Big Families at the Chalet School Quiz

Answer: Jem and Madge Russell

David Russell is one of the first babies to be born in the 'Chalet School' series, during the Tyrol years, after Madge retires as headmistress. The girls club together to buy him a train set for when he is older, and knit toy animals and balls for him. Like his father Jem, he becomes a doctor.

Sybil was also born in the Tyrol. She has an attitude problem as a child due to having to share a house with her older Bettany cousins and adopted relatives, and strangers fussing over her looks, but grows out of it after she accidentally spills water on Josette, injuring her badly. She is not academic, but is a talented artist. She stays behind in the UK while the Russells are in Canada. She later marries an Australian after the Russells move out there.

Josette, who was born in Guernsey, is named for her auntie Jo, and is the only one of Madge's daughters to be Head Girl (during the Swiss years). She is part of Mary-Lou Trelawney's Gang. She goes to university in Sydney and meets her future husband there, a lawyer.

Aline, or Ailie, is born during the events of 'Jo to the Rescue'. She is the naughtiest of Madge's daughters, and is friendly with Judy Willoughby and Janice Chester. She wants to be a PE teacher.

Kevin and Kester, the Russell twins, are born in Canada while the Russells are living there; Kevin is dark, while Kester is fair. Madge hopes for them to join the military when they are older.

Madge and Jem also adopt Jem's nieces, Daisy and Primula Venables, as well as Juliet Carrick - whose parents abandon her, and are later killed in a car crash - and Cecilia Marya 'Robin' Humphries, the daughter of Jem's secretary, who is killed in a climbing accident.

Answer: Sir Piers and Lady Willoughby

We first meet the Willoughby children in 'Seven Scamps', one of the 'La Rochelle' books. They are the children of Sir Piers Willoughby and his late wife, Lady Willoughby.

Maidie (real name Madeleine) is the oldest, and takes charge of the family in her father's absence. She befriends Rosamund and Cesca Atherton on a family holiday in Guernsey. She marries Cuthbert Clitheroe, a university friend of Rex, although her father disapproves as Cuthbert is Catholic. The two have a daughter.

Rex (real name Reginald) has health trouble, and needs home tuition. He becomes friends with Julian Lucy, and later marries Con Atherton, making him the second of his family to marry an Atherton. Like many EBD characters, he is a student at Oxford University. He and Con have two sons.

Marjolaine is a talented cellist and loves music. She is a bridesmaid at Janie and Julian Lucy's wedding. She is due to be presented at court, but misses that year's debutante season as she has sprained her ankle.

Peter loves books, and is a keen cricketer. He and his younger brother David are sent to boarding school by Mr Eltringham, the curate. He gets engaged to a girl he meets in Kelowna, Canada.

David is notoriously tactless, and has a nasty accident in 'Scamps' where he falls down a cliff and is stuck, but Mr Eltringham rescues him. As an adult he joins the Navy, and gets together with Nan Blakeney, Janie Lucy's adopted sister. He and Nan are married in 'Gay from China', and they later have five children, four boys and a girl. He is promoted to Commander.

Dina (real name Bernadine) has back trouble as one of her shoulders is higher than the other due to an accident, and undergoes a risky operation. The family go on holiday to Guernsey so she can recuperate. She is the most conscientious Willoughby child. She and her Norwegian stepsister Britta go to the Athertons' school, St Peter's. She and Tim and their stepsiblings catch measles. She is a bridesmaid at Nigel and Rosamund's wedding.

Tim is the baby of the family, and his mother died when he was only a year and a half old. He plays football and is friends with Noel Atherton.

Answer: Paul and Elizabeth Ozanne

Elizabeth Ozanne, née Temple, is the oldest of the Temple sisters, and a writer who collects local folk tales. She marries Guernsey lawyer Paul Ozanne in 'The Maids of La Rochelle'. Both their daughters are Chalet School pupils. Paul's younger half-sister Pauline, aka Pollie, is friends with Janie Temple.

Michael is the oldest, and is around the same age as Beth Chester. He and Beth are attendants at Janie and Julian Lucy's wedding, and act up. When Nella and Vanna are born, Michael and his younger brother Billy sneak off to see them.

Billy is known as 'Bad Bill' because of his naughty behaviour. He covers himself in paint, peels wallpaper off the wall when Pollie makes him stand in a corner, dares Julie Lucy to walk into Peterport in her mum's clothes, and tries to make passengers on a boat seasick by talking in detail about disgusting food. He teaches Vanna some interesting slang (which is banned at the Chalet School). William does National Service in Germany when he is older.

Nella and Vanna are twins, with their real names being Peronelle (after Paul's mother) and Giovanna (after Anne and Elizabeth Temple's mother, who was Italian). Of the three Temple families, the Ozannes are the only family who do not produce any Chalet School Head Girls. Neither of them are very bright, although Nella is good at crafts and makes furniture for Tom Gay's dollhouses, and are in forms with girls who are younger than them. After they leave school, they travel the world with their parents, and Vanna marries an American fruit farmer from Indiana.

