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My dates for the Family Trees are based on the Queen List I compiled, which in turn is based on a date of 1912/13 for the events of Girls of the Hamlet Club. This is the latest year they could reasonably have occurred if they had actually taken place, allowing for writing and publication. A date of 1899 for Joan’s (and Joy's) birth would be equally acceptable to me and I am grateful for Kay Griffith’s workings-out from A Go-Ahead School-Girl, which I probably hadn’t read when I did the Queen list, and New Abbey Girls I’d only recently had in an early edition.
I certainly didn’t want to set any dates LATER as it seems relevant that on my dating - and Kay’s - the Twins are crowned in 1938/9 and therefore there is no reason for people to moan about EJO’s not mentioning WW II - it wouldn't have happened yet. This also squares reasonably well with the forebodings hinted at in Daring Doranne which, by my reckoning, took place in 1932/3 when a few people were concerned about the possibility of a war.
As for Mrs Shirley’s age, I know it seems ridiculously young to have been seemingly dying of old age and I’m sure EJO herself realised this later, which is why she made her have a heart attack in Stowaways and makes so much of her delicate health in the retrospective books generally.
Unfortunately she also compounded the problem in those, as with ‘Uncle Tony’ Abinger’s book found in Schooldays. From that it seems clear that: a) he was quite young when he left home; b) Joyce was quite a bit younger than he; c) her engagement ring was similar to Mrs Shirley’s (Margaret) and d) they got engaged about the same time. While “that red-headed chap” sounds more like a contemporary than of anyone considerably older than Tony himself. We know Joan's and Joy's fathers were twins so, unless Margaret was a lot older than her husband, there can only be a few years in it.
Even if older than her husband and even if 45 when Joan was born - late, but not impossible for a first/only child - she wouldn't have been quite 60 in The Abbey Girls or 70 when being described in terms more fitted for a nonagenarian in Abbey Girls At Home. My main objection to that is it would make Jim Shirley much older than Tony Abinger (and Joyce) and when we come to Strangers this becomes untenable as there Isabel seems to be Margaret’s elder sister yet produced not only Belle the same age as Joan (?at 46?) but went on to have Rykie 4 years later!
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