Tag Archives: Tony Higham

Tammy 20 September 1980

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Cover artist: John Richardson

Bella (artist John Armstrong, writer Primrose Cumming)

Running Rosie Lee (artist José Casanovas)

Dulcie Wears the Dunce’s Hat (artist Mario Capaldi)

The Face of a Cat (artist Tony Higham) – The Strange Story

Plain as Pearl (Artist Juliana Buch)

Wee Sue (artist Hugh Thornton-Jones)

Cut-Glass Crystal (artist Tony Coleman)

The Loneliest Girl in the World (artist Jaume Rumeu)

New additions to the collection.

“Eek!” goes the Cover Girls cover this week. Little sis cops the joke this week rather than big sis, who usually does. It’s probably because big sis doesn’t have those pigtails that fly up cartoon style in fright. 

Inside, Bella is discharged from hospital, and she seeks out Uncle Jed and Aunt Gert for the first time in years. They’ve abused and exploited her since episode one, but in her opinion, better them than a children’s home. She hasn’t reached them yet, and already she’s in trouble. She chose to walk 25 miles instead of using the money she was given for fares, but now she regrets it. Her weak ankle can’t handle the distance, she’s run into trouble with crooks, and now she’s falling foul of scheming gypsies. And at the end – if she gets there – will it be the same old drudgery again? She has been out of touch with Jed and Gert for years, so things must have changed in the interim, but we doubt leopard’s spots will be among them.

Poor Dulcie Dobbs is forced to wear the dunce’s hat, not just at school but all the way home as well, so her father can see her shame (luckily for her, he keeps missing the dunce’s hat and remains unaware of her shame). This week, Dulcie gets an independent opinion on her academic ability, which informs her that she is not a dunce at all. Indeed, it shows that if it weren’t for those spiteful girls who keep sabotaging her school work because they get a kick out her wearing the dunce’s hat, she would be top of the class. But as long as they keep doing so, she’s got no chance to prove it or be free of the hat.

This week’s Strange Story, “The Power of the Cat”, is about an evil cat brooch. But as all it takes to break its power over is to throw it out of the window (for maybe someone else to find), it can’t be all that powerful. 

Karen Chalmers, “The Loneliest Girl in the World”, thinks a mad scientist was behind the robot doubles of her parents, but now her real parents are back and her nightmare is over. Yeah, right. At the end of the previous episode it was stated that she was fooled into believing all that, but it can only be a matter of time before she finds out, as whoever (or whatever?) is behind the façade keeps making mistakes with it. Sure enough, they made more slip-ups that Karen quickly detects, but there’s worse to come. Karen now finds her best friend is a robot double! Here we go again. 

Noise pollution is the problem facing Wee Sue this week. An inconsiderate teen keeps riding his new motorbike up and down the street where she lives, driving everyone mad with the racket he’s making. His father won’t listen to complaints or stop his son making the racket, but he says something that gives Wee Sue one of her famous brainstorms for comeuppance as well as stop the noise.

An editor’s comment on “Plain as Pearl” says it was a very popular story. There certainly is much in it to make it popular. Pearl Kent thinks she is plain until she finds out she has what it takes to be a model. She’s using her new modelling job to save up to buy her sick mother a holiday, but she keeps it a secret because she fears the jealousy of Claire Myles, the vain daughter of the family she is staying with. But of course secrecy and deceit cause complications for her. Worse, Mum keeps having relapses because she won’t stop stressing over the money problems that made her ill. If only she knew, but Pearl can’t risk telling her because shock isn’t good for her. Will she ever recover enough to go on Pearl’s surprise holiday?

Cut-Glass Crystal, a girl from a posh background, is having problems fitting into a working-class mining town after her father comes down in the world. Poor Crystal is trying so hard to be helpful this week, but it seems she can’t do anything right.

Running Rosie Lee is a school/sports story played for light relief. It may be a bit on the silly side, but it has the ever-popular José Casanovas artwork. Rosie Lee turns into the bionic woman at sport every time she has a cup of tea. Snobs at her school don’t like her and pull tricks on her, but in the end it always blows up in their faces and Rosie comes out on top after a good cuppa. 

Tammy 7 August 1976

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Cover artist: John Richardson

Bella (artist John Armstrong)

Towne in the Country (artist John Armstrong)

The Good Old Days (artist Bill Baker) – Strange Story

Tag Along Tania (artist Giorgio Giorgetti)

Bessie Bunter (artist Arthur Martin)

Molly Mills and the General Strike (artist Tony Thewenetti, writer Maureen Spurgeon)

Wee Sue (artist John Richardson)

Drawn to Destiny (artist Tony Higham) – Strange Story serial

Odds on Patsy (artist Eduardo Feito)

We come to 1976 in our Tammy August month round, and the cover confirms what we always suspected – teachers took sneak reads of the comics (Tammy, Jinty, whatever) they confiscated, and they enjoyed them as much as the girls themselves. We have to wonder how many closet Molly, Bella or Jinx from St. Jonah’s fans were created that way. The sight of the teacher reading her Tammy must be worse than the lines for the poor Cover Girl. 