Answer: Harold and Anita Atherton

The Atherton family first appear in 'Gerry Goes to School' and 'A Head Girl's Difficulties'. None of them are Chalet School pupils, though some of them have daughters at the school.

Cesca (real name Francesca) is the oldest, and is actually Anita Atherton's stepsister, who Anita raised as a daughter. She helps out in the kindergarten at St Peter's School. She marries the curate Charles Eltringham, after meeting him in Guernsey on holiday, and they have seven children, one of whom - Nita - goes to the Chalet School (and their son Edmund is in the kindergarten during the war years).

Rosamund is the Head Girl in question in 'A Head Girl's Difficulties'. She wins a scholarship to Oxford with an essay, which she has to rewrite after the original is destroyed in a fire. She cracks down hard on the outbreak of sentimentality at school. Later on she becomes a teacher and marries Nigel Willoughby, Sir Piers' younger brother, and their daughters Blossom and Judy are Chalet School pupils. She also has another daughter and two sons, one of whom (Aubrey) has health problems.

Con is a tall tomboy, and survives a diphtheria epidemic that kills other children, though she has to go to Mentone in France to recuperate. She has a reputation for making funny faces. She is good at games and art, and studies illustration at art college. She meets Rex Willoughby at Rosamund's wedding, and later marries him. They have two sons.

Allegra Atherton has a puppy called Krinkum Krankum, and is the pretty one of the family. She has a rather toxic friend called Aveline, though the friendship breaks up after the anti-sentimentality crackdown. As an adult, she joins an acting company and marries a fellow actor, Hugh Redmond, with whom she has twins.

Jose is the youngest Atherton girl, and gets relegated to the First Form at school after putting cobbler's wax on a teacher's chair. Her friend Domenica is one of the victims of the diphtheria epidemic. She gets trapped in a fire at the Athertons' holiday home, but is rescued by Elizabeth Temple.

Noel is the baby of the Atherton family. He goes to France with his mother and Con when she is recovering from diphtheria. In 'The Maids of La Rochelle', Peter de Garis saves him from a cliff fire. He is friends with Tim Willoughby and the two go to the same school. As an adult, it is implied he marries Beth Chester, as Blossom Willoughby comments that Beth will be her aunt.

Answer: Peter and Anne Chester

Anne Temple is the middle of the Temple sisters, and an artist. She marries Peter Chester, a doctor, in 'The Maids of La Rochelle'.

Beth is the oldest of the Chester girls and the only one to be a Head Girl at the Chalet School. She is bullied at her old school as her parents won't let her associate with the other girls, who think she is stuck up, and is jealous of the attention her sick little sister Barbara gets, as she feels left out. When she joins the Chalet School, she forms a friendship group with Daisy Venables and Gwensi Howell. She is good at art and painting. She later becomes Jo Maynard's nanny and nursery tutor in Switzerland. It is implied she marries Noel Atherton, and the two have a daughter.

Paul is the oldest Chester boy, named for Paul Ozanne, and the most conscientious. As an adult, he becomes a teacher at Stephen Maynard's school, and teaches him some cricket techniques.

Nancy is part of the same friendship group that includes Bride Bettany, Tom Gay, Elfie Woodward, and Julie Lucy. She is often described as cheerful and sunny. She breaks her arm and leg during a half-term accident in the St Briavel's years. She becomes a nurse after leaving school, and falls in love with a doctor at her hospital.

Dickon and Robin are twins, and share a tutor with the Lucy children. They join the Chalet School kindergarten when it moves to Guernsey. The Ozannes pay for their and Paul's education when the Chesters have money worries.

Barbara is a frail child who is overindulged by her mother, to the point where she becomes spoiled. As a baby, she was so ill that she was baptised on the spot, for fear she might die. Javotte, the Temples' old nurse, helped her through her illness. She starts school later than the other girls, and finds it a strange experience, but happily settles in and becomes part of Mary-Lou Trelawney's Gang. She hopes to train as a chauffeur and secretary.

Piers dies when he is still a baby.

Janice is the baby of the Chesters, and mainly appears in the Swiss books. She is part of a trio with Ailie Russell and Judy Willoughby, and is involved in a prank where she and her friends stash random bits of property into the Lost Property Cupboard, much to the annoyance of the prefects. She is constantly in trouble, to the point where Peter threatens to send her to the English Chalet School branch instead of the Swiss one. She loves art and wants to study textiles.

Answer: Dick and Mollie Bettany

Dick Bettany is Joey Bettany's older brother, and Madge's twin. (Twins must be hereditary in the Bettany family, as each sibling has at least one set!) He meets his Irish wife Mollie while working for the Forestry Commission in India.

