Tag Archives: Robert MacGillivray

Tammy 6 January 1979 – Christmas issue

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Cover artist: John Richardson

Bella (artist John Armstrong, writer Primrose Cumming) – final episode

Bessie Bunter (artist Cecil Orr)

Dancer Entranced (artist Angeles Felices) – final episode

The Upper Crust (artist Giorgio Giorgetti)

Bella – Winning Letters

Edie (artist Joe Collins)

Giftorama – final part

Molly Mills and the TV Pioneer (artist Douglas Perry, writer Maureen Spurgeon) – final episode

The Christmas Fairy (artist Bob Harvey) – Strange Story

Wee Sue (artist Robert MacGillivray)

TEAM in Action (artist Carmona)

Greetings to All of Our Readers (artist Robert MacGillivray) – Christmas feature

Comparing Tammy to Jinty during the IPC strike in December 1978, it’s really weird to see how the titles were affected. This is Tammy’s full-on Christmas issue, but it’s dated 6 January 1979, and her previous issue was dated 23 December. What happened to the 30 December 1978 issue? We can only assume Tammy lost it because of the strike. Yet Jinty had her 30 December issue, with a cover caption celebrating the end of the strike. “Yippee! Your favourite paper is back!” But during the three previous weeks, there were no Jintys while the Tammys continued, although not in full size (not that you’d notice as the essentials were there). A note from the editor in this issue says Tammy is back to full size after three weeks of thinner Tammys. 

Christmas does not normally feature in Bella as her stories usually finish before the festive season starts. But this time, she goes right up to the Christmas issue and finishes her story with a Christmas feast in Australia. She sure is surprised to have Christmas in the heat of summer. Welcome to the Southern Hemisphere, Bella.  

Bella also gets a spread of letters on “We all love Bella because…” It’s reproduced here for insights on why Bella was so popular. No mention of what really sold Bella for me, though – how John Armstrong made those gymnastics moves so realistically anatomical it was mouthwatering. To this day, it remains unmatched. 

Molly Mills incorporates Christmas into the final episode of her story by having the TV pioneer help her make a special Christmas film for her family. In the days before home movies and Skype this must have been incredible for them.

Bessie and Mary Moldsworth go carol singing and fall foul of forgers, but they escape – thanks to Bessie’s hefty weight – and raise the alarm. The capture of the criminals is a relief for the police, as they were dreading having to sacrifice their Christmas hunting them. Bessie and Mary get a Christmas reward and Bessie gets the best present she could possibly have – food. 

Wee Sue also falls foul of criminals in her Christmas story. It’s a racket where crooks set themselves up as Store Santas to rob stores by hiding the loot in their Santa sacks. But the worst of it is how they give Santa a bad name by bullying the kids and giving them broken toys. 

In “The Upper Crust”, giving the kids at the orphanage broken toys thrown out of their homes is how the super-snobs of High Hills “do their best to brighten up the festive time for others”. Seeing this, Clarinda shows up with better presents for the kids. All of a sudden, the snobs are off to buy equally nice presents – they’re not going to be upstaged by her. 

The Storyteller brings us “The Christmas Fairy”, a fairy ornament of gypsy origin said to bring good luck and happiness each festive season. It must be said the family have had fantastic Christmases since they got the fairy, but this year the fairy is really put to the test when sister Kathy is in hospital in a coma just days before Christmas. Come Christmas Eve, her condition remains unchanged. Someone – or something – really needs to wave a magic wand, or the family will have an Unmerry Christmas.

Finally, on the back cover we have the Tammy gang all together for a Christmas feature (below), brought to us by the ever-popular Robert MacGillivray. 

It’s the final episode of “Dancer Entranced”, where Mesmeri’s metronome gives Trina Carr, a hopeless ballerina, the power to dance brilliantly via hypnotism, but being dependent on the metronome to dance has caused problems. She has to lose that dependency, something the final episode must resolve. Mesmeri himself provides the answer, and it’s one that takes Trina by surprise.

It looks like “TEAM in Action” is approaching its final episode as well. The girls finally have the school paper ready for binding and publication, but disaster strikes – cleaners sprucing up the school for inspection have chucked all their work in the trash!

Characters: Wee Sue, older Cover Girl (Tammy), Miss Bigger, younger Cover Girl (June), Edie, Bessie, Bella, Mary Moldsworth, Court House pupil.

