Ladette to Lady - Episode 3
11 October 2006
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This week the ladettes get the chance to be chalet girls in Verbier, one of Switzerland’s most prestigious ski resorts. They’ve got just two days to prepare for the job interviews - but with six ladettes and only three vacancies, competition for a place will be stiff. Being a chalet girl was a rite of passage for Finishing School graduates and Cleonie Stenhouse from Lumley’s Catering Recruitment used to come to Eggleston Hall in the 1970s and 80s to sign up the best graduates. Now she has agreed to recruit three ladettes.While most are excited about the opportunity, not wanting to be left behind at Eggleston, Northern lass Victoria, who has only ever been abroad once before on a girls holiday to Ayia Napa, isn’t feeling too optimistic:“I know it’s just Switzerland, but what if something goes wrong, what if they have a right big storm or something like that and we all get killed?”After seeing all six girls she tells Principal Gill Harbord that: “they would all be a total disaster”. Nevertheless, Essex hairdresser Frances Rowe, binge drinker Victoria Jenkins and tomboy Clara Mayer are hired and set off for the Alps.The girls are ecstatic with this achievement. Frances particularly can’t believe her luck and is in tears as she says: “My dad is going to be so proud of me. This is amazing.”The ladettes soon discover that being a chalet girl is no holiday. They’ll have to prepare gourmet meals on an extremely tight budget, keep the chalet in impeccable condition and play hostess to eight demanding men. Things get off to a shaky start when their cake disintegrates as soon as it is taken out of the oven. Eager to get on the slopes the ladettes replace it with a shop-bought one and their guests are suitably impressed – but it’s an act of deception that will return to haunt them. Their guests sit down to what they hope will be a cordon- bleu meal and are served up what can only be described as a school dinner.Invited out for some après ski fun, the girls revert back to their old ways and before long are up on podiums, grinding on the dancefloor and matching the men drink for drink, to the shock of all around them.With only a few hours sleep the girls are bleary eyed as they rouse themselves to cook breakfast for their guests. Hungover, Vicky decides she can’t face the world and snuggles back into her bed only to get a rude awakening when she finds Rosemary Schrager stood over her bed demanding to know why she has disgraced herself.When Mrs Shrager asks the guests about the cooking she’s mystified to hear praise for an apple and cinnamon cake – a recipe she never taught them.
Meanwhile at Eggleston Hall, scouser Louise Porter, Chelsea Fan Laura Hearsum and barmaid Rebecca Squire have been set an unforgiving timetable of deportment, elocution and flower-arranging lessons. It’s an opportunity to get ahead and after a week of hard grind the girls are rewarded with a night off.
With a glint in their eyes, the girls are soon in the local pub, necking shots and getting to know some of the locals more than a little better. Before long, self confessed sex addict Rebecca is snogging a local boy while the other girls lap up the attention around them. Night at an end, the girls lurch home, triumphantly clutching phone numbers and missing their curfew by more than three hours.
The following morning the three girls are summoned to face a furious Gill Harbourd who interrogates them on the antics of their night on the tiles.
A suspiciously demure Rebecca confesses to speaking to a ‘gentleman’ and informs a sceptical Gill Harbord that when he attempted to kiss her she refused his advances.
With years of teaching experience behind her, Gill won’t easily be fooled and resolves to get to the bottom of the matter.
Meanwhile, Becky justifies her morals and actions to the other girls, proving that she still has a lot to learn about becoming a lady: “Yeah I did snog someone but I ain’t gonna tell her that. I don’t feel like I’ve cheapened myself for having a drunken snog. I could have like, gone to the toilets and had a quickie with him but I didn’t do that.”
At the weekly assessments three girls are in the firing line. Forced to explain how they made a cinnamon and apple cake Clara Mayer’s tissue of lies is soon exposed. Victoria Jenkins gets a rollicking for committing the cardinal sin of turning up late – and still drunk – for breakfast at the chalet. And given the opportunity to come clean about what really happened on her trip to the pub Rebecca makes the fatal mistake of telling a half-truth to Gill Harbord, claiming she received nothing more than a peck on the cheek from her rough admirer.
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