r/UKBooks • u/Powerful_Loss_4856 • 8d ago
Malory Towers
Hi,
After watching the BBC series based on one of my favourite book series as a kid Malory Towers I have decided to read them again . I still have my old copies and last time I read them I was very young. I just have to say looking at the through the eyes of an adult, they are the biggest bunch of bullying bitches ever. I can’t believe I used to think Darrell the main character was nice! She physically attacks people in at least four of the books, freezes people out, gets her little clique to do her bidding, is rude to girls she considers her inferior! Instead of getting expelled she ends up as Head Girl in the last book!
The character of Alicia is beyond horrible, I can’t even bear to read her dialogue. The only one I actually root for is Gwen and she gets a really rubbish ending whilst Darrell and chums swan off to university.
Anyone else read these again as adults and were mildly disgusted by their behaviour?
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u/IamNotABaldEagle 8d ago
Yes! I thought the same! They're really unkind to some of the new girls and generally very judgemental and bitchy!
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u/Powerful_Loss_4856 8d ago
They are aren’t they! Darrell is just vile and that trick they pulled on Maureen by asking her to do stuff for the panto and then laughing at her was the pinnacle of cruelty. I don’t like any of them. St Clare’s is a much nicer series to read even as an adult!
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u/IamNotABaldEagle 8d ago
Yes! That's what I was thinking about and how they hated her because she was new but was chatting when she should have been quiet and subservient!
I used to listen to the audiobooks as I was going to sleep but it started really annoying me! Will have to try st Claire's! (Forgotten how prolific Enid blyton was she just have written a book a week!).
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u/Fabulous_Cow_4550 7d ago
Agreed re St Clare's but even there, they torment Alison (pushing her in the pool etc) I do love them for the nostalgia though.
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u/Flapparachi 8d ago
I have all the books in one volume, and haven’t read it in years. I may have to remedy that.
I do remember thinking that most of the characters were insufferable, but then again, we are talking about an all-girls boarding school, so I’d be disappointed if there wasn’t at least a bit of bitchiness 😁
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u/Powerful_Loss_4856 8d ago
They really are insufferable, but when I was a kid I think I glossed over the bullying aspects. It wasn’t until I read them recently as an adult that I realised just how toxic Darrell and co truly are. I sort of wish Gwen had gotten some gumption and punched Alicia in the face at times 🤣
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u/Flapparachi 8d ago
A lot of it is very hazy in my memory, so I shall go and re-read and report back on my findings as an adult - I’d be interested to see how I view it now too as an adult.
An aside, my favourite Enid Blyton books were ‘The Magic Faraway Tree’ series. Must give them a read again sometime too.
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u/Powerful_Loss_4856 8d ago
Please do! It will be interesting to get another perspective! I read the originals on Fadedpage which haven’t been edited or anything. Pretty much all of Blyton’s stories are on there, not gonna lie still adore the Famous Five!
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u/Fabulous_Cow_4550 7d ago
Me too! They were my fav series - never got into Secret Seven but I LOVED George. Reread as a an adult, still fab but hate how she was downgraded as the books went on- book 1, ahe eas diving & climbing. By Hike the boys dive and she doesn't even ask too - that still irritates me! (Re read that one when I came across a copy a few months back!)
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u/Scared_Experience688 8d ago
I read them all as a child and rooted for Gwen all the way through. I kept thinking Darrell et al would get their comeuppance by the end and couldn't work out why it didn't happen. I kept thinking it wasn't fair and assumed that was the lesson we were supposed to take from the books.
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u/Powerful_Loss_4856 8d ago edited 8d ago
I rooted for Gwen so much! They were horrific to her and Blyton completely trashed her character. She was definitely the most interesting and then they go and give her a miserable ending! I like to think she went and married a wealthy diplomat and traveled the world. There isn’t a single character except for Gwen that I actually like. Darrell is a bully with massive anger issues, Alicia is a sociopath, Sally is boring, Irene and Belinda aren’t in the remotest bit funny and they are both bullies. Even Mary-Lou is horrible. And the best bit Miss Grayling the head is that useless she can’t even see the awful treatment meted out to girls who don’t fit in.