Tammy 16 December 1978

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Cover artist: John Richardson
Bella (artist John Armstrong, writer Primrose Cumming)
The Upper Crust (artist Giorgio Giorgetti)
Dancer Entranced (artist Angeles Felices)
Molly Mills and the TV Pioneer (artist Douglas Perry, writer Maureen Spurgeon)
Giftorama – part 2
Bessie Bunter (artist Arthur Martin)
Terror in the Garden – Strange Story
Wee Sue (artist Robert MacGillivray)
TEAM in Action (artist Carmona)

Among the really fun Cover Girl Tammy covers are the ones where Tammy makes in-jokes about herself. This is one such cover. The list of Tammy-based ingredients, from left to right: Molly Mills, Bella, One Girl and Her Dog (currently on hiatus), Dancer Entranced, Bessie Bunter and The Upper Crust. To make things even more interesting, there’s an appearance from the Cover Girls’ mum. Sometimes their parents do appear on the cover, apparently enjoying Tammy as much as their daughters do. Perhaps it’s Tammy’s way of paying homage to her adult readers, who are often mentioned in the letters she prints. Mum baking something from Tammy might be a reference Tammy’s recipe feature, “Tuck-in with Tammy”. And what is Mum making? I always thought it was Christmas pudding, a bow to Tammy’s countdown to Christmas.

In Molly Mills, the Stanton Hall staff are auditioning for parts in the TV pioneer’s show. Lord Stanton isn’t impressed with what they’re doing when they’re supposed to be working. We have to say we aren’t impressed with their hammy performances either, though we get a lot of laughs out of them. But things get less funny for Molly when an unfortunate mishap gets her threatened with the sack.

Bella’s flying high in a hot air balloon to help advertise the outfit she works for. But things go a bit wrong when the balloon loses its moorings, causing them to drift away when they have a vital gymnastics event to enter.

In this week’s Strange Story, a governess freaks out after reading that her high-spirited charge is headed for a swing with a sinister history. Apparently, it was converted from a gallows used to execute condemned witches. But what’s really strange about this one is that it’s not brought to us by our regular Storyteller. It’s a completely different person (below), and he only appears this once. A guest artist, currently unidentified, was used for the story; perhaps they didn’t know what the Storyteller was supposed to look like. Or maybe someone forgot instructions on how to draw the Storyteller in the script.

In Tammy’s current ballet story, “Dancer Entranced”, things take a violent turn. Jealous Dora sets a gang of toughs on Trina to fix her once and for all. But it backfires on Dora, with her getting duffed up instead until Trina and her friends come to the rescue. Following this, Dora stops being Trina’s enemy, but the hypnotist’s metronome, without which Trina cannot dance, got broken in the fight. Has Dora fixed Trina after all?

Ballet is also the theme in this week’s Bessie Bunter story. Stackers has decided to add ballet to the school curriculum. We really have to question her judgement on this, especially with Bessie in the ballet class. Sure enough, there are soon more than enough scrapes for Stackers to cancel the ballet class.

Sue wants an autograph from a celebrity, but autograph hunters are banned from the theatre where he is performing, and the doorman enforcing the rule is a gorilla. Sue’s big brain has to come up with something to get that autograph. Breaking her arm is not exactly what she had in mind, but guess who signs her cast?

Talk about paint bombs. In “The Upper Crust”, Mavis, determined to bring down Clarinda Carrington-Crust, rigs a tin of paint over a door at school to fall down on her. However, Clarinda, with a little help from her father, turns the tables – and the paint – right on Mavis and her gang. But the paint ruins a girl’s watch. Who’s going to put things right? Certainly not Mavis, who is too snobby to take responsibility or have any sympathy for the girl.

Teachers skiving off? That’s a new one in “Team in Action”. Toni and Anthea sneak out of school to cover a fashion show when the head denies permission to attend. In town, they spot their teacher, Miss Gravel, who is supposed to be off sick. Either she’s made a miraculous recovery or … but they’re not thinking about that – they’re ducking for cover before they’re spotted.

Tammy 31 October 1981 – Halloween issue

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Jump, Jump, Julia (artist Giorgio Giorgetti) – first episode
Edie (artist Joe Collins)
Digital Watch – special Tammy offer
Sheena So Shy (artist Tony Coleman)
Molly Mills and the Royal Visit (artist Douglas Perry, writer Maureen Spurgeon) – final episode
Pumpkin Specials for Halloween
Shadows of Fear (artist Ken Houghton) – Strange Story
Wee Sue (artist Robert MacGillivray)
Lara the Loner (artist Juliana Buch, writer Alison Christie)
Rosie at the Royalty (artist Diane Gabbot(t))

There’s nothing on the cover to show it except the date, but this is Tammy’s 1981 Halloween issue, brought out for the spooky season. The Cover Girls are no longer around to bring us Halloween covers, but inside we have Halloween costumes, festivities and parties with Edie, Molly Mills and Wee Sue, and there’s a Halloween pumpkin feature. This week’s Strange Story does not mention Halloween, but it’s creepy enough with demons, living monster shadows, an evil influence from the Underworld taking over the royal palace in Tsarist Russia, and most horrible of all – Ivan the Terrible. He’s now that way because although the evil influence was driven from the palace, the imprint it left behind drove him insane.

