Jay Over is one of the few Jinty writers we know the name of; this is really down to the fact that Tammy started printing artist and writer credits in its pages at a time overlapping with the long-running “Pam of Pond Hill“. Thanks to those credits, we also know that Over wrote at least three serials in Tammy: “Lonely Ballerina”, “The Secret of Angel Smith”, and “The Slave of the Clock”.
Stories credited to Jay Over:
- Pam of Pond Hill (1979 – 81 in Jinty, continued in Tammy until 1984)
- Slave of the Clock (Tammy, 1982; artist Maria Barrera)
- The Secret of Angel Smith (Tammy, 1983; artist Juliana Buch)
- The Lonely Ballerina (Tammy, 1983; artist Maria Barrera)
“Pam of Pond Hill” was one of the longest strips that ran in Jinty, though not to be compared with Tammy‘s regular character Bella Barlow, still one of the most well-known characters in girls’ comics. We know that Bella was written by more than one person – credited authors include Primrose Cumming, Jenny McDade, and Malcolm Shaw – but all the credits we have for “Pam” indicate that this story seems to have been written by Jay Over throughout all that time.
Mistyfan writes at length about how well the character and voice of Pam comes across in her serial: the dialogue is vivid and the stories are realistic. Re-reading a number of the stories, I also was struck by how much variety is packed into the short story arcs that this serial is made up of, and how humane the stories are. Tess Bradshaw is the class fat girl but she is given a backstory that is considerably more nuanced than something just relating to her size or appetite. Indeed, in one of the Tammy stories Tess is given the chance to shine while still keeping to her old self rather than slimming down or similar: a frustrated ballerina, she becomes a genuinely triumphal synchronized swimming star. Likewise, Pam’s boyfriend Goofy, who is a funny-looking clumsy kid as you’d expect from his nickname, has real musical talents and a kind heart which he allows to be shown, at least sometimes. Of course sometimes Pam is unrealistically able to pull a solution out of the bag in the way a real 11 year old would find it hard to do, but hey, she’s the heroine of her own story – and even then she’s not always a winner.
If not for those printed credits, I think not many people would make a connection between the soap-opera comedy of “Pam” and the angsty mystery of “Slave of the Clock”. The three serials that Jay Over is credited with in Tammy are focused on mystery and on the athletic arts of ballet and trapeze. The only one of those three stories that I have read fully is “Slave of the Clock”; Mistyfan’s entry on 1979 Jinty story “Prisoner of the Bell” briefly summarizes the plot of the later Tammy story and draws parallels between the two. Could they both have been written by Over? Certainly we know that writers for a comic often wrote more than one for the same title, and multiple stories at the same time. Over could easily have started a career in girls’ comics writing rather earlier than the 1979 “Pond Hill” debut. If only there was a way to analyse the story writing itself rather than relying on very incomplete records and memories that are hard to elicit…
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A Resource on Jinty: Artists, Writers, Stories 
Jay Over didn’t receive many credits in Tammy. But we owe so much to those credits. For example, if it hadn’t been for the one credit Hugh Thornton-Jones received, the artist of Sue’s Fantastic Fun-Bag, among others, would be unknown.
Absolutely so.
Slave of the Clock is just about demanding its own entry here, we’ve mentioned it so much.
Yes, I guess it should. I am missing the earliest episodes though. Do you want to do it?
I have a couple of episodes missing. Maybe you tell me what you have missing and I will see if I can fill the gaps?
The first ep I’ve got is the 14 August 1982 I think. I’ve got the rest though.
I’ll see what I can find when I get the chance.
The episode on SOTC you put up reveals another drawback in the hypnotic power Margolia thought would make Alison more dedicated to ballet – all Alison can do while hypnotised is dance like a clockwork doll. As her failure in the audition shows, this does not advance her in the world of ballet or do all that much for her talent.