Chalet School centenary 1925-2025

So when I was a teenager I was obsessed with the Chalet School series by Elinor M Brent-Dyer.

I was in a fan club, and in 1994 I entered a competition for a new magazine cover (didn't win). I recently came across it, and thought that, as 2025 was the centenary of the first book, I might have a go at redoing it. I realise I'm cutting it a little fine...

My 1994 cover:

This was Before Computers, so I used film with a dotty pattern for the shading!

Actually, I preferred my initial idea, which back then I had discounted as 'not working', so  based my new idea on that one. 

And because it's not going to be photocopied, I decided to use colour. But, to give myself a challenge, used a limited palette: black, white, uniform colours of brown & flame, gentian blue & crimson, a pale straw colour, and green. I got variety by using paler versions of the colours - no colour mixing.

The uniforms are: left -1920s, bottom - 1930s/40s, top - 1950s, when the school split and we follow the new branch with a new colour scheme, and right - 1960s.

I quite like it. There's a lot of stuff that could be improved (not least the faces), but since it was just for fun and I'm running out of time this year, I won't!

Happy Easter 🥚🥚🥚

Was in the corner shop today, and there were creme eggs and biscoff eggs on the counter.

Who is my neighbour?

Came across this on Facebook the other day.

Faith and reason and reasons for faith

Watching Bones, and I found this conversation at the end of an episode (5:14 The Devil in the Details) fascinating. 

Booth is a practising Catholic, with genuine faith (sometimes muddled, but real).

Bones is a logical empiricist and atheist, who frequently says that she doesn't understand how anyone intelligent could believe in God (she's autistic - tact is not her strong point!).

They have just been dealing with a particularly troubling case, in which there has been a lot of discussion about good and evil and religion.

 

BONES: I need to ask you some things.

BOOTH: You gonna ask me about God and the Devil?

BONES: Yes!

BOOTH: You're going to ask me how God can place such a burden on good people.

BONES: No, I'm going to ask you how you can still believe in a kind God after a case like this.

BOOTH: Was my faith shaken? 
Yeah. Mm-hmm. It is.

BONES: It is?

BOOTH: Yeah. I'll go home tonight and I'll lie in bed, and I'll toss, and I'll turn, and I'll beat myself up, and uh...I'll question everything.

BONES: Will you get your faith back?

BOOTH: Always have in the past.

BONES: So you have faith that you will retain your faith. 

(Booth nods) 

BONES: Why?

BOOTH: Because, Bones, it's...the sun'll come up, and tomorrow's a new day.

BONES: I know that feeling.

BOOTH: Really?

BONES: Mm-hmm.

BOOTH: You know what it feels like to get your faith back?

BONES: When I see effects and I am unable to discern the cause, my faith in reason and consequences is shaken.

BOOTH: And then what happens?

BONES: Two plus two equals four. I put sugar in my coffee and it tastes sweet. The sun comes up because the world turns. 

These things are beautiful to me. 

There are mysteries I will never understand, but everywhere I look, I see proof that for every effect there is a corresponding cause. Even if I can't see it. I find that reassuring.

BOOTH: And life is good again.

BONES: Life is very good.

BOOTH: Yes it is. Amen

(Both laugh)

 

 

This made me think of a quote by C.S. Lewis:

"I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else."

And then a line from a song came into my head: "the sun came up today" - which after a fair bit of brain-racking I realised was this, by Andrew Peterson:

 

 

And now I'd better get back to work...