Bella is on break, so leading off the cover is part one of Giorgio Giorgetti’s last serial before he died, “Jump, Jump Julia”. As the title suggests, it’s a show-jumping story.

This week, it’s part two of “Sheena So Shy”, where Sheena Willcox has terrible shyness problems. Her unhelpful mother, lack of confidence, blushing and stammering, lack of friends, constant bullying from classmates and teachers who expect her to live up to her mother’s famous reputation only serve to worsen the problem. Added to that, she now has to contend with a spiteful cousin who keeps sabotaging her every move to rise above it all.

In “Lara the Loner”, it’s a phobia that keeps sabotaging Lara Wolfe and everything she does, and it’s constantly landing her in trouble at school and the children’s home where she lives. This week, it even lands her in hospital.

“Rosie at the Royalty”, the sequel to “Rosie of Ragged Row” and the last serial Diane Gabbot(t) drew for Tammy, reaches its penultimate episode. Rosie’s had to contend with snobbery and classism at her new ballet school, along with nasty tricks, a spiteful rival (who she finally makes peace with in this episode) and now her rotten brothers. They drag her away on the rag-and-bone rounds when she has to dance at a vital performance, and they don’t care squat that she’ll be expelled if she doesn’t show. Then, she has a sudden ray of hope.

Tammy 7 October 1978

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Cover artist: John Richardson

  • Bella (artist John Armstrong, writer Primrose Cumming)
  • Maggie’s Menagerie (artist Tony Coleman)
  • Dancer Entranced (artist Angeles Felices) – first episode
  • Crawl, Carrie, Crawl (artist Escandell Torres)
  • Edie the Ed’s Niece (artist Joe Collins)
  • Bessie Bunter (artist Cecil Orr)
  • Molly Mills and the Tender Trap (artist Douglas Perry, writer Maureen Spurgeon) – first episode
  • Family Tree (artist Diane Gabbot(t)) – Strange Story
  • Wee Sue (artist Robert MacGillivray)
  • Team in Action (artist Carmona) – first episode
  • Learn to Like Lacrosse! – Edie’s Hobbyhorse

At this stage in Tammy’s run she had the “reader’s cover idea”, where readers were invited to provide ideas for the Tammy Cover Girl covers, with money as prizes. This week’s “reader’s cover idea” was one of the most brilliant of them all. The cover rates as one of Tammy’s best, being so quirky, hilarious and a standout you can never forget. Pity they didn’t use the other cover idea on the cover, of the Cover Girls riding in a UFO, for an actual cover. It would have been really something.

Inside, three new stories start. The first is one of Tammy’s most popular and enduring ballet stories, “Dancer Entranced”. Some of its imminent plot elements (hypnotism, dancing to a ticking instrument) may have influenced Tammy’s “Slave of the Clock” some years later. Trina Carr is pushed by her father into ballet and follow in her famous mother’s footsteps. We see so much of this kind of thing in girls’ comics, but at least Dad’s doing it in a well-meaning, overenthusiastic way rather than the more usual single-minded, forceful way. Trine can’t bring herself to tell him she’s not even making progress in her class, and it looks like she has the proverbial two left feet. Now Dad’s entered her in his boss’s talent contest to show off her ballet talent. Is his bright idea going to have Trina make an utter fool of herself?

The second is a new Molly Mills story, and it’s one of the most unorthodox but popular ones in her run: The Tender Trap. District nurse Miss Key, not realising how horrible bully butler Pickering is, falls in love with him (yes!). A misunderstanding gives Miss Key the impression that Pickering is reciprocating her love, so there’ll be no stopping the lovelorn fool pestering him now.

The third is “Team in Action”. Four disparate girls, Toni, Ellie, Anthea and Maggie, start at boarding school together. Discovering their initials spell “T.E.A.M.”, it becomes their moniker when the headmistress puts them in charge of the school newspaper, “Action”, which they are to save from its current doldrums. Their form teacher, Miss Gravell, is understandably upset at them taking over the editorship of the school journal that was her brainchild, so she is not particularly friendly towards them. Two problems already before the girls have even started on the journal.