Peggy and Rix (real name Richard) are the first set of Bettany twins, born in India. Rix is dark and cheeky, while Peggy is blonde and docile. Along with Bride and Jackie, they spend their early years living in the Tyrol with the Russell family while Mollie and Dick are in India. Peggy is the first of the Maynard/Russell/Bettany children to become a Head Girl, as detailed in 'Peggy of the Chalet School'. She is friends with Dickie Christy and Daphne Russell (no relation). She takes time out of school to care for Mollie when Mollie is ill with Graves' disease. She marries Lieutenant Giles Winterton and has two children, while Rix becomes a doctor.

Bride (real name Bridget) is the second Bettany to become a Head Girl. She is part of a group which also includes Nancy Chester, Julie Lucy, the Ozanne twins and Tom Gay, and Elfie Woodward is her best friend. She is academic and wears glasses, and is the plainest of the Bettany girls. 'Bride Leads the Chalet School' focuses on her time as Head Girl. After leaving school, she gets engaged to a barrister called Simon Carrington.

Jackie (real name John) is born on Christmas Day. He spends most of his early years away from his parents as they are in India. He is good at maths and loves fretwork. When he is in his teens, he prefers to be called 'John'.

Maurice and Maeve are the second set of twins, born in India after Dick and Mollie have returned there. There is some friction initially between them and their older siblings, who the twins do not meet until they are eight years old, when the Bettanys return to England and the family are all living together. Maeve is sporty and not very academic, but still becomes Head Girl like her older sisters. She plans to join a touring agency and work as a courier when she leaves school.

Daphne is the baby of the family, and her first name is actually Theresa. She is the only Bettany child who is not born in India, and does not attend the Chalet School.

Answer: Colin and Lucia MacNab

Although the MacNab and Marilliar girls appear in the 'Chalet School' series - specifically during the war years - they were introduced in 'Monica Comes Up Trumps', where Monica Marilliar is the main character. It is set at Braemar House in Medbury, a town in the fictional county of Armishire. Colin and Lucia MacNab are Monica's aunt and uncle, who live in Kenya and send their daughters over to the UK for their education. They are later killed in a thunderstorm on the Karoo in South Africa, where they are farming, just before the Second World War breaks out.

Vicky is the oldest of the MacNab children. She and her siblings are all named after Royal Family members. Vicky is very academic and loves science, which is not on offer at Braemar House, but is at the Chalet School. She and Alixe transfer to the Chalet School after Braemar House closes down. She becomes a doctor like her uncle after leaving school.

Alixe (real name Alexandra) is very shy, compared to her bossy older sister, and is in the same year as Monica. She has problems with her health, but does get better. She becomes friends with Gillian Culver.

George and Molly are twins, and Ned is the baby of the family. Molly has Elfie Woodward and Anne Montague to stay with her in the holidays when both are bombed out of their homes. She is still at the school when it moves to St Briavel's in 'The Chalet School and the Island'.

Answer: Sir Jeremy and Lady Culver

Admittedly, this is a bit of an obscure choice, and needs explaining. Gillian Culver appears in the 'Chalet School' books set during the Second World War, but also appears under another series by Elinor M Brent-Dyer, the 'Chudleigh Hold' adventure series, in which her name is Arminel, and she and her aristocratic family are the Chudleighs instead of the Culvers. Gillian Culver of the 'Chalet School' series and Arminel Chudleigh are different versions of the same character (in-universe, Jo talks about writing a book about Gillian's family and changing their names). None of her family appear in the 'Chalet School' series, though a couple of siblings do get a mention. Because this quiz mainly focuses on the 'Chalet School' series, I will be referring to the Chudleigh family as the Culvers in this section.

Sir Godfrey is the head of the family, following the death of Sir Jeremy Culver in a car crash. He goes to South America to sell some bulls, and is kidnapped while in Argentina, leading to the events of 'Condor Crags'. He has two children, and is mentioned in 'The Chalet School in the Oberland'.

Merrill, aka Merle, is the second oldest Culver and looks after the younger children. She is mentioned in 'The Mystery at the Chalet School', when Gillian reckons Merrill would never make an actress. Her name is a traditional Culver family name that has been passed down over the generations. She lives in Devon.

Charles and Cherry (real name Charlotte) are twins, named for their grandmother Charlotte, as they were born on her birthday. Charles is disabled as a result of the car crash that killed his father, and is at Oxford University. Charlotte is the beauty of the family, as Gay Lambert mentions in 'Gay from China', and has a short temper. She regularly writes to Charles when he is at university.

Peregrine is nicknamed 'Hawk' because of his beaky nose and habit of 'hovering over a point before pouncing on it'. He is an aspiring writer and a bit of a loner, and is at Bristol University. He is the protagonist of 'Top Secret', where he is shipwrecked on the way to Australia.

