say she was impressionable which I was too at this age and this is the the story of her first unhappy term as she gets to grips with school structures, rules and consequences.

It's an enjoyable read not just for her spirit but also how working at channelling her interests starts to pay off.

The Girls of St. Brides

Reading is a passion of mine and it is not uncommon for authors  to write a whole series of stories that are self contained and over time start again which does make it hard pick a series to work ones way through.

In the instance of Dorita Fairlie Bruce, she actually wrote five whole series so I've cherry picked this the start of the St. Brides/Maudsley series to work my way through.

 Originally written in nineteen twenty-three and long out of print, this introduces to Island School of St. Brides on Inchmore far away from industrial west coast of Scotland and introduces us to its main characters although it obviously was not conceived as part of the "Nancy at St.Brides" series at the outset as Nancy doesn't make an appearance!

One strong point of this book is the inclusion of a disabled girl, Winifred who was disabled in early childhood and uses a wheelchair which is very rare for the period and how it touches on the idea of integration, talking about the sense of isolation and lack of acceptance showing how in this school and through the friendship with Morag, she emerges becoming very much a part of the school community.

Integrated education is as I know from direct personal experience as a disabled boy is still controversial and indeed for a period many did not have what would be recognized as a (appropriate) academic education.

Because it was written in nineteen twenty-three, Dorita does use the term "Cripple" to describe Winifred which would jar with many today but we need to remember that it is from the German term "Krupil" and one of the meanings of that word is "lame" which medically speaking is true as her limbs are indeed just that as are mine. 

It also is the case cripple did not acquire the common abusive undertones it did in the nineteen fifties and sixties as did "spastic" both of which went on unofficial blacklists of terms not to be used from the late seventies onward but Dorita in fairness uses cripple with sensitivity.

Thus it does not personally offend because her use of and development of that character is not in any way offensive.

A Princess at the School & The Manor House School

As you may of gathered I do rather like reading and these are two books I've had since childhood.

These are editions from 1970 although they were reprinted by Armada across that decade as I read them at boarding school during that era.

The Manor House School is about a Eleven and Twelve year old girls Cicely and Lindsay who arrive in the Summer Term who find a secret room, hear some voices which leads to a mystery involving a missing fortune which leads them to discover the mystery of Winterburn Manor.

The Princess at the School (originally of the school), written in 1920, is a story of Ingleton children who having been orphaned and their home, Cheverley Chase, has been left to a young cousin who nobody seems to have been met.

Upon meeting cousin Carmel, the children make it plain she isn't welcome but her friendly nature eventually wins them over so while  they lost their original home it seems they've found a new friend.

Stories like that always were a part of my life I enjoyed and while having kept them, I do enjoy revisiting them from time to time.

Candyfloss

Recently I had this new in paperback book that originally came out a year ago that's really for girls but I've always loved reading girls fiction as a boy.

Floss's parents are divorced, and she divides up her week, spending five days with her mum, her new stepdad and her baby half-brother. 

The other two days Floss spends with her dad, helping him to run his greasy spoon café but their simple arrangement is thrown into disarray when Floss's mum decides to move to Australia.

Making the difficult decision to stay at home, Floss moves in permanently with her dad and they muddle along happily together, surviving on chip butties and enjoying visits to the local funfair. But disaster strikes - Dad's money troubles catch up with him and they have to move out of the café. 

They're homeless - but can their new fairground friends help out?
This is what the story explores.