Just when it’s a contest Bella badly needs to win in order to retain her coaching job, everything causes her to lose. Normally, Bella’s determination can get her through a competition if the odds stack up against her, but this time there are just too many guns: spiteful rivals stirring up trouble for her in the press, everyone staring at her and whispering behind her back, newshounds dogging her at every turn and a well-meaning audience who cheer for her, but their applause keeps disrupting her concentration during her performances, which causes her marks to fall well short of medals. But she’s such a favourite with the audience that they go berserk at her poor marks, and a riot seems imminent. Elements of this were recycled in another gymnastics contest Bella enters some years later.

Miss Bigger’s got her eye on a job with a tutor’s job with a sheikh. Sue’s out to make sure she gets it – anything to get rid of the old tartar. Will she succeed, or will it be back to the old status quo again?

“Crawl, Carrie, Crawl” is nearing its end. Well, it’s the end of the crawling Carrie’s had to do at school to help keep her family afloat with her swim coaching job with a demanding employer while Dad’s out of work. Now Dad’s landed a job, but with none other than Carrie’s former employer – and she antagonised him by giving him a piece of her mind when she quit her own job with him. Now this could cost Dad his new job – unless something happens, and quick!

Doggone it! Bessie lodges a food contamination complaint in the hope of a free sample as compensation – only to find her free sample is dog food.

The old maxim “look after me and I’ll look after you” gets put to the test in this week’s Strange Story, “Family Tree”. Another lesson in this story might be to not to focus on looking after one thing all the time – other things need attention too. The protagonist is understandably angry at having to go without all the time because her cash-strapped mother puts all her financial priorities into maintaining a heritage tree.

“Maggie’s Menagerie” is a secret animal hoarding story. Maggie Crown is staying on her Gran’s barge while her parents are away, but Gran is not an animal person and would freak at the animals Maggie is secretly hiding. So far, she’s managed to keep the secret from Gran, but how long can it last? It looks like someone else has caught her now.







	

	
	


							


	

		
				

			Tammy 30 September 1978
		

		
		

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Cover artist: John Richardson 





Bella (artist John Armstrong, writer Primrose Cumming)





Maggie’s Menagerie (artist Tony Coleman)





Crawl, Carrie, Crawl (Escandell Torres)





Double – or Nothing! (artist Diane Gabbot(t)) – final episode





Bessie Bunter (artist Arthur Martin)





Molly Mills and the Maid of Mystery (artist Douglas Perry, writer Maureen Spurgeon) – final episode





Distant Drums (artist Peter Wilkes) – Strange Story





Edie the Ed’s Niece (artist Joe Collins)





Wee Sue (artist Robert MacGillivray)





A Bus in the Family (artist Giorgio Giorgetti) – final episode





Edie’s Hobbyhorse – No-Snow Skiing





It should be a moment of well-deserved heroism for Bella, saving a baby’s life. But things turn sour when someone feeds the press a toxic slant about her beginnings, and she can guess who: two British rivals she unwittingly antagonised are making good on their threats against her. Bella can’t perform properly with those stares and everyone whispering about her, including those two nasty girls. And now she’s got a rash. Can she even enter the contest, much less win through, with so many things going wrong for her?





Three stories end this week. We can guess why two crooks have been chasing “A Bus in the Family” all over Europe on a school trip: there’s something hidden on board. They finally catch up – only discover their hidden treasure was removed from the bus when it was cleaned up before it departed for Europe. There have been long-standing clashes of social class divides as well as temperaments and personalities in “Double – or Nothing!”, but Gran finally comes up with the solution to make the double tennis final a happy one. The third to end is Molly’s latest story. She begins a new story next week, along with two new stories.





“Crawl, Carrie, Crawl” looks like it’s nearing its end too. Carrie’s dad finally gets a job so she thinks she can stop the crawling performance she’s had to do at school while she conducts her secret job to help her family, plus cope with a bad back. But it’s not the end of the story yet, and we’ve been advised to wait and see if things are going to turn out as Carrie thinks. 





So far, Maggie has managed to keep up her secret menagerie on Gran’s house boat. These pesky animals are causing problems, and now Maggie’s got to mind the house boat on her own as Gran is visiting their friend Yorkie in hospital. 





This week’s Strange Story is also about pesky pet problems, in this case trying to domesticate a lion cub. What makes it a Strange Story is how Dad finally realises lion cubs are wild animals, not pets.





