Angela Brazil

In January of 2012, one of the Facebook friends I’d made through reading Jane Shaw suggested reading a book by Angela Brazil. I felt a bit infra dig about it, I must admit. But I went to Project Gutenberg and read the first one I came across, A Patriotic Schoolgirl. It was written during the Great War and there was a lot of patriotism and an avalanche of anti-German sentiment. But at the same time it was a school story. I quite enjoyed it. A few weeks later, I read another one called A Fourth Form Friendship, published in 1911. It centred around a girl called Aldred who is prone to fibbing and overconfidence. I liked this story too. After that, I didn’t read an Angela Brazil book for three years. In January of this year, I read three of her books in a row: A Pair of Schoolgirls (1912), For the School Colours (1918), and A Fortunate Term (1921). The author was a very gifted writer and captures nature, climate, mood and character with great skill. Of these three books, A Fortunate Term was the best. It was also very popular when it was published, so much so that it led the author to break what might be called a golden rule for her. Angela Brazil, unlike most writers of school stories, never wrote a series of books. With the exception of A Fortunate Term, all of her works are stand-alone titles. However, Mavis and Merle Ramsay, the heroines, were so popular that readers wrote to her requesting a sequel. She complied, and in 1922 she published Monitress Merle. This was also an excellent book, every bit as good as the first.

The two books tell the story of Mavis and Merle, aged 15 and 14, respectively. Mavis is the quiet one and Merle is feisty, determined and dominant. The older girl is frequently in poor health and her condition is not aided by the climate in the northern industrial town of Whinburn. So, her mother decides that she will send her daughters down to Devonshire to live with their great-uncle and aunt, Dr. David and Nellie Tremayne. The story is set in the fictional villages of Durracombe and Chagmouth. Mrs. Ramsay impresses Mavis by promising her that flowers are still in bloom in December in the kinder southern climate. The Tremaynes live in Durracombe, but the doctor’s practice takes him to Chagmouth every Saturday, and the girls go with him in his car. Merle is very enthusiastic about learning to drive. However, as that is not yet possible, the girls have to be content with their new school, The Moorings, run by two elderly ladies.

Like most of Angela Brazil’s other books, the story is split between their time at school and their lives in the surrounding area. The girls come up against some unpleasant characters like Opal, the head girl at The Moorings who openly declares that she doesn’t like the idea of new girls bustling in from “big schools”. There is also the unpleasant nouveau riche Williams family who act as if they own the village of Chagmouth (although the girls form a sort of friendship in the end). However, there are pleasant characters like new friends Iva and Nesta. And there is an orphan called Bevis who has already left school. He is a hard-working young man who has been cast a bad lot in life, but remains optimistic. The story trundles along, with all sorts of adventures, but also some moving scenes, one in particular when a man dies, making a stunning revelation before he goes. Of course, things turn out well for Bevis in the end, Mavis’s health improves and the girls do well at school.

I waited seven months before I turned to Monitress Merle. This too was a wonderful story and we see the girls’ characters developing. At the end of the story, Bevis proposes to Mavis.

What I liked about Angela Brazil’s writing is her skill in describing scenes, especially nature and landscapes. She brings the world alive to her readers. On a less serious note, she was also famous for the unusual slang she put into the mouths of her characters. It was rumoured that Miss Brazil would sit near schoolgirls on buses and note down what they said. This is probably not true, seeing that very few, if any, of her phrases entered the vernacular. Some examples: 

Sophonisba!

Dona, you’re ostriching.

It’s a grizzly nuisance. Strafe it all!

Rouse up, you old bluebottle!

Miss Jones is a stunt, as jinky as you like

Oh, jubilate!

It’s a sneaking rag to prig their bikkies.

Scootons nous vite!

We’re having a top hole time.

What a blazing shame.

It’s a blossomy idea

More goose you!

Angela Brazil (1868-1947) wrote almost fifty books, most of them set in boarding schools. She was one of the first writers to write for the pleasure of her readers rather than to teach them a moral lesson. Her books were considered controversial in some quarters and were banned in some schools, although by today’s standards they are quite tame. The books were at their height of popularity in the 1920s, though they continued to sell quite well into the 1960s. Although most people pronounce her name like the country Brazil, the correct pronunciation of her name was actually ‘brazzle’.