St Trinian's School
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St Trinian's is a fictional girls' school which was created as a series of cartoons by Ronald Searle, a British cartoonist. The school is the antithesis of the Enid Blyton-type posh girls' boarding school, in that its pupils are wicked (and often well-armed). The teachers (or "mistresses", as female teachers in Britain were often known at the time) are also disreputable. Cartoons often showed dead bodies of girls who had been murdered with pitchforks or succumbed to violent team sports, sometimes with vultures circling; girls often drank, gambled, and smoked. It is reputed that the gym-slip style of dress worn by the girls was closely modelled on the uniform of the school that Searle's daughter Kate attended, JAGS in Dulwich. There is no suggestion that the behaviour of the girls or their armoury shared the same inspiration.
From preliminary sketches, St Trinian's became a series of comedy films featuring such British screen luminaries as Alastair Sim (in drag as the schoolmistress, but also playing her brother), George Cole as "Flash Harry", and Joyce Grenfell as Ruby, a beleaguered policewoman. The school became embroiled in a number of shady enterprises, thanks mainly to Flash, and, as a result, was always threatened with closure by the Ministry of Education. The first four films form a chronological quartet, and were produced by Frank Launder and Sidney Gilliat.
The 1980 film was critically derided. In 2002 there were vague rumours that there could be a further film made, possibly with Rupert Everett (in the Alastair Sim's role), and Kylie Minogue; nothing more has been heard since.
The real St. Trinnean's School
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There was a real St. Trinnean's [sic] School for Girls in Edinburgh until the end of World War II, and it did provide the name for Searle's fictional girl's school (the daughters of a friend were pupils). The school's existence came to light when The Scotsman announced a reunion coffee party for old girls in September, 1955 (the fictional school had become so fixed in the national consciousness by this time that the typesetter adopted Searle's spelling in the advertisement rather than the correct spelling). In an interview with the Sunday Express, the Headmistress firmly denied that her girls were anything like their fictional counterparts.
Books
- Hurrah for St Trinian's (1948)
- The Female Approach (1950)
- Back to the Slaughterhouse (1952)
- The Terror of St Trinians or Angela's Prince Charming (1952 - text by Timothy Shy, pen-name for D. B. Wyndham-Lewis)
- Souls in Torment (1953)
Films
- The Belles of St Trinian's (1954, the first film)
- Blue Murder at St Trinian's (1957, the second film)
- The Pure Hell of St Trinian's (1960, the third film)
- The Great St Trinian's Train Robbery (1966, the final film of the quartet)
- The Wildcats of St Trinian's (1980, with Maureen Lipman taking on the Joyce Grenfell role)
External link
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