Horoscopes feature in this week’s Bessie Bunter story. The trouble the horoscope page causes Bessie leaves her feeling horror-scoped. At the end of it, Mary Moldsworth tells Bessie she received the wrong horoscope because she got it wrong about being Pisces (born 19 February); she is in fact Aquarius. Neither of them realise it was Mary who had it wrong and Bessie who had it right: 19 February is the first day of Pisces. So why was the horoscope such a horror-scope? Guess it’s one up for the sceptics.





In Wee Sue, a community club starts a house-painting project for old people. When Sue is teamed up with two girls who don’t want her, they cause trouble for her. But it all blows up in their faces while Sue ends up on the right side of Miss Bigger for once. 






	

	
	


							


	

		
				

			Tammy 2 March 1974
		

		
		

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Cover artist: John Richardson





The Clothes Make Carol (artist John Armstrong)





Wee Sue (artist Mario Capaldi)





School for Snobs (artist J. Badesa, writer Pat Mills)





The Duchess of Dead-End Drive (artist John Richardson) – first episode





Little Lady Jane – cartoon





Leader of the Pack (artist Douglas Perry) – first episode





Jeannie and Her Uncle Meanie (artist Robert MacGillivray)





No Tears for Molly (artist Tony Thewenetti, writer Maureen Spurgeon)





Two new stories start this week. John Richardson didn’t draw many serials for girls’ comics, but he draws one of them, “The Duchess of Dead-End Drive”. Not a real duchess – it’s a comedy serial starring a lady who styles herself as an aristocrat in a slum area, and it’s off to an impressive start with a four-page spread instead of the usual three. The other is a Douglas Perry story, “Leader of the Pack”, about a dog who seems to have strange abilities.





If there’s one thing “School for Snobs” has shown us, it’s just about anything can make a snob out of someone. We’ve seen antique snobs and military snobs among others. This week, it’s a music snob who only cares about classical music. After the Hermione Snoot treatment, she’s happily playing bagpipes.





Poor Sue saves Miss Bigger from trouble twice this week, but all she gets is a ticking-off from her in front of the class. At least Sue takes it philosophically: “Ah, well – life’s full of ups and downs – ‘specially with Miss Bigger around!”





“The Clothes Make Carol” gets a six-page spread this week. Carol has grown more confident in standing up to her abusive family when she gets a mysterious blazer that seems to have magic powers. The family have caught on about the blazer and apparently destroy it, at which Carol reverts to her old mousy self. But her confidence is on the rise again when the blazer turns up, perfectly intact.





Uncle Meanie gets into more of his dodgy penny-pinching schemes when an encyclopaedia salesman comes calling. And for once, he gets away with it.





One of the weirdest Molly stories concludes this week, and it leaves more questions than answers. Bully butler Pickering thinks he is being haunted by the ghost of a labourer who had an accident because of him. He becomes so terrified he almost throws himself to his death and then jumps out of a window in fright when he sees the man in hospital. However, it turns out the man is not dead and been in the hospital the whole time. So who – or what – was haunting Pickering? One thing’s for sure: the bully butler remains as bad as ever. For the moment, Molly is safe from him as the haunting saga has left him all banged up, but he warns her to watch out when he recovers. We suppose he’s taking it out on her, as usual.






	

	
	


							


	

		
				

			Tammy 22 January 1972
		

		
		

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Gina – Get Lost (artist Miguel Quesada)





Beattie Beats ‘Em All! (artist John Armstrong)





Dogs of the Duchess





Lulu – cartoon





Amanda Must Not Be Expelled (artist Jesus Redondo)





Star Struck Sister (artist Giorgio Giorgetti, writer Jenny McDade)





A Tammy Outfit Idea (feature)





Alison All Alone – final episode





Talk It Over with Trudy – problem page





Skimpy Must Ski! (artist Tom Hurst)





The Secret Ballerina (artist Roy Newby)





Maisie’s Magic Eye (Robert MacGillivray)





Cinderella Spiteful (artist José Casanovas)





No Tears for Molly (artist Tony Thewenetti, writer Maureen Spurgeon)





A Special Tammy Portrait – Dave Cassidy





Tammy is three weeks into her first new year and approaching her first birthday. How has she developed so far? There have been some changes. Initially, she started off with too much emphasis on misery-laden stories with girls exploited by cruel employers/racketeers, attending harsh schools, or being treated like Cinderella by guardians. She was seriously lacking in lightweight stories for balance and another mainstay of girls comics – sport. Nearly a year on, she has struck more balance with her stories, thanks in part to the Sally merger, and there is more variety in her themes, although she remains strong and proud on abused heroines and cruel guardians/employers. One story, “Gina – Get Lost”, carries on the theme, and another, “Alison All Alone”, finishes this week. 





