British boarding school stories

[Tabouli]

No-one's mentioned my favorite British boarding school stories, namely the books on the Marlow family by Antonia Forest.  Excellent, those.  Malory Towers and St Clares, but with realism and characterisation and plausibility.  In fact, so many of Enid's stock characters (the twins starting at a girl's boarding school, the spoilt whinger, the troublemaker, the strict teacher, the stressed swot, etc.) appear in fully fleshed out form in Antonia's books I was once almost tempted to compare and contrast the series in an M. Ed. degree.  Mercifully, reason prevailed.

There are four school stories and six set during the holidays (published betwen 1948 and 1982), which is a departure from the usual trend.  They are as follows:

Autumn Term (12yo twins with 4 distinguished older sisters start at boarding school)
The Marlows and the Traitor (set during holidays: 3 youngest Marlows get kidnapped by a spy)
Falconer's Lure (set during holidays: the Marlows move to the country and Nicola takes up falconry)
End of Term (school story centred on the end of year Christmas play)
Peter's Room (the Marlows & next door neighbour Patrick do a Brontes based roleplay over Christmas)
The Thuggery Affair (two of the Marlows & Patrick run in with a local gang)
The Ready-Made Family (19yo family genius Karen comes home from her 1st term at Oxford announcing that she is marrying a 41yo widower with three kids)
Cricket Term (school story centred around the interform cricket tournament)
Attic Term (school story centred around the beautiful, scatty Ginty's relationship with Patrick)
Run Away Home (the Marlows help an abducted boy return to Switzerland)

It's fascinating to compare these with the more formulaic school stories written in the same era, if you can get hold of them (only the first one is still in print, as it's been re-released as a children's classic).  So many of the classic school story conventions don't apply.  Teacher and adults in general are fallible and often unfair.  Villains and unpopular kids don't always reform.  Sex and death actually exist, people die in the books, two of the Marlow children are seen in intimate relationships, homosexuality and menstruation both rate a (brief but definite) mention.  The books *have* dated (especially The Thuggery Affair, which is very 60s indeed), but they're still very believable.

A lot of the above also apply to Harry Potter, of course.  I'd put Harry somewhere between the formulaic and the Marlows: JKR's more 'gloved' about a lot of subjects than AF is.

Has anyone read these?  (Wendy?  I know Vicky's hugely into them...)

Tabouli.

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