Parents also enjoyed reading their daughters’ copies of Tammy, as one letter to Tammy this week shows: “I have been reading Tammy for nearly five years now…I think it’s the best comic around and so does my mother who always insists on reading it…” 

The Olympics were huge in Tammy in 1976 because of Montreal, and the Bella story for that year used the theme. Bella is determined to reach Montreal although she can’t compete and has no passport. It got left behind when she fled from her cruel aunt and uncle, and her flight is leading to all sorts of misadventures in Continental Europe, with Montreal seeming to get further and further away each time. Right now, she’s stranded in France with a stage troupe who are taking advantage of her. Added to that, there are jealous girls in the troupe playing nasty tricks on her. Yes, it never rains but pours with our Bella. Later on in 1976, Tammy continued the theme of the Olympics with the classic “Olympia Jones”.

By popular demand, 1976 had a stab at publishing some Strange Story serials. The current one is “Drawn to Destiny”, where jealousy between twin sisters over artwork is leading to ever-frightening results. And this week’s Strange Story (below) may have you think twice about comparing the present to “the good old days”.

In “Towne in the Country”, Val discovers what necessity can drive you to do. She is scared at the thought of administering an injection or touching animals, and then she has to do both when her father’s life is endangered and it’s up to her to save his life. Yep, Tammy’s clearly out to toughen up this one all right.

Tania “Tag Along” Foster is trying to stand up to the girls she hangs out with and stop being their dogsbody, but they aren’t giving up their power over her that easily. They’re pulling dirty tricks to keep her as their doormat. It always backfires on them in the end, leaving Tania with the last laugh, but she still has a fight on her hands to win respect.

Tennis trouble for Stackers when she pushes Bessie onto the tennis court this week – she soon finds having Bessie try tennis is courting trouble of the Bessie blundering kind. At least everything ends happily when it’s refreshment time.

Sue is trying to help a pupil lose weight, which turns into a very weighty problem when Miss Bigger makes a bet with the Head over whether or not the girl can lose weight. So the hijinks ensue when Miss Bigger turns to dirty tricks to keep the weight on and Sue steps into foil them. 

Eduardo Feito is the artist who really brought horse stories to life in Tammy. He has a number of strong Tammy horse stories under his belt already, such as “Halves in a Horse”, “The Uxdale Urchins” and “Rona Rides Again”. His current horse story is “Odds on Patsy”, about a racehorse and a girl who wants to be a top jockey. Now that’s a nice change from stories about show jumping and gymkhanas.

Politics is an unusual topic in a girls’ comic, but here it is in Molly’s story, “The General Strike”. Lord Stanton dispatches Molly and Pickering to keep the buses running during a workers’ strike (something IPC knew a lot about), which is being conducted in sympathy for a miners’ strike against a wage cut. Readers must have enjoyed Molly and Pickering’s change of uniforms and jobs: Molly as the bus conductor and Pickering as the (hee, hee!) bus driver. Unfortunately, Lord Stanton’s move to keep the buses running during the strike is understandably pissing off the strikers and they’ve turned on him. Now Lord Stanton’s gone missing, and his car’s come a cropper in the quarry! Could it be connected with the strike?

Tammy 11 June 1977 – Jubilee Issue

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Cover artist: Audrey Fowley

Bella (artist John Armstrong)

Babe at St. Woods (José Casanovas)

What’s Wrong with Rhona? (artist Eduardo Feito)

25 Years Ago This Week – Jubilee feature

Wee Sue (artist Richard Neillands)

Bessie Bunter (artist Arthur Martin)

Molly Mills and the Comic Capers (artist John Johnston, writer Maureen Spurgeon) – final episode

The Caliph’s Jewels (artist Hugo D’Adderio) – Strange Story

Witch Hazel (artist Giorgio Giorgetti)

Time Trap! (artist Tony Higham) – first episode

For the 1977 issue in our Tammy June round, it just has to be the Jubilee issue, seeing as the Queen’s Jubilee is topical this year. For the commemorations, Tammy takes a flashback look at the Coronation, and Wee Sue and Bessie both plan Jubilee pageants but run into obstacles that threaten to derail everything. It takes a bit of quick-thinking, determination and strokes of luck before things work out happily. The Bessie Bunter episode looks like it was a reprint, with a bit of new text bodged in to give it the Jubilee context.

The Crown Jewels cover also adds the theme of jewels to the issue, which carries on in the Strange Story, “The Caliph’s Jewels”, in which the Storyteller retells the Dutch folktale of The Lady of Stavoren, a cautionary tale about treating food with respect. So it’s not about jewels, then? The arrogant Lady of Stavoren discovers too late that food becomes as precious as jewels when you face starvation. There are over 27 versions of the tale. The Tammy version appears below. It is illustrated by Hugo D’Adderio, whose artwork is always popular.