Speaking of Cinderella, the title “Cinderella Spiteful” puts a twist in it, but the plot has no bearing on Cinderella. Emma is staying with relatives but feels overshadowed by her brilliant cousin Angela. This week, Emma sets out prove herself at hockey, and when Angela falls ill, she seizes her chance. Next week will tell if it works out.





Ballet was also a frequent presence in Tammy from the first. Her current ballet story, “The Secret Ballerina”, is now on its penultimate episode, but there is sure to be another ballet story starting soon.





Humour was non-existent in the early Tammy, but now she has a bit more of it, with “Maisie’s Magic Eye”, from the Sally merger, and a regular cartoon, “Lulu”.





Sport began to pick up in Tammy as her first year progressed. Among them was “Skimpy Must Ski!”, which started in Tammy’s first Christmas issue. Despite being a semi-invalid, Skimpy wants to learn to ski, but she hasn’t gotten off to a good start. Grandad almost stops her skiing after she nearly dies in a night ski, and now he himself has a bad accident while trying to help her. “Beattie Beats ‘Em All”, who started when Sally joined Tammy, makes sport a regular in Tammy, and she offsets the misery-enduring Tammy heroines with a feisty personality that won’t be beat. 





Bella Barlow is still two years in the future, but Beattie shares some parallels with her: sports-crazy, outspoken, speaks with a Cockney accent, orphaned but free-spirited and determined to look after herself and stay out of “care”, and drawn by John Armstrong. The Bella team must have drawn some inspiration from Beattie. 





Meanwhile, the gymnastics we see in Tammy right now is in “Amanda Must Not Be Expelled”, a gym-crazy girl who keeps getting herself expelled so she can go home to her gymnasium (like the school doesn’t have one too?). Her new friends keep trying to keep her from being expelled because they want her on the school gymnastics team. They manage it again this week, but how long can they keep it up? It’s not long before Amanda gets up to more tricks. After Amanda, there were no gymnastics stories in Tammy until Bella herself started in 1974, probably because Olympic gymnasts like Olga Korbut had put more spotlight on the sport. As Bella’s popularity grew, gymnastics really made its mark in Tammy. This was not just with the Bella stories and frequent comments on how popular she was, but also the Bella features and gymnastics-related competitions that she spawned in Tammy, plus getting her own book in 1981. 





The mysterious Duchess, who always keeps herself veiled, is on a crusade to help mistreated dogs. Pity she doesn’t treat Doris, the servant who helps with her campaign, with the same kindness she does the dogs. She punished Doris so harshly for failure that she collapsed, and when Doris asks the Duchess why she wears the veil, the Duchess slaps her. Another abused Tammy heroine, but it’s interesting to have an abuser who isn’t the usual sadistic/exploitative type in Tammy. Instead, it seems to be a case of the abuser having a psychological problem, and it’s clearly linked with what’s hidden under that veil and why.





An intriguing history of “Star Struck Sister” has been disclosed on the internet. Jenny McDade, who went on to become the first Bella Barlow writer, says “Star Struck Sister” was the first story she ever wrote for girls’ comics. A previous writer had “choked on” the story after the first episode, so she was commissioned to write the rest. The story itself concerns two sisters, Stella and Lesley, who are offered film parts, but the director is only interested in Stella, leading to jealousy from Lesley. So far this hasn’t led to anything really spiteful, but we know something will happen. Meanwhile, Stella wants to help hungry street urchins. How will it work out?





When it came to Molly stories about new/temporary servants, you could be sure of two things: first, they would bring trouble with them, and second, they would be gone by the end of the story, never to be seen or mentioned again. Mr Jenks, the butler standing in for Pickering when he is hospitalised, is no exception. Unlike Pickering, he’s a good sort. Unfortunately, he’s hopeless at running the staff – again unlike Pickering, whose slave-driving style at least kept them working – so work’s gone to pot at Stanton Hall. Jenks takes his leave now, but on good terms. 






	

	
	


							


	

		
				

			Tammy and Sally Merger, 3 April 1971
		

		
		

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Cover for Tammy and Sally merger issue, 3 April 1971.





Beattie Beats ‘Em All! (artist John Armstrong) – first episode





“Our Janie” Little Mum (artist Colin Merrett)





My Father – My Enemy!