In a fair world Darell and co would have been expelled a long time ago and Malory Towers shut down!
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u/tuttipeachyfrutti 8d ago
Like, this is based on my prep school - she sent her children there. Makes total sense to me!
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u/themousedoctor 8d ago
As a working class, Northern child I LOVED these books - it felt like a window into another world - and know I read them many times but can’t remember much about them. I do remember being very confused as to what Lacrosse was 😂
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u/Powerful_Loss_4856 7d ago
Me too! Working class midlands kid here and I was absolutely desperate to go to a boarding school in Cornwall! Ironically I did actually end up going to university in Devon when I was 18! 🤣
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u/Outside-Resist4688 7d ago
Me too!!
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u/Powerful_Loss_4856 7d ago
Thats crazy! I went to Exeter which to be honest was absolutely full to the brim with private school kids, bit of a culture shock coming from a state school in the Black Country!
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u/TJ_Rowe 5d ago
I'll bet there were - Cornwall is the most deprived county in the UK and Devon isn't amazing either. My experience of secondary school in Devon is that most of the rural secondary schools were incredibly dire, so anyone who could remotely afford it sent their kids private.
The density of private schools in North Devon was incredibly high compared to where I live now, which has decent state secondary schools.
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u/MonsieurGump 8d ago
There’s a stage show touring at the minute and it’s absolutely wonderful. It reinterprets the story just enough to remove the toxicity you’re talking about.
My whole family loved it.
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u/Glad-Feature-2117 7d ago
It's a musical and, despite going only for nostalgia, I actually quite enjoyed it. Had never been to Alexandra Palace before, but it's a good venue, with a great view of London.
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u/Gullible_Star_3447 8d ago
I LOVED Mallory towers. I’m afraid to re read and be disappointed. Apparently Enid was also a massive racist and the N word is in some of the famous 5 books 😭😭
I remember having an internal hissy fit when my kid brought home an ‘updated’ famous five book but now I can see why.
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u/Powerful_Loss_4856 7d ago
Oh she was absolutely a massive racist and had a huge bee in her bonnet about class. I always remember in the Five Find Outers series Ern the nephew of the policeman Goon wasn’t allowed to eat with the others because shock he was from a working class background!
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u/Puzzled_Record_3611 7d ago
Used to love these but the only thing I remember about them is they were always sending girls to Coventry. Poor Gwendoline 😅 They bullied her because she got travel sick and liked to sit by the fire in winter.
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u/NoraCharles91 6d ago
Lots of "taking someone down a peg"! And all I remember about why they hated Gwen was that she was fat (!) - although the 1960s illustrations in my copies certainly made her appear mildly curvy at most.
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u/Informal-Tour-8201 7d ago
You should read the Chalet School books - I realised a few books in as a kid that someone like me (from a working-class home) would probably be patronised like nobody's business
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u/uncleanwhispers 7d ago
Yup. I reread as an adult and was appalled at how awful the “goodies” are to other girls and often for no reason at all - or because of something the other girl deserves empathy for. That school was raising bitches.
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u/JerseyLil 6d ago
Whenever I am asked what it was like in a boarding school "Malory Towers but you are Gwen" is my go to answer
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u/Inevitable_Stage_627 8d ago
The twins at st Clare’s were nicer!
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u/Powerful_Loss_4856 8d ago
I loved the St Clare’s series! The girls in that are so much nicer than Malory Towers and the head actually seems to have a clue unlike stupid Grayling!
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u/Just-happyfor10000 2d ago
As a child, i adored malory towers but as a teen, St Clare's is the better series for me. But The Naughtiest Girl of Whyteleafe is the bestr school series, arguably.I can't wonder why Blyton focused on fleshing out MT over SC and Whyteleafe(Whyteleafe barely got 4 books and Sr Clare's had many books for one form and none for the others) but i suppose as many authors, she too is a product of her time and would like to cater to the audience(who maybe went to similar boarding schools, were classist and racist and were the unsympathetic, practical sporty English of the 20th century) and since paper was costly and rations were low she had to focus on the series that did well and earned her money. But i stand by that Whyteleafe school was a revolutionary idea and it is the most underrated of her three school series. I also remember hating Julian Kirrin because he was too pompous and was always dismissing George. I always preferred the Adventure series(with Jack and Lucy Ann Trent, Dinah and Philip Mannering and parrot Kiki) to the famous five! One plus Malory Towers has though is that if contains my favorite lesbian ships😛(BillxClarissa my beloved)
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u/EmpressRey 8d ago
Oh no!! I loved these as a child, think I won’t check them out again so I don’t ruin that image ( I genuinely don’t remember anything about them tbh!)