The new story this week, “Time Trap!”, is a gem too. Tammy takes on the subject of reincarnation and hypnotic regression, which is a novel thing for her to do. Another gem, now on its penultimate episode, is “Witch Hazel”, which looks like it was inspired by Catweazle. A 16th century apprentice witch comes to the 20th century to learn witchcraft, but she doesn’t understand that witchcraft is not exactly on the curriculum of 20th century schools, nor can she grasp how the 20th century works. Another jewel in Tammy’s crown is the hugely popular “Babe of St. Woods”, starring a gangster’s daughter who uses all her gangster know-how to get herself and her friends out of all sorts of scrapes at boarding school. And “What’s Wrong with Rhona?” is a sparkler. Rhona has been acting very strangely ever since she picked up a strange doll. Things hit their nadir this week when her odd behaviour makes her steal a calculator, and now the police are on her doorstep! Help, is she on her way to juvenile court? 

The Bella story takes a surprise turn this week. Bella is giving us her origin, as told to her American Indian friend Oona Tall Tree. She tells Oona (and us) how she started on gymnastics before her orphaning (which doesn’t quite fit her first story on how she discovered gymnastics while window-cleaning for Jed and Gert) and how she lost her parents. It’s a surprise to see the flashback shows Bella did not have her trademark pigtails or overalls back then.

The latest Molly story, the “Comic Capers”, is Molly’s funniest story ever. It takes the unusual twist of parodying itself through a satire of Stanton Hall and its staff, which Pickering submits to a magazine, and it is drawn by a comical artist (John Johnston), who has been doing a number of Wee Sues of late. Sadly, it ends this week, and Molly will be back to business as usual with her usual artist next week. 

There has also been a notable change in the artwork of Wee Sue. It used to be an artist doing a long stint (Mario Capaldi, John Richardson), but now there is a trend towards more variety of art work in her strip; artwork from John Johnston and Richard Neillands is now appearing. This trend in a variety of Wee Sue artwork would continue, with Hugh Thornton-Jones, Mike White, Jim Eldridge and Robert MacGillivray added to the mix. 

Tammy 6 August 1977

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Tammy 6 August 1977

Artist: John Richardson

  • Bella (artist John Armstong) – final episode
  • Maisie of Mo Town (artist Giorgio Giorgetti)
  • Melanie’s Mob (artist Edmond Ripoll)
  • Keeping Pets – Edie’s Hobbyhorse
  • Time Trap! (artist Tony Higham)
  • Edie the Ed’s Niece (artist Joe Collins)
  • Bessie Bunter
  • Molly Mills and the New Boy (artist Tony Thewenetti, writer Maureen Spurgeon)
  • I Wish I Was Someone Else… – Strange Story (artist Ken Houghton)
  • Wee Sue (artist Mike White)
  • Daughter of the Regiment (artist Mario Capaldi)

All this big news about quarantine and self-imposed isolation in the wake of the latest pandemic had me thinking of this Tammy cover. The Cover Girls are in quarantine, and big sister, as usual, gets the short end.

It’s the final episode of Bella’s story, but another Bella story starts next week. Bella is stranded in Canada after her journey to the Montreal Olympics without a passport. She makes a friend in Indian girl Oona Tall Tree and helps a mountaineer whose leg got crushed by a falling tree. They’re all snowed in while he recovers, so Bella will entertain them with stories of her adventures.

“Maisie of Mo Town” is mistaken for a mystery jungle girl from Africa, Bibi, in the press. Kidnappers make the same mistake and lure Maisie away, thinking she’s Bibi. Maisie plays along, pretending to be a dim-witted African girl who speaks only pidgin English and knows little of the 20th century while secretly trying to work out a plan against them. In the meantime, she is having a lot of fun with her pretence and giving them aggravation. Already they’re wondering why they bothered with the kidnapping. We can see this story will be filled with laughs. But it won’t be played for laughs. All the while there will be the serious side of the kidnapping and the mystery of why the kidnappers are after Bibi.

Melanie Newton is rejected by the snooty girls of her new school, who get her banned from their athletics club. Melanie decides to form a team with the ragged Canal Mob, but they think she’s a toff. In this episode she finds ways to test out how good they would be at athletics and seems to getting through to them. They want to have a private chat with her, but is it genuine or a setup?

It is the penultimate episode of “Time Trap!”. A past life regression experiment with Leonie has gone wrong. It’s left her trapped in a hypnotic state where she is reliving a past life as Wat Tyler’s sister on the run from the king when the Peasants’ Revolt failed. Leonie’s sister Jenny is trying to find ways to help her, but it looks like she’s given the wrong advice again – it’s caused Leonie to become stuck in the marsh. What’s more, the way ahead is blocked by the king’s soldiers.

