{"id":6184,"date":"2020-12-27T01:10:57","date_gmt":"2020-12-26T14:10:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/?p=6184"},"modified":"2020-12-27T13:20:14","modified_gmt":"2020-12-27T02:20:14","slug":"the-cricket-term-by-antonia-forest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/2020\/12\/the-cricket-term-by-antonia-forest\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018The Cricket Term\u2019 by Antonia Forest"},"content":{"rendered":"

I am very happy to be back at Kingscote with Nicola and her friends and enemies for Book Eight of the Marlows series, although it\u2019s been three years since I read End of Term<\/em><\/a> and some of the details of that have faded from my memory. Unfortunately, Girls Gone By decided not to publish Book Seven, The Ready Made Family<\/em>, but hopefully I won\u2019t need to know about family events from the previous book to understand what\u2019s going on in The Cricket Term<\/em>.<\/p>\n

The cover of this book is not quite as bad as The Thuggery Affair<\/em><\/a>, but it\u2019s not great:<\/p>\n

\"'The<\/p>\n

Presumably that\u2019s Nicola in her old blue uniform, looking sad as she clutches something. A failed exam paper or a distressing letter? A student wearing the new red uniform hovers in the background appearing concerned. Is that Miranda? Esther? A prefect? It can\u2019t be Lawrie, who has never in her life been worried about anyone else\u2019s feelings. The back cover features a teacher in a billowing gown, looking like a benevolent vampire as she gazes upon the two girls: <\/p>\n

\"'The<\/p>\n

I have so many questions. Why are they all on the roof instead of watching the cricket match? Who is Head Girl this year? Will Evil Lois conspire to throw Nicola off whatever team sport is being played this term (cricket, presumably)? Will there be a school play, with more drama surrounding the casting than on the stage? Is Miranda still in love with Janice? Has Esther finally been reunited with Daks? Is Marie still a pathetic drip? Let\u2019s find out.<\/p>\n

Chapter One: Home\u2014<\/strong><\/p>\n

At Trennels, Nicola, Lawrie and Ann pack their bags to return to school \u2014 that is, Nicola packs her own suitcase and Ann packs for Lawrie, even though their mother orders Ann to stop acting as everyone else\u2019s unpaid servant. In yet another horrifying revelation about Kingscote\u2019s rules, girls are only allowed to take ONE BOOK to school each term! And it has to be an approved book, which The Mask of Apollo<\/em><\/a> isn\u2019t for Nicola, because it\u2019s only suitable for those in Upper Fifth and above! I haven\u2019t read The Mask of Apollo<\/em>, but I can\u2019t imagine what\u2019s so scandalous about it \u2014 unless the teachers are worried that girls will then start reading Mary Renault\u2019s non-historical books, like The Charioteer<\/em><\/a> and The Friendly Young Ladies<\/em><\/a>, and develop worrying ideas about same-sex relationships. Nicola\u2019s other chosen book is Ramage<\/em>, some Hornblower-ish novel. Ann, the prig, refuses to smuggle Apollo<\/em> into school for Nicola, and Lawrie is being a brat and refuses to do Nicola a favour unless Nicola swaps her share of The Idiot Boy, Patrick\u2019s \u201coutgrown pony\u201d. Why would Nicola have a share of The Idiot Boy? Has something happened to Buster? Ginty, by the way, is off snogging Patrick at his house. Maybe not snogging, perhaps just discussing hunting or falconry or Catholic martyrdom.<\/p>\n

Oh, good grief, now Karen, the family\u2019s brilliant scholar, has dropped out of Oxford to marry some ancient don who has three children! This is only a year since she left school, so she can\u2019t be more than nineteen years old. What is wrong<\/em> with this family? Isn\u2019t it bad enough that poor Rowan had to leave school to act as unpaid labourer on a farm she\u2019ll never inherit? Now Karen\u2019s an unpaid housekeeper and nanny for a man probably old enough to be her father (please<\/em> don\u2019t tell me he was her teacher). I don\u2019t know why they can\u2019t live at Oxford, but they all moved to Trennels, then when that got too much for everyone, Karen moved her new family into the farm manager\u2019s house, kicking out poor Mrs Tranter while Mr Tranter is in hospital. This works out for Karen, because she can send the children to the village school and then Colebridge Grammar and<\/em> she gets her laundry done by her mother\u2019s servants. Nicola belatedly realises how crafty and self-centred Karen is (\u201cHonestly, you\u2019re like Lawrie!\u201d) and Karen smugly admits this. <\/p>\n