Venancy is very cheerful and loves music, but is not academic. She is dismissive towards foreigners. She plays the piano, and later becomes a concert pianist. Her name comes from her Cornish grandmother.

Gillian is nicknamed 'Crumpet', and is called Arminel Chudleigh in the 'Chudleigh Hold' books. She is skinny and nervous, clueless about music, and the plain one of the family. She is in the same form as Gay Lambert and Jacynth Hardy in the 'Chalet School' series, and becomes Head Girl. She later spends some time with one of her sisters in Kenya, and gets a job as secretary at the Welsen finishing school branch of the Chalet School.

Benedict, aka Benny, is the baby of the family, and Lady Culver died giving birth to him. He has long curly hair, which he cuts because other kids keep teasing him about it.

Answer: Jack and Joey Maynard

Joey is the heroine of the 'Chalet School' series, and Jack her doctor husband, a colleague of her brother-in-law Jem. Unlike her older siblings, none of her children are born in the Tyrol.

Len (Mary Helena), Con (Mary Constance) and Margot (Mary Margaret) are the triplets, born in Guernsey, with three distinct personalities; Len is dutiful and serious, Con is an artistic dreamer, and Margot is sporty and has a terrible temper, which causes problems for her throughout the series. Margot goes to Canada with the Russells as her parents are worried about her health and think the climate is better out there, with the rest of the family eventually joining them. Con aspires to be a writer and journalist, Len plans to teach, and Margot wants to become a medical missionary. Len becomes Head Girl like her mother, while Con edits the school magazine (also like her mother) and Margot is Games Prefect.

Stephen is the oldest Maynard boy, and the most sensible. He wants to be an engineer. He and his brothers are all sent to boarding school in England once they are old enough.

Charles is sensitive and quiet, and has a few worries over his health when he is little. He loves animals and nature. Jo reckons he might become a priest.

Mike is the naughtiest boy, and triggers a long fainting episode in Joey when he goes over a cliff looking for birds' eggs. He loves boats and the sea. He shares a tutor with Winnie Embury's sons. He hopes to get into Dartmouth and join the Navy.

Felix and Felicity are the first set of Maynard twins, with white blonde hair. Felicity is very into ballet. Both children attend the Chalet School until Felix comes of age and goes to prep school in England like his brothers.

Cecil is named after Robin (Cecilia Marya), and Nina Rutherford writes a song about her in 'A Genius at the Chalet School'. She looks like a mini version of Con. In 'Triplets', she is kidnapped by a mentally ill woman who mistakes Cecil for her own daughter.

Geoff and Phil (Philippa) are the second set of twins. Geoff is a slow learner, and Phil has major health problems, both with mastoid and polio. They both have red hair.

The Maynards also have several adopted children: Ruey, Roger and Roddy Richardson, who they meet on holiday in Tyrol, and whose father essentially abandons them to go into space and never comes back; Erica Standish, the daughter of a friend Joey made in India; and Marie-Claire de Mabillon, a little French girl whose parents were killed in a train crash.

Answer: Julian and Janie Lucy

Janie is the youngest (and plainest) of the Temple girls, and is Anne and Elizabeth's half-sister by Captain Temple's second wife. She marries her childhood friend Julian Lucy, a barrister. She befriends Joey Maynard when the Chalet School relocates to Guernsey, and is the heroine of several 'La Rochelle' books.

Julie (short for Juliette) is the oldest of the Lucy children, named for her grandmother, and is the first to become Head Girl. She and her cousin Nancy are very close, and Nancy suffers anguish when Julie comes down with peritonitis in 'Bride Leads the Chalet School'. She plays a mean game of cricket. She studies law after leaving school and is intending to become a barrister, but has to give up her job when she marries a teacher at her brother's school, and has two children.

John is a prankster, and gets into trouble for swapping Colonel Hayward's doormat for an old shredded one. He goes to prep school.

Betsy looks a lot like her mother, and is the second Lucy girl to become Head Girl, in the Swiss years. She plays the violin, despite knowing little about music. She is good friends with Sybil Russell as a child. She is very strict towards her relatives as a Head Girl.

Vi (short for Viola) is the prettiest of the Lucy children, and is one of Mary-Lou Trelawney's best friends and a Gang member. Her first name is actually Mary. She also plays the violin and is a talented artist, and goes to art college when she leaves school, with the plan of working as an illustrator.

Barney (real name Barnabas, his father's middle name) is born around the time the Chalet School moves to Guernsey.

Kitten (real name Katharine) is the baby of the family, and is in a form with younger girls - including Felicity Maynard - as she is lazy and not academic. Her nickname is 'Tuppence'. She joins the Chalet School late in the series, as a kindergarten student.