Miss Stackpole has taken the girls to the beach, but the wind is causing problems. However, that’s nothing compared to the problems Miss Stackpole has in bumping into Bessie all the time. Miss Stackpole doesn’t know which is worse – Bessie or the wind. Still, everything blows over and it’s a happy ending.

Pickering wants to get rid of new boy Arthur Sparrow because he thinks Arthur’s being groomed to take his place. Arthur takes the hint and leaves to join the army. Molly informs the recruitment office that he’s underage, but she overlooked one thing: this would land Arthur in trouble for lying about his age. Now Arthur could be up before a magistrate on a charge of false pretences. Oops!

In the Strange Story, Catherine Bridie is your poor little rich girl. Her wealthy uncle is so strict he stifles her freedom and won’t allow her friends. She wishes she could be like village girl Connie, the girl she finds a friend in. Weird events ensue, and Catherine takes Connie’s place and finds friends and happiness.

Wee Sue’s mother wants a tumble dryer and insists Dad spend his bonus on one. Dad is not thrilled at the idea, and his hunt for a tumble dryer gets him into all kinds of trouble as well. And after all that, Mum’s not even using the tumble dryer.

Tessa Mason, the “Daughter of the Regiment”, is determined to clear her father, who was executed for cowardice during the Charge of the Light Brigade. A mysterious Mr Cregan is trying to stop her, and this week he lures her into a trap. She escapes with the help of her mudlark friends, but Cregan now has plans to “spirit her away”.

June & Pixie 22 December 1973

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June cover

(Cover artist: Jim Baikie)

  • The Twin She Couldn’t Trust! (artist Phil Gascoine)
  • My Family, My Foes! (artist Carlos Freixas)
  • The Shepherd Boy (text story)
  • Lucky’s Living Doll (artist Robert MacGillivray)
  • Dark Destiny (artist A.E. Allen)
  • The Sea Urchins (artist Audrey Fawley, writer Linda Blake) – text story
  • Poochy – cartoon
  • Sylvie on a String (artist Tony Higham)
  • Tell Us about It! (letters page)
  • Swim to Safety! (artist Phil Townsend)
  • Tilly’s Magic Tranny (artist Jim Baikie)
  • Are You a Sparkler? (quiz)
  • A Christmas Miracle (artist Jim Baikie) – complete story
  • School for Sports (artist Dudley Wynne)
  • Bessie Bunter
  • He’s Grown Up! (Neil Reid)

 

Christmas is coming, so we continue our tour of older titles with the June Christmas issue from 1973. This was the last Christmas issue June ever published. On 22 June 1974 she merged into Tammy. Several of the June artists would also join the Jinty team as regulars when it started in May 1974: Jim Baikie, Phil Gascoine and Phil Townsend. Carlos Freixas, Audrey Fawley and Robert MacGillivray, who were also regulars on the June team, would also feature on the Jinty team, but not as regulars. These artists were Jinty’s biggest legacy from June. Jinty would also inherit a number of reprints from June as well, such as Strange Stories repackaged as Gypsy Rose stories and Barracuda Bay.

June, who would go through a merger in six months’ time, is still going through her current merger with Pixie. Mini Ha-Ha, a cartoon about a Red Indian girl, is one that really carried over from Pixie, but would not join the Tammy & June merger. Bessie Bunter, who came from the School Friend merger, would continue in the merger with Tammy. So would The Strangest Stories Ever Told, though currently it is not running in June.

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Although the Storyteller is not running, the Christmas issue does have a spooky Christmas story by Jim Baikie. It is reproduced here for the benefit of Jim Baikie fans. Also reproduced here is the Bessie Bunter Christmas story, about a giant Christmas pudding. So giant you could fit people into it. And what’s this with goblins? It’s Christmas, not Halloween.

Also celebrating Christmas are Lucky’s Living Doll, two text stories and a quiz: Are You a Sparkler? The artist illustrating the quiz is the same artist who illustrated a number of Jinty’s quizzes.

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Rather than give the usual potted summaries of the picture stories in the issue, I have chosen to feature panels from them. This is to give an indication what our Jinty artists got up to in June before they joined the Jinty team five months later, a month before June folded.

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Pixie #4, 15 July 1972

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Pixie cover

  • Marion of Sherwood
  • Rex Varney – Pixie Pin-up
  • Those Sums! (poem)
  • Looking after Egbert: A Story of the Happy Days (artist Andrew Wilson)
  • Giggles Galore! – cartoon
  • Doll Cut-out
  • The Secret Garden – adapted from the novel by Frances Hodgson Burnett (artist Mike Hubbard?)
  • The Mikado – adaptation
  • Enid Blyton tells the story of The Naughtiest Girl in the School (artist Tony Higham)
  • Puzzle Fun
  • Milly-Molly-Mandy (told and drawn by Joyce Lankester Brisley)
  • Gussie the Girl Guide and Her Good Deeds (cartoon)
  • A Story to Remember (text)
  • When Black Beauty Was Young
  • Mini Ha-Ha: Big Laughs with a Little Indian Girl – cartoon

A while ago we had a request to put up some entries on older girls’ titles if possible. So here we will take a look at one: Pixie. Pixie ran 24th June 1972 to 13th January 1973 (30 issues) and merged into June.