The Cat Girl (artist Giorgio Giorgetti) – from Sally





Betina at Ballet School





The Secret of Trebaran (artist Giorgio Cambiotti)





The Girls of Liberty Lodge (artist Dudley Pout)





Maisie’s Magic Eye (artist Robert MacGillivray) – from Sally





Slaves of “War Orphan” Farm (artist Desmond Walduck, writer Gerry Finley-Day)





Sara’s Kingdom (artist Bill Mainwaring) – from Sally





Glen a Dog on a Lonely Quest (artist Jim Baikie)





Castaways on Voodoo Island (artist Ken Houghton)





No Tears for Molly (artist Tony Thewenetti, writer Maureen Spurgeon) – new story





Tammy was barely out of the starting gate herself when she absorbed her first title, Sally, on 3 April 1971. It was unusual for a longer-running title (which was itself less than two years old) to be swallowed by a much newer one that hadn’t even finished its first lineup of stories. Usually it was the other way around, so there has been speculation as to what brought this on. 





Sally had gotten off to a promising start, with a high flavour of autonomous heroines and adventure. Some of them were even costumed super-heroines, most notably “The Cat Girl”. Cat Girl is still fondly remembered today and has now spawned her own reprint volume. So, what happened?





Anything is possible, but it has been speculated that the answer may lie in one of IPC’s notorious strikes. It was a long one for Sally, and when she came back her cover actually celebrated her return. However, it is thought that Sally took a hit from the strike and failed to recover, and she was soon approaching cancellation. But if so, why didn’t she merge into June, the longest-running girls IPC title at that stage? Did something prevent another June merger? Or did the editors think that Sally would bring some new elements and readership into the new Tammy? Most certainly, the biggest flaw with the early Tammy was that she was disproportionately high on stories laden with dark and cruel elements, ill-used heroines, and misery guts such as abusive guardians, employers and racketeers. It made Tammy a hot-selling pioneer at the time, but there was very little lightweight material and absolutely no humour to add relief. When Sally was incorporated into Tammy, that changed somewhat. We got some adventure elements, humour and laughs with “Maisie’s Magic Eye” (Tammy’s first humour strip, with the ever-popular Robert MacGillivray artwork to add further delight), a royal adventure with “Sara’s Kingdom”, and Tammy’s first superheroine, Cat Girl, who brought in an enthralling blend of adventure, mystery, excitement, and humour with Giorgio Giorgetti’s eccentric style. So Tammy’s first merger was one that she benefitted highly from. 





Molly has started a new story for the merger. Her mum is taken ill, and that’s just the start of her problems. Bully butler Pickering refuses her permission to go home, but she goes off anyway, leading to her losing her job when he finds out. When she arrives back home, her family’s on the verge of being evicted because they weren’t able to pay the rent. The landlord grants them a brief stay of execution, but Molly’s at a loss as to how to come up with the money. Elsewhere in the issue, the remaining serials from Tammy’s first lineup continue unabated, but Voodoo Island, Secret of Trebaran and Glen give the impression they are approaching their climaxes.





The merger has also brought in a new character, “Beattie Beats ‘Em All!”, which may have been written for Sally. The premise feels like an early forerunner to Bella Barlow. Like Bella, Beattie is a feisty Cockney orphan, a misfit and a free spirit who likes her independence. Unlike Bella (or most Tammy heroines of the period) she isn’t abused. She can’t stay at the orphanage she grew up in any longer, but adoption doesn’t work out. Deciding she’s better off on her own, she runs off and ends up squatting while indulging in her only passions in life: cats and running events. Beattie is Tammy’s first sports story and the first appearance of John Armstrong’s artwork in Tammy. 

	

	
	


							


	

		
				

			Jinty 2 February 1980
		

		
		

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Pam of Pond Hill (artist Bob Harvey, writer Jay Over)





Gaye’s Gloomy Ghost (artist Hugh Thornton-Jones)





Spirit of the Lake (artist Phil Townsend, writer Benita Brown?)





The Perfect Princess (artist Trini Tinturé)





House of Ghosts (artist Robert MacGillivray) – Gypsy Rose story





Toni on Trial (artist Terry Aspin)





Sports Pages – featuring Karen Witt





Winning Ways 4 (writer Benita Brown)





White Water (artist Jim Baikie)





When Statues Walk… (artist Phil Gascoine)





Alley Cat (artist Rob Lee)





In this issue, Alley Cat and Gypsy Rose return for 1980. This week’s Gypsy Rose story (recycled from Strange Stories) brings readers some Robert MacGillivray artwork, which has not been seen in Jinty since “Desert Island Daisy”.