Karen\u2019s new stepchildren are Charles\/Chas, Rose and Phoebe\/Fob, of indeterminate school age. The elder two seem to like Nicola, possibly because she saved Rose\u2019s life? Or at least, found Rose after the child ran away to Oxford a few weeks before? I don\u2019t know whether their mother is dead or divorced. Meanwhile, they\u2019re all eating bread-and-dripping and drinking orange-and-cream, which sounds revolting, while Karen toils away creating some elaborate pudding. She can\u2019t possibly let her family eat \u201cT.V things in packets\u201d because that\u2019s \u201cso unenterprising\u201d. This book is written, and presumably set, in 1974, but apparently none of the Marlow girls have gotten around to reading The Female Eunuch<\/em><\/a> yet.<\/p>\n

Chapter Two: Interval<\/strong><\/p>\n

Karen\u2019s husband, Edwin Dodd, has copied some bits out of a sixteenth century Trennels farm log for Nicola (adding a glossary and notes in Latin because Edwin\u2019s a pompous old show-off). The journal is about young Nicholas Marlow, who runs away from school after being beaten for saying something either blasphemous or treasonous, then is presumed dead for years, then turns up at his elder brother\u2019s house and reveals he was at sea with Walter Raleigh. Nicola is, of course, very excited by this. Young Nicholas has also watched \u201cAM\u201d (a Marlow or a Merrick ancestor?) \u201csuffer for the Faith\u201d and die at Tyburn. Then he goes off to be a \u201cplayer\u201d. <\/p>\n

Briefly, Nicola wished she were still friends enough with Patrick Merrick to go charging over, saying \u2018Look at this!\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Poor Nicola, thrown over for Ginty. But you deserve better than Patrick, Nicola.<\/p>\n

On the way home, Nicola meets Rowan and they discuss a money-making scheme to breed horses and have pony-riding at Trennels. Rowan also gives Nicola some advice about Evil Lois \u2014 \u201cJust watch she doesn\u2019t queer your pitch this term too\u201d \u2014 and Nicola rightly points out there\u2019s not much she can do about it if Lois does start plotting. Nicola is hoping they\u2019ll win the inter-form cricket match and Rowan advises her not to focus too much on dramatic batting and double centuries, but to concentrate on fielding, bowling and batting singles. Rowan and Nicola both agree that given a choice of being awarded the DSO or scoring fifty against the dastardly Australians, they\u2019d choose fifty against the Australians every time.<\/p>\n

I think cricket is the second most boring game in the universe, after golf, so I hope there\u2019s not too much of it in this book. But it sounds as though there will be.<\/p>\n

Also, Nicola notes that the older Marlow sisters are unimpressed with Karen:<\/p>\n

What with Kay’s silence over Edwin until she’d all but married him, and her crafty effort over the farmhouse, relations between her elder sisters seemed practically non-existent these days.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Did Karen suddenly drop out of Oxford and get married because she was pregnant<\/em>?<\/p>\n

The girls have a gloomy Last Dinner at Trennels before their mother drives them and Daks to the train station, with Nicola proudly wearing a battered old school hat handed down by three of her older sisters, to her mother\u2019s horror. <\/p>\n

Next, Chapter Three: -And Away<\/strong><\/p>\n

You may also be interested in reading:<\/p>\n

‘Autumn Term’ by Antonia Forest<\/a>
\n‘The Marlows and the Traitor’ by Antonia Forest<\/a>
\n‘Falconer’s Lure’ by Antonia Forest<\/a>
\n‘End of Term’ by Antonia Forest<\/a>
\n‘Peter’s Room’ by Antonia Forest<\/a>
\n‘The Thuggery Affair’ by Antonia Forest<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I am very happy to be back at Kingscote with Nicola and her friends and enemies for Book Eight of the Marlows series, although it\u2019s been three years since I read End of Term and some of the details of that have faded from my memory. Unfortunately, Girls Gone By decided not to publish Book … Continue reading \u2018The Cricket Term\u2019 by Antonia Forest<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[293],"tags":[25,181],"class_list":["post-6184","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-childrens-books","tag-antonia-forest","tag-mary-renault"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6184","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6184"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6184\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6201,"href":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6184\/revisions\/6201"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6184"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6184"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6184"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}