This is #4 of Pixie. Like Penny, she is meant for a younger audience. This is evidenced right from the cover, which has a very young cover girl. And the content inside is clearly meant for a younger readership. But there is no denying Pixie is much more gorgeous than Penny. She has so many colour pages and the artwork is eye-catching, whether it is serious or humorous. Some examples are posted in this entry. The young girls must have simply loved it and bought the issues for this reason alone.

It would have made them enjoy the adaptations far more and want to read the originals. Pixie put a high emphasis on adaptations. The ones here are Enid Blyton and The Naughtiest Girl in the School, The Secret Garden, Milly-Molly-Mandy, and The Mikado. Elizabeth Allen, the Naughtiest Girl in the School, is a spoiled girl who is trying to get herself expelled from boarding school. But things get awkward when Elizabeth finds the school is beginning to grow on her. Sounds like Elizabeth set the template for serials on problem girls who like to get expelled, such as “Amanda Must Not Be Expelled” and “Queen Rider” (both from Tammy).

 

Other stories were inspired by popular literature or folk tales, such as “When Black Beauty Was Young” and “Marion of Sherwood”. The artwork is amusingly cartoony in places and would not be out of place in a Disney animated feature.

We also have The Happy Days, possibly a Princess Tina reprint (update: information received indicates it was unlikely). At the dreaded dentist Sue reads about a missing dog in a magazine and then finds the dog. But then she realises she forgot to note the owner’s address from the magazine and it’s been thrown out! While trying to find the owner she leaves the dog in the house, and the yappy thing scares the wits out of her mother. Oh, dear.

Pixie 2

The text features should have amused the readers. One, “Those Sums”, is about a girl who struggles with maths (yep, many of us can relate to that). “A Story to Remember” would not be out of place in a book of fairy tales. A milkmaid is taking a jug of milk to market on her head, but gets caught in a dream about the riches it will make for her. It inflates her ego too much and she tosses her head, causing the milk to go for a burton. The moral it reminds her: don’t count your chickens before they’re hatched.

Pixie also had her share of cartoons. Mini Ha-Ha is one that enjoyed a good run in the June & Pixie merger until June merged with Tammy, but she might be considered a tad un-PC today.

Pixie 6

Tammy & Misty 26 January 1980

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Tammy cover 26 January 1980

Cover artist: John Richardson

  • Bella (artist John Armstrong)
  • Cindy of Swan Lake (artist Ana Rodriguez)
  • Sister in the Shadows (artist Giorgio Giorgetti)
  • Spider Woman (artist Jaume Raumeu)
  • Wee Sue (artist Robert MacGillivray)
  • The Witch in the Window – Strange Story from the Mists (artist Tony Higham)
  • Miss T (artist Joe Collins)
  • Make Headlines, Hannah! (artist Tony Coleman) – final episode
  • Daughter of the Desert (Mario Capaldi)

Part two of the Tammy & Misty merger has been chosen for 1980 in the Tammy round robin. For the second – and last time – Misty shares the cover with the Cover Girls. Afterwards the cover returned to the Cover Girls and Misty never occupied a cover spot again. Poor Misty.

To further commemorate the merger, next week we are getting the House of Mystery game, where we become one of our favourite Tammy characters (Molly, Sue, Bessie or Bella) and try to escape from the House of Mystery. Which Tammy character would you pick for this game? Misty readers would probably go for Sue or Bella as they haven’t seen Molly or Bessie yet in the merger.

Tammy is working on clearing out her older stories so she can make way for the new ones she has already indicated are waiting in the wings. “Make the Headlines, Hannah!” finishes this week. Hannah not only succeeds in making a name for herself at long last but also gets on television. Funny – the possibility of appearing on television was something she fantasised about way back in part 1. And it wasn’t for the money her Uncle promised as her mean sisters thought. It was winning respect and proving to everyone she was not a born loser.

“Daughter of the Desert” looks like it is heading for its conclusion. The episode itself says as much: the protagonists reckon everything is coming to a head and they are about to find out why the school has been plagued by strange desert phenomena ever since the Arabian princess Aysha arrived. What makes them think that? The mystery “Arab” behind it has cut off the water’s school supply for 24 hours and now they are all going as dry as the desert.