It looks like Laura’s task is to liberate a captive Viking princess in “When Statues Walk…” from these walking Viking clay statues. Another one of them gets broken, and Laura is worried a teacher will discover the secret if she puts the pieces together. 





In “The Perfect Princess”, bratty Princess Victoria gets rid of another rival, Isabella. Sally, the remaining rival, is pleased about that, as Isabella was the favourite. But she doesn’t realise Victoria plans to get rid of her next by making it look like she pulled that trick on Isabella. 





Dragon hijinks abound in “Gaye’s Gloomy Ghost”. First it’s a dragon teacher, and now Roger’s playing St George with some visitors dressed as a Chinese dragon.





The latest Pam of Pond Hill story adds to the increasing presence of sport in Jinty. Marty Michaels has a big problem: her sister Trina, who goes overboard with crazes, and thinks she either knows it all or can gain it from books. Trina’s latest craze is to become an athlete. Although she eventually realises it’s not for her, it’s the immediate springboard to her next craze: interfering with Marty’s athletics by becoming her self-appointed trainer. Marty thinks this sounds ominous, and she can only be right. We doubt books alone would make anyone a good sports trainer.





In the other sports stories:





Sneaky Cynthia is doing a stakeout to find out what this accelerated learning is that’s turning Karen into a brilliant ice-skater. Of course she can’t see “The Spirit of the Lake”, who’s giving Karen coaching – and as a result, she gets a shock that causes her to have an accident. This could make things awkward for Karen. 





More sabotage for “Toni on Trial” from jealous Julie. This week, she loosens the spikes in Toni’s shoes, and when Toni falls on top of her as a result, she accuses Toni of doing so on purpose. And with so many people thinking badly of Toni because of her mother’s disgrace, it’s all too easy for the accusation to gain traction.





And finally, Bridie has to resort to some “equal rights for women” arguing to get into a canoe club for Boy Scouts. They make their own canoes, which could give her the canoe she needs, but then she discovers there’s a snag – their canoes are for troop use only.

	

	
	


							


	

		
				

			Tammy 10 November 1979
		

		
		

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Cover artist: John Richardson





Bella (artist John Armstrong)





Temper, Temper Tina! (artist Giorgio Giorgetti) – final episode





Sarita in Uniform (artist Diane Gabbot(t))





The Fire’s Warning (artist Tony Higham) – Guy Fawkes Strange Story





Bessie Bunter (artist Arthur Martin)





Molly Mills and the School for Servants – first episode (artist Douglas Perry, Maureen Spurgeon)





Wee Sue (artist Robert MacGillivray)





My Terrible Twin (artist Juliana Buch)





Edie the Ed’s Niece (artist Joe Collins)





Guitar Girl (artist Angeles Felices) – final episode





Spring To It! – Edie’s Hobbyhorse





We now come to the Tammy Guy Fawkes issue for 1979. This was the last Guy Fawkes cover for the Cover Girls. This time the following year, they were gone.





Inside, Bessie, Wee Sue, Edie, the Strange Story and the Tammy Talk page all honour the 5th of November. Even the last episode of Guitar Girl does the same, but in a more frightening way. The spiteful Sabrina tries to burn Jacey’s guitar on the bonfire climaxing the birthday party they are both entertaining at. Jacey nearly gets herself burned alive clambering the bonfire to retrieve it! 





Tina’s story ends, with her learning that trying to conceal her family (in a derelict house?!) was a very foolish, misguided way to keep them from being split up when her mother fell ill, and her actions were only bringing her troubles on herself. Once everyone helps her to handle the problem the right way, everything is far better for her, including the temper that has been her bane since the beginning of the story. 





Sarita in Uniform is evidently nearing its end, for her secret is out! What’s going to happen now? Meanwhile, Bella dodges another close shave in keeping her own secret safe, but here comes another threat to it – blackmail! 





Molly Mills starts a new story, “The School for Servants”. What school for servants? So far we haven’t see any school for servants, just some new guests at Stanton Hall – but Molly suspects there’s something odd about them. 





Just when Moira and Lindy have sorted out their misunderstanding, along comes another one – Moira thinks Lindy’s tricked her into a lousy kitchen job on the ship. Oh dear, here we go again – one very angry Moira out to make trouble for Lindy! Is Moira going to be “My Terrible Twin” for Lindy with all these misunderstandings right up until the final episode? It could well be the case.