Mischief at St Rollo's

[tix]

Always interesting to learn of a different pronunciation as opposed to one's own.

I've always called the 'Rolo' chocs - "Role O" (Roll - o) and the same goes for 'Mischief at St Rollo's.'

Now I'm wondering if anyone pronounces it to rhyme with 'Doll - o.'

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Incidentally, the above will present any neophyte with an understanding of just how deep a Blyton follower is prepared to go when E.B's works are investigated and discussed!

[Anita Bensoussane]

Like you, Tix, I say ROLL - O for the chocolate sweets and the school.

I thought it very odd that Enid should have chosen the name Hugh for a book written in 1943 - the year after she divorce Hugh Pollock! And, she published the book under her former married name.

That stood out to me too when I re-read the book as an adult. Was Hugh simply the first name that came to mind, so Enid went with it for the time being but it ended up sticking? Or was it a deliberate choice for whatever reason? Maybe there was nothing personal in it but she just felt that the name fitted the character. I suppose we'll never know!

[Moonraker]

The only Rollo I could find is this one.

[Daisy]

I've always pronounced St Rollo's as rhyming with 'doll' But the chocs I call 'Rolo' as in roll over. Our language is not consistent!

[Jomo]

The only Rollo I could find is this one.

There’s the Scottish Clan Rollo! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clan_Rollo

[GloomyGraham]

Rollo was a shortening of Roland, not an uncommon name in French families.

interesting but I can't believe Enid used an abbreviation as a name for one of her schools.

Would the doctor and lawyer parents of those schoolgirls (and boys) truly have sent their children to a common sounding school like 'Saint Bills'. 'Saint Dicks' or 'Saint Caths'?

The sources I've read about the 'famous' Rollo say it was a Viking name which - in French - would have been Rollon.

[Lucky Star]

In the old adverts for Rolo sweets the slogan was "do you love anyone enough to give them your last rolo"? The name Rolo was always pronounced as Role O. As these adverts were made by the manufacturor I would imagine that is the correct way to say the sweets' name.

[Boatbuilder]

The sources I've read about the 'famous' Rollo say it was a Viking name which - in French - would have been Rollon.

Isn't Rollon a kind of deodorant stick?

[Jomo]

To recap: there is no St Rollo, the closest we can get to this name is a non-sainted Viking invader or British chap named Roland who became a local celebrity saint in a not very prominent region of France.
As Blyton was a non-adherent baptist, a sometime CofE attender, her knowledge of saint’s names probably wasn’t encyclopaedic.
She invented a saint’s name, as you might for a work of fiction, thus avoiding perceptions of any preference across the catholic/ protestant divide and not turning off readers from either side. It’s not a significant issue in the context of the story of this book except that she is subtly presenting a narrative steeped in particular christian values, and naming the school after a ‘saint’ signals this quite effectively.

As for the pronunciation of ‘Rollo’: https://youtu.be/hY7fZHE_QFA

[Nair Snehalatha]

Mischief at St. Rollo's is a fabulous book.Hugh was treated rather unfairly and left out of things-- later they.get to.know the real reason.-- which changes Hugh.It's like the schoolstories and The naughtiest.girl.stories

[Jomo]

I’d love to get involved in a continuation story, these characters and their interplays are just waiting to be developed. I would aim it at the younger reader age group. As someone with a dyslexic child, who struggled at school, it could be a good way of looking at the issues, in a general sense, through the character of Hugh - what if he really isn’t all that thick, but has a specific learning disability, dyslexia, or undiagnosed hearing problems, something along those lines?
I’d go easy on the French teacher though, I know ‘frog-baiting’ might seem like fun, but I’m prepared to go a bit pc on this. I’m sure there are all kinds of mischief Tom can get up to without torturing the poor Frenchman.

[dsr]

In EB's time, the standard state senior school would start at 11 years old and 11-12 would be first form, 12-13 would be second form, and so on.

The traditional private school numbered differently. Prep schools (St Rollo's is perhaps closest to one of these) would be age 9-13, so 9-10 would be first form and 12-13 would be fourth form.

But senior private schools added a new complication. Malory towers and St Clare's seem to start at year 1 which children going at 11 or 12. Though Malory Towers did, if memory serves, squeeze in a Lower and Upper fourth. But then, girls would move up a year in the middle of term sometimes - no idea how that worked!

Other senior schools, especially the boys' public schools but also Antonia Forest's Kingscote and (I presume) real schools as well, would partly use the prep school system. 9-10 first form, 10-11 second form, 11-12 third form. Then 12-13 lower fourth, 13-14 upper fourth, 14-15 lower fifth, 15-16 upper fifth. This cvuld apply even if the school didn't take pupils under the age of 11 or 13 - the youngest class might be called the third form, for example.

All schools could make their own rules! The year 1 to year 13 standard didn't exist when EB was writing.

[Jomo]

I believe that here the private school system here didn’t have to conform to the model for state education so long as the students were well prepared for the final public exams.
I now recall that my mother and her sister didn’t actually go to school until they were seven and eight years old. It was a private school and it was possible to enrol in prep from age 6, but the school also ran a separate kindergarten which took children from age 4. My grandparents kept them away from both, effectively homeschooling them for the first 3-4 ‘school years’, due to the serious and highly infectious illnesses that were prevalent in the early 1930’s (grandfather was a doctor and had contracted rheumatic fever as a child).
Anyway, at that school second form would have been for 7 year olds, possibly 8 year olds. My aunt would have been placed in the appropriate age cohort initially, but she did three double promotions during her school career and was 15 when she started university. That would have been impossible within the rigidity of the public school system.

[Bertie]

This is one of the few 'school' stories of Enid's that I have ever read / owned. And I think it was probably bought, initially, because my older brothers wanted to read the 'Children of Kidillin' adventure that's the other story in the book.
I've just re-read both, for the first time in years, and enjoyed them. Mischief at St Rollo's reads very much like most of the PG Wodehouse school books that he wrote very early in his career. Such as 'The Pothunters' or 'The Gold Bat'. They are always a mix of that same kind of humour that Enid showed here, and also often feature a misunderstood protagonist, and an occasional light mystery thrown in. This read very similar to those, and, as such, I quite enjoyed it and found it a good bonus read. Same, too, with 'The Children of Kidillin'. They were two very different types of books, but both enjoyable in different ways.

[IceMaiden]

I'm very fond of MaSR, I think it crams a lot of story in a small book and it's rather nice to have a shorter school story to read as a one off. I never read just one book out of a series so if I feel like a school set story this one's perfect.

As for the name, I've always pronounced it to rhyme with 'hollow' because in the Animals of Farthing Wood cartoon I watched when younger there was a St Bernard dog in it called Rollo, and that is how it was pronounced on there.

Rollo with double LL like hollow
Rolo with one L like solo