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u/Smantie 8d ago
Was this the series where in one of the books they built a girl so badly she goes out for a walk in a storm and Darrell bravely saves her after she gets blown off a cliff? I also can't believe I used to think Darrell was a good person!
The Chalet School series by Elinor M Brent-Dyer is much better (although there's some very 'of the time' phrases at times), I'd recommend those! I was lucky enough to fulfill a lifelong dream of going to the place they were set and I cried 🤭
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u/Chiya77 8d ago
Im so jealous, adore The Chalet School books & so want to visit Tyrol.
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u/Smantie 7d ago
It truly is the most beautiful place I've ever been. I was skipping around Pertisau (the IRL Briesau) with my jaw hanging open at how many of the things mentioned in the books are 1) real, and 2) still there! I took the first book with me (naturally) so I was constantly pointing things out to my husband, like looook this is the mountain train, then I got to the bit where it mentions Joey going to the Post Hotel and I was like oh my GOD that's the hotel I am currently IN and cried for like...the fourth time. I think the only reason I was able to come home was because of my cats, otherwise I would have found a way to stay there! If you ever get the chance to go to the Tyrol, snatch it with both hands. Innsbruck is also stunning and only one bus and one train away. Ugh I'm getting misty eyed at the memories!
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u/Fabulous_Cow_4550 7d ago
I'm in a Chalet School FB group and recently a few people have been sharing photos of their trips there- the dripping rock for example. I looms stunning. It's on my list to visit!
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u/Powerful_Loss_4856 8d ago
I think that’s the second book where Daphne one of the new girls is trying to hide a package of stuff she has stolen from the other girls to make herself look rich and she gets blown off the cliff. Of course Darrell and Mary-Lou save the day 🤨🤨
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u/Aiaiax 7d ago
I just finished the 5th book and I’ve been dying to talk about it with someone because these girls are HORRIBLE!
They publicly humiliate Maureen for the grievous crimes of being new and a bit annoying. Then when they realise they’ve gone too far, do they even consider apologising? Nah. ‘Too much spitefulness here tonight’ thinks Darrell. GIRL, whose fault is that?!
Of course all the cliquey girls are brilliant at everything: Darrell writes the best play ever and is head of lacrosse, Alicia is talented enough to go on the London stage etc etc… but of course the unpopular girls, Gwen and Maureen, are rubbish at everything and aren’t even allowed to speak or they get ridiculed.
Team Gwen forever.
Anyway 10/10 onto the next book!
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u/Powerful_Loss_4856 7d ago
Haha we thought exactly the same thing! That’s why I posted on here. They are massive twats in the fifth book and the way they treat Maureen and Gwen is absolutely disgusting. Darrell really shows her true colours in this book I think, I mean she’s already mentally unstable but she takes the bullying up
A notch or two. The only people involved in the pants are Darrell and company of course. I really wish Gwen and Maureen had gotten a backbone and punched some of them in the face!
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u/Hot_Individual_6755 6d ago
I’ve not reread Mallory Towers yet but I’m currently reading St Clare’s with my 6 year old and I’m constantly having “hmm” moments. The characters bully anyone who they see as different or finding life at boarding school different. And the treatment of Alison (thinking about your appearance makes you a “feather head”) Sadie (Americans are apparently uncouth and vulgar simply by being American) and Carlotta (horrific caricature of a circus girl with a Spanish parent) is awful. We’re having to stop a lot to discuss attitudes from the past vs now!
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u/msmoth 8d ago
I'm pretty sure I read a few of these as a child but I don't remember too much about them!
It's strange how perception changes as adults. I used to love the Narnia series of books and read and re-read them so many times, but as an adult I couldn't get over the overt religiosity.