“Cindy of Swan Lake” still has longer to go, though its conclusion can’t be far off either. Jealous Zoe Martin is still playing on Cindy Grey’s worries about her sick swan, who is dying from pollution. This week she allows Cindy to get the lead in Swan Lake. Why? She calculated Cindy would get too distressed at doing the Dance of the Dying Swan in Swan Lake to continue with the role, so she would get it, and she was right – except for one very bad plot blunder. The Dance of the Dying Swan is not in Swan Lake! It’s a solo dance, separate from Swan Lake.

Like Hannah, Wendy the “Sister in the Shadows” is overshadowed by a successful sister (Stella) and trying to prove herself against comparisons, bullies, lack of self esteem and sabotage. This week, Wendy’s debut is on stage is a disaster because of nasty tricks from the bullies, but there is insult to injury as well. Wendy’s parents totally forgot to come and watch her, but as far as they are concerned, Stella phoning to say she might visit for the weekend (which she doesn’t) was far more important anyway. Not exactly making things up to Wendy for letting her down, are they? From this, we can see Hannah definitely had it easy compared to Wendy in proving herself and winning respect. And at least Hannah had some friends to help. Wendy has none at all.

Bella has a long history of getting stranded in foreign countries. She’s only two episodes into her new story and it’s happening again: she is stranded in the US, trying to win a championship to qualify for the Olympics, but her wealthy guardians fail to show up. They abruptly cancel and don’t even send a message to Bella to explain why or arrange help. Now this is really irresponsible, even if something bad happened to them back there. They’ve really left her in the lurch and Bella is not getting much help from the coaches either. It’s no wonder she gets off to a bad start when the event gets underway. The vault, which was never her strong point, is already down – in flames.

Spider Woman has discovered witnesses have stumbled onto her evil plan. To deal with them she strands them on a deserted island that used to be a leper colony. Too late they discover it was a trap. And they have to live in rundown huts. As if that weren’t bad enough, the former occupants were the lepers and there are rumours their ghosts still haunt the huts. Then they discover the boat Mrs Webb used to bring them to the island is now covered with spiders, so there is no getting off the island with it. But what about Mrs Webb herself? Where has she got to? Did she get off the island on another boat…or what?

In Wee Sue, it’s charity fundraising time at Milltown Comprehensive. Sue’s idea is bash up one of the old bangers from the council tip and see who can guess the correct number of parts. Of course Miss Bigger and Wee Sue get into all sorts of scrapes towing the old banger to the event, but they do foil bank robbers with it before finally getting it to the banger-bashing ceremony.

In Strange Story from the Mists, the Witch in the Window makes a profitable living out of causing bad luck to girls unless they give her money. She meets her match in one girl and flies off in a rage. But beware – there are plenty of other girls in the windows out there for her to take her revenge out on.

Tammy 14 August 1976

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Tammy cover 14 August 1976

Cover artist: John Richardson

  • Bella at the Bar (artist John Armstrong)
  • Towne in the Country (artist Mario Capaldi)
  • Storm over Jerra Island – Strange Story (artist Veronica Weir)
  • Tag Along Tania (artist Giorgio Giorgetti)
  • Bessie Bunter
  • Molly Mills and the General Strike (artist Tony Thewenetti, writer Maureen Spurgeon)
  • Wee Sue – artist John Armstrong
  • Drawn to Destiny – Strange Story serial (artist Tony Higham)
  • Odds on Patsy – final episode (artist Eduardo Feito)

The issue for 1976 in the Tammy round robin is 14 August 1976. The cover is one of my favourites. The Star Trek reference makes it particularly funny if you like Star Trek. It’s a change having a pesky kid brother (or is it a cousin?) instead of a kid sister for the Cover Girl to deal with. And there is another in-joke with the reference to Dan Dare, the famous space adventurer from Eagle. Tammy did not go for SF as much as Jinty – you see SF more often in the Strange Stories than Tammy’s serials – so it’s great to get an SF reference on the cover.

The Olympics featured heavily in Tammy in 1976, which was the year of the Montreal Olympics. Bella has an Olympics-themed story, complete with the Olympics rings being added to her logo. Bella is trying to reach the Montreal Olympics although she has no passport and was passed over for the British team thanks to Jed and Gert Barlow. Right now she is stranded in France with an acrobatics team. They are stringing her along with false promises of getting her to Montreal, and Bella has not yet realised their game. Moreover, her desperation to find gym equipment to train on has landed her in a sticky situation. Later the same year Tammy ran her Olympics-themed classic, Olympia Jones.

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Another thing to run strongly in Tammy in 1976 was stories published at readers’ requests, by open invitation from Tammy. One starting next issue is “Dumbells Academy”, about a school run by the most incompetent staff in the world. This story appeared at the suggestion of one reader: “I’d like to see a story about a school where all the staff are really nutty.” It replaces “Odds on Patsy”, a horse story where Tammy opted for a story on horse racing and jockeys, which makes a nice change from show-jumping. Could the same writer have written “Gail at Windyridge”, another story on jockeying that appeared in Tammy later on?

