St Trinian's School

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Cover of a modern re-issue of St Trinian's drawings

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.

1 The films
2 The real St. Trinnean's School
3 Books
4 Films
5 External link

[edit] The films

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 Sgt Ruby Gates, 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 Schools", an obvious parody of the Ministry of Education. The first four films form a chronological quartet, and were produced by Frank Launder and Sidney Gilliat.

In the films St Trinian's became an unorthodox girls school where the younger girls wreaked havoc and the older girls expressed their femininity overtly. The latter turned their shapeless schoolgirl dress into something sexy and risqué by the standards of the times: skirts are short and show the tops of the dark stockings that the girls wear, and busts are prominently displayed, albeit covered by the tunic and shirt of the uniform. The overall effect is to emphasise the hourglass figure and long legs that were regarded as the female ideal of the time. St Trinian's is often referenced casually to connote 'girls in sexy school uniforms' -- or, alternatively, for groups of schoolgirls who are running riot. For example, Britney Spears in the pop music video ...Baby One More Time (song) wears 'sexy schoolgirl' attire which is reminiscent of the girls of St Trinian's.

The St Trinian's girls themselves come in two categories: the Fourth Form, most closely resembling Searle's original drawings of ink-stained, ungovernable pranksters, and the much older Sixth Form (one of them is even married), sexually precocious to a degree that must have seemed somewhat alarming in 1954. In the films, the Fourth Form includes a number of much younger girls who are the most ferocious of them all. Indeed, it is something of a rule of thumb that the smaller a St Trinians girl is, the more dangerous she is, especially with a "weapon" (most commonly a lacrosse or hockey stick) in her hands -- though none of them can ever be considered harmless.

St Trinian's is presided over by the genial Miss Millicent Fritton (Sim in drag), whose philosophy is summed up as: "In other schools girls are sent out quite unprepared into a merciless world, but when our girls leave here, it is the merciless world which has to be prepared."

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 role), and Kylie Minogue. This information was confirmed by Rupert Everett on The Bigger Picture with Graham Norton (aired 16 October 2006 in the UK). Furthermore, Emily Watson, Russell Brand and even Stephen Fry have become involved with the production.[2]

[edit] The real St. Trinnean's School

St. Leonard's Hall, Pollock Halls of Residence, Edinburgh University
Home of St Trinnean's School for Girls until World War II [1]

Rear of St. Leonard's Hall, Pollock Halls of Residence, Edinburgh University

St Trinians is named after St Trinnean's in Edinburgh. It was originally situated at 10 Palmerston Road just off Grange Road. It was established by Miss C. Fraser Lee and opened on 4th October 1922 with sixty girls.

She practised the revolutionary Dalton system of education - where the emphasis was on self rather than school imposed discipline - which led to it being said that St Trinnean's was the school "where they do what they like".

In 1925 the school moved from Palmerston Road to St Leonard's House near Dalkeith Road - and at the beginning of the second world war moved again to Gala House in Galashiels. The school was closed in 1946 after the retirement of Miss Lee Fraser.

So how did the name, albeit modified, end up in film?

Apparently, the story goes that a family by the name of Johnston whose two daughters attended St Trinnean's were evacuated to Kirkudbright, where they met one Sapper (Ronald) Searle. He drew a cartoon depicting his idea of the school attended by the girls which was published by Lilliput. After the war (which Searle spent part of in a Japanese POW camp) Lilliput published the cartoons. The first film was made in 1954.

10 Palmerston Road is now in private ownership, as are all the surrounding houses

Nowadays the building they moved to is called St Leonard's Hall, and is part of Pollock Halls of Residence for the University of Edinburgh; it is used for administration and conferences. One of the rooms within is called St Trinneans.

The school's existence came to light when The Scotsman announced a reunion coffee party for old girls in September 1955. By this time, the fictional school had become so fixed in the national consciousness 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.

A more recent reunion was in 1998. The old girls include author Helen Lillie.

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)