- The Secret Swimmer (artist Phil Gascoine)
- The Dream House (artist Mike White)
- Rusty, Remember Me (artist Eduardo Feito)
- Stefa’s Heart of Stone (artist Phil Townsend, writer Alison Christie)
- Day and Knight (artist Juliana Buch)
- Are You a Teacher’s Pet? (quiz)
- Flight from the Romanys (artist Maria Dembilio)
- Fun Fair – puzzles
- Horse from the Sea (artist Rodrigo Comos)
- The Haunted Station (artist Julio Bosch)
- Sadie in Waiting (artist Joe Collins)
The merge into Tammy is in three weeks, so how does this issue contribute towards the merger? “The Dream House” has a double episode, it looks like “Flight from the Romanys” is getting close to finishing, but “The Secret Swimmer”, “The Haunted Station”, “Rusty, Remember Me” and “Day and Knight” are on their second episodes. And anyone familiar with the original run of “Stefa’s Heart of Stone” knows it still has a long way to go.
Liza now becomes “The Secret Swimmer” and secretly training for the event Nikki is now out of, because she feels it is the only way to get the girls to talk to her again after wrongly blaming her for Nikki’s accident. But getting up at early hours for training and pushing herself too much are beginning to take their toll.
Mr Day is pushing headlong into his new marriage with Carrie Knight’s mother, despite protests from his daughter Sharon that Carrie is bullying her. Dad is not listening and Carrie is very good at pulling the wool over his eyes. And now Carrie is causing another heartbreak for Sharon – she has to rehome her beloved cat Monk because of Carrie’s asthma.
In “Stefa’s Heart of Stone”, Dad’s job is on the line because of Stefa’s tricks to dodge Ruth, Joy’s look-alike at school. Stefa gets no sleep because her heart of stone is struggling against her guilty conscience. But conscience does not win, and neither does common sense. By the final panel it looks like Stefa will indeed get Dad sacked because of her wanting to avoid Ruth.
Donna Jones needs a vet for the injured fox cub, now named Rusty, but money is a problem. And there is another problem – animals aren’t allowed in their flat, and the caretaker is not the sort who would understand the situation.
Jan Dale is becoming more convinced that the doll’s house is evil and taking away the elder members of the family she is working for. Now Diana, the eldest daughter, has disappeared like the parents, but the two youngest kids seem to be helping it.
Lydia Parks, who has only just escaped from the gypsies who kidnapped her, now has to escape from a workhouse. She finally does, but it’s now more urgent than ever to get home, because her sick friend at the workhouse badly needs help.
In “Horse from the Sea”, Janice and Tracey Penrose discover a rift in the Penrose family, which stems from when Charles Penrose blamed his father for a mining accident because the old miser was cutting corners at the expense of safety. It would not be surprising if Janice’s stepfather was descended from the old meanie, because it looks like he’s deliberately keeping Janice an invalid so she won’t inherit, and committing other fraud too.
“The Haunted Station” is more like a time travel device. It has already sent Linda Brent and Wendy Smith to the 1930s, where they get entangled with a frightened girl who is being chased by someone. Now it looks like it’s about to send them back to the 1930s again.
Princess Bee wants to go riding – and so does Grovel. He ends up regretting it because Princess Bee uses him for her mount after he messes things up (below).
A Resource on Jinty: Artists, Writers, Stories 
Am I going mad or did Donna’s surname change from Jones to Martin after the Tammy merger? Guess I must be going mad; I could have sworn this issue was dated 17/3/84, as opposed to ’83 ;- )
Thank you, the date has been sorted now. As for the change in surname, such errors have occurred elsewhere. For example, Miss Bigger’s first name changed from Lillian to Amelia.
Yes, I’d noticed there’d been name changes while ploughing through Tammy at the British Library in the last few years (there’re far worse ways of passing time!), but hadn’t kept track. I know Miss Bigger frequently had to be taken down a peg or she’d have been insufferable; but it was interesting to see that she didn’t always react to her circumstances with an outraged yell. There’s a story where a visiting hairdresser gives her a trendy REALLY short hairdo and she doesn’t go off on one. The (TV) days of Grange Hill’s in-touch teachers weren’t far off, as opposed to mortarboard-wearing tyrants. Someone should do a study…
I think I know the Wee Sue story you mean there. It was a Robert MacGillivray one.
Miss Bigger was such a stick in the mud that she always wore the same clothes. In another Wee Sue story it is revealed that her entire wardrobe consists of multiple copies of the same outfit. It gets muddled with a rack meant for a fashion show and the models have to model them all as the show must go on. However, it catches on Milltown as “the frowsy frump look” and is a huge hit. Miss Bigger is a bit put out as she prided herself on her unique style, but now every woman in town is copying it.
Do you know when Miss Bigger first appeared in Wee Sue? When Sue first appeared in Sandie there was no Miss Bigger and I would like to know when Miss Bigger first showed and how she became Sue’s antagonist.
Not offhand, but I could check it out when I’m next in BL; I’ve done this for Niblet before, and glad to do so again. It’ll have to be next week I’m afraid but I guess there’s no rush.
Thank you.
From queries I made elsewhere it looks like no Sue sequels in Sandie.
What date did Sue start in Sandie? Got to get my order in soon as it’ll be coming down from Boston Spa and you’ve to give it 48 hours. I’d like to narrow it down but it’d be no hardship ploughing through all 20 months of Sandie’s lifetime – haven’t I said this before?
Sue started in the first issue but there was no Miss Bigger. I wonder if Miss Bigger appeared when Sandie merged with Tammy?
Miss (Lillian) Bigger did indeed first appear on 27/10/73, the merger issue, while lacking the bulbous nose, big lips etc that’d characterize her in later years, at least to me.
Thank you for the information. Have you any details on how she became Sue’s antagonist?
But she was still the same old tartar who was as vain as a peacock and the same old outfit, right? 😄
She was one of two new teachers at Sue’s school, the second being Miss Tuft. Bigger was pinch-faced and more like Miss Ewell from Please Sir (Joan Sanderson’s character); one would assume this was the inspiration. She was stricter and, yes, constantly thinking of number one but not so self-aggrandising, preferring to win out over Sue – and failing, of course. I think that’s why when she WAS hugely self-important in later years she had to be deflated rather than defeated; think of the Bash Street Kids’ teacher’s constant failures – “They’ve won again!” etc. As I’ve said, it was impressive how she later went with the flow of her circumstances, even those that didn’t favour her, instead of fuming impotently. She wasn’t at this stage by the time of the last issue I saw, at the end of 1974.
Thank you for the information about Miss Bigger.
In the Wee Sue story for Tammy’s 10th birthday Sue recalls that in every story she remembers, Miss Bigger usually takes a fall – at which Miss Bigger falls down a manhole. You have just reminded me of that gag when you said she was deflated rather than defeated.
You’re more than welcome. Quite willing to research other stories, including the silliness of Ms Birch the puppet teacher and Nat the Cat!