Expanded Strange Stories also appeared at readers’ requests, which ran for several episodes. The current one is “Drawn to Destiny”, about Diane Hudson, a girl who is jealous of her twin sister Sylvia. And when Diane takes up drawing, her jealousy takes a sinister turn when whatever she draws seems to come true. It starts really scaring her and she doesn’t know what to think, but her jealousy is intensifying too.

Although we have a Strange Story serial, the regular Strange Story continues. This week’s mystery is how the villagers of Jerra Island managed to evacuate from a volcanic island in the 19thcentury. According to legend, the pastor had a vision of it, but how did that happen? And how did Brenda’s church snowstorm souvenir get encased in lava for over 100 years near the site where the pastor saw the vision? She only bought it that day!

Girls’ serials did not often delve into politics, but Molly gets badly tangled in local politics when Lord Stanton has her and Pickering running a bus service during a nationwide strike in support of miners demanding better conditions. This does not please the strikers because it’s blacklegging. It is quite funny seeing the bully butler Pickering in a bus driver’s outfit though! However, Molly has worse problems now than the strike and blacklegging – she is trapped in a crumbling mine with Pickering and Lord Stanton.

Local politics are also a feature in Wee Sue. The council is building an old people’s centre but the oldies don’t want it because they don’t think it’s sound enough. Meanwhile, Sue and her friends would have loved the same site for a roller skating rink. Sue’s suggestion to the council: turn it into a community centre and convert the roof into a skating rink. Now everybody’s happy.

Tania Foster has always been the muggins and dumping ground of the gang of she hangs out with. Now she realises it, she is trying to stand up for herself. The trouble is, they keep finding ways to keep her put upon, including blackmail and dirty tricks. This week they push her into doing all their maths homework for them at the disco while they enjoy themselves and laugh at her. Too bad for them they forgot a noisy disco was not the best place for Tania to concentrate on maths and they end up in detention for “disgusting” homework. It is one of many instances where their treatment of Tania backfires. But Tania is still the muggins of the gang and finding a way to get them to treat her with respect is proving elusive.

“Towne in the Country” is a period story where All Creatures Great and Small meets “Cathy’s Casebook”. Valerie Towne and her vet father have moved to a new post in the country. Valerie soon realises she is going to be deeply involved in her father’s work, but she is not all that confident around animals. And there are other problems such as their vet’s clinic being a mess and queues of kids lining up with pets, expecting Valerie to cure them. And now Valerie and her father have a jumbo-sized problem – treating a sick circus elephant!

Bessie and her class go to the fair. After a series of mishaps, hijinks and getting messed up, everything ends happily for Bessie – with lots of food, of course.

Tammy 5 November 1983

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Tammy cover 5 November 1983

  • Lucky By Name… (artist Juliana Buch, writer Malcolm Shaw)
  • Pam of Pond Hill (artist Bob Harvey, writer Jay Over)
  • Glenda’s Glossy Pages (artist Tony Higham, writer Pat Mills)
  • Room for Rosie (artist Santiago Hernandez, writer Alison Christie)
  • Remember November… (artist Len Flux, writer Maureen Spurgeon)
  • The Button Box (artist Mario Capaldi, writer Alison Christie, sub-writer Ian Mennell)
  • The Dawn Horse – a Pony Tale (artist Hugo D’Adderio, writer Chris Harris)
  • Spell of Fog (artist Tony Coleman, writer Jake Adams)
  • The Crayzees (artist Joe Collins)

This was the last Guy Fawkes issue Tammy ever published, and it is bang on 5 November. Tammy dropped Bessie and Wee Sue in 1982, so they are no longer able to provide any special stories for Guy Fawkes. We have a Guy Fawkes feature, “Remember November…” and in “The Crayzees” we learn Miss T does not like fireworks because they are so noisy. So what is in that mystery parcel she has ordered for 5 November? Joe Collins was always one for incorporating the Fireworks Code into his Tammy cartoons and this one is no exception. It is written all around the border of the full-page cartoon. We also have a recipe for a Bonfire cake in “Tammy’s Tasties”.

Room for Rosie had her Guy Fawkes story in the Halloween issue, but there is some carryover this week. Rosie has taken damage from the bonfire party, so her chances of a home have been reduced. Can Pauline find a way to restore her?

A new Pam of Pond Hill starts. It would have been nice if Jay Over had written a Pam of Pond Hill Guy Fawkes story, which is something Pam never had. Instead, Pam and her friends find themselves being roped into a cookery contest by Jenny Bates, who is using the excursion to see her favourite pop group, the Phonees. Moreover, Jenny has chosen them more for their good nature than their talent for cooking. They decide to go along with it because they are under the impression Jenny’s days are numbered and it’s her dying wish. Actually, it looks suspiciously like Jenny’s playing on their sympathy. Anyway, Jenny’s reason for entering them all in the contest is selfish and not giving any thought to winning for the school – which they don’t have much chance of.

In “Lucky By Name” everyone is now thinking Lucky the foal has some strange power over animals. Snobby Amanda and her father demand the foal be examined by a research institute but Lucky’s owners refuse because the institute has an unsavoury reputation for animal experimentation. Now someone is stealing Lucky, and we strongly suspect Amanda and her father are behind it. Lucky, if you really do have a power over animals, now might be a good time to use it…

This week’s episode of “Glenda’s Glossy Pages” was drawn by Tony Higham instead of Mario Capaldi. Capaldi must have been unavailable for some reason, but he returns in the next episode. In the story, the power of the glossy pages drives off the police who think Glenda stole the items she mysteriously got from the catalogue, but they warn she hasn’t heard the last of them. Next, it looks like the catalogue is helping Glenda by giving her the confidence to swim against her arch-enemy Hillary. But when Hillary suddenly develops cramp, Glenda finds herself just swimming off instead of helping. What the hell has come over her? Well, it’s not hard to guess, especially as Glenda is at a loss to explain it herself but just can’t help it. We rather suspect the same thing is behind Hillary’s cramp too.

The Button Box gives us more Jackson family history this week. This time it’s a World War II story on how gran’s sister met her husband – all through one of the buttons in the box, of course.

This week’s pony tale is a sad one and based on fact. It discusses the last of the Tarpan horse breed in the Ukraine. Sonja and her father travel to the Ukraine in search of the Tarpan breed – only to find the Tarpans are on the brink of extinction and two parent Tarpans being shot by farmers pushes them over the edge.

In “Spell of Fog” Sally is convinced the mysterious rising mist is Alice Compton’s angry response to the sensationalised, historically inaccurate filming of her persecution for witchcraft. But the filming continues, so the mist intensifies. It’s got everyone scared and has even shattered a window.

Beforehand, we are introduced to Alice’s sad-looking self-portrait, the only one of her pictures to survive her burning at the stake. It seems her “extremely modern, natural style” was too far ahead of its time; people called it “the Devil’s likeness” and it sounds like this is one of the reasons why she was branded a witch. The self-portrait is clearly a plot thread to be followed up, but will it be in a way that tells us anything about the mist?

Jinty & Penny 11 July 1981

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Jinty & Penny 11 July 1981 cover

Cover artist: Mario Capaldi

 

In “Worlds Apart”, comeuppance begins for the vain, power-mad Samantha who tyrannises her fairytale dream world. It comes in the form of Mo’s mother, who’s a witch in this world. She turns Samantha into a frog. Yay witch!

Unfortunately there is no comeuppance for the tyrannical, power-mad headmaster in “Dracula’s Daughter”. Two of the girls’ friends try, but they fail. He’s now driven the girls’ favourite teacher out with his conduct, which inflames their hatred of him even more. And his hapless daughter Lydia is made to suffer for it.

Pam’s now started music training with her trombone. She’s beginning to wonder if it was a good idea because the demands are interfering with her other interests at school. Looks like a test of resolve here. Will Pam persist and be glad of it, or will she decide the trombone’s more trouble than it’s worth?

The dogs’ home can’t keep up with Fagin’s appetite any more than the Twists could; he keeps gobbling up the other dogs’ food, leaving them hungry and growling at him. He either has to be rehomed or put down, so an ad goes into the newspaper. Olivia is praying someone with a big heart will take Fagin. But the ad looks off-putting: “Home with never ending food supply wanted, for ever-hungry mongrel”. Something really has to happen in the final episode next week if Fagin is to stay alive, much less continue as anyone’s pet with that appetite of his.

The Gypsy Rose story is yet another recycled Strange Story, which was also reprinted in the Girl Picture Story Library as “The Crook Catchers”. “Techniques for fighting crime have changed over the centuries”, but it looks like one thing has stayed the same – supernatural help in one form or other. And this particular form of supernatural help stretches across the centuries to nail a man wanted for aggravated robbery.

Sir Roger is horrified when Gaye goes on a diet and keep-fit phase and drags him into it. Will his tricks to stop her succeed or will she out-trick him yet again?

The hijinks on Tansy’s camping holiday continue, and of course there just has to be a storm to wash everything out. But for June and Tansy, there’s a bright side to it: the males, who have been getting on their nerves, cop the worst from the storm and look like drowned rats.

“Angela’s Angels” find Sam and treatment starts for him. However, Helen took a nasty burn during the search and has not reported it. It’s going untreated, which could lead to serious trouble.

Kelly goes to Wishing Cove and wishes she could do the things that her shyness prevents her from doing. Her wish comes true in a surprise manner when a sea sprite actually appears to her and tells her to have more faith in herself. She does not realise it’s her friend playing a ruse to instil more confidence in her.

Alley Cat’s back this week, but it looks like he’s being used as a filler as there is no craft feature at all.