Jinty 17 December 1977

Come Into My Parlour – artist Douglas Perry

Sue’s Fantastic Fun-Bag! – artist Hugh Thornton-Jones

A Jinty Christmas Poem: The Story of the Mince Pie

Two Mothers for Maggie – Jim Baikie

My Favourite Thing! – Competition results

Guardian of White Horse Hill – artist Julian Vivas, writer Pat Mills

Stage Fright! (final episode) – artist Phil Townsend

“The Yew Walk” (Gypsy Rose story) – artist unknown

Land of No Tears – artist Guy Peeters, writer Pat Mills

Alley Cat – artist Rob Lee 

Race for a Fortune – artist Christine Ellingham

Fruity Sweets for Christmas – Feature 

Jinty’s gearing us all up for Christmas with Christmas covers, Christmas features, Christmas jokes, and a Christmas party story from Sue and her Fantastic Fun-Bag. 

There is a dash of Christmas with a yew tree walk in this week’s Gypsy Rose story, but definitely not in the Christmas spirit. New owners are warned not to cut down the yew trees or they will evoke a druid’s curse. Of course they do precisely that, and if they can’t find a way to lift the curse their very lives could be danger. 

“Race for a Fortune” also gives a hint of Christmas, because it’s party time this week. Katie drops in on the Larrup Stick Dance and takes the opportunity to give her cheating cousins some “stick” after that dirty trick they played on her in the last issue. 

It may not be Christmas in “Land of No Tears” – something we highly doubt is celebrated in that cold-hearted world where all emotion is banned. Still, it is as good as Christmas when Miranda’s mysterious mother offers to train the Gamma girls for the Golden Girl Award after Cassy takes a brunt to protect her and Miranda from being caught by the ruthless Perfecta. 

What about presents? Maggie gets presents, in the form of lovely dresses, from both her real mother and her TV mother. Unfortunately the presents are creating conflicting loyalties.

In Alley Cat it’s Christmas stockings. Spotty is unravelling people’s sweaters and pinching the wool right off their backs, in order to knit his own giant Christmas stocking. What a grinch! We can imagine what his stocking will be filled with on Christmas Day.

In the last episode of “Stage Fright!” it takes a fire and the loss of his mansion because of the deranged Lady Alice to make Lord Banbury realise all he had cared about was the acting trophy and not enough about his family. Granddaughter Melanie is not quite ready to forgive him, but the story ends on a hopeful note that a better relationship will build between them. 

Not much happens this week to advance the plot in “Come Into My Parlour”, except wait for the full moon in order to cast the spell to help unravel the mystery of the vanished Saxtons. But bullies get a surprise when the power of Mother Heggerty’s necklace enables Jody to give them a good walloping! 

So the mysterious white horse is a mare! After a time trip to the past, Janey realises the white horse is Epona, the horse goddess, and it is a power that has awakened in response to the threat of the motorway. She returns to her own time with the sword she has taken as a symbol of Epona’s strength and compassion, and finds Epona has gathered a horse army. Now what can Epona have in mind? Let’s not forget she’s a goddess, and not even bulldozers are a match for a goddess.

Jinty 10 December 1977

Come Into My Parlour  – artist Douglas Perry

Christmas Mobile part 4 – feature

Give a Victorian Party! Feature

Two Mothers for Maggie – Jim Baikie

Sue’s Fantastic Fun-Bag! – artist Hugh Thornton-Jones

Guardian of White Horse Hill – artist Julian Vivas, writer Pat Mills

Stage Fright! – artist Phil Townsend

Eddie Kidd – feature 

The Runaway Bride (Gypsy Rose’s Tales of Mystery and Magic) – artist Keith Robson

My Favourite Thing! – Competition results

Land of No Tears – artist Guy Peeters, writer Pat Mills

Alley Cat – artist Rob Lee 

Race for a Fortune – artist Christine Ellingham

Topping Ideas! – Feature 

It’s the final part of Jinty’s Christmas mobile. Jinty readers should be feeling more Christmassy now. 

In “Land of No Tears”, the mystery of Miranda’s mother deepens, but some things are unravelling about it. Cassy finds out Miranda and her mother are secretly meeting each other, an illegal thing in a world where all emotion and normal human contact are forbidden. One is reminded of the Orwellian “Imagine a boot stamping on the human face – forever.” But who is the woman anyway? Why does she turn up in disguise? And why can’t she come up with a better disguise than a ridiculous wig and heavy makeup that would immediately draw attention and put her secret even more at risk?

Sue asks Henrietta to put a stamp on it – meaning on a letter. But, as is so often the case, Henrietta misunderstands and gives Sue a foot that stamps on anything – and with the force of an elephant. 

Katie’s sneaky cousins pull the old signpost switch on her. This causes her to bump into a band of smugglers, and she has to find a way to escape from them. We are informed Katie will get revenge on her cousins next week. 

“Stage Fright!” reaches its penultimate episode. The deranged Lady Alice has been blocking Linda and Melanie from acting because she stands to gain Banbury Manor out of it. But upon hearing Linda has foiled her attempt to stop Melanie entering the acting trophy, she decides that if she can’t have the manor, nobody else will. She’s going to burn it down – with Linda locked inside!

In the Gypsy Rose story, Dee also falls foul of a deranged woman who locks her in. The nutty old woman thinks Dee’s her lost daughter Celia, who eloped to marry the man she loved, not the man her mother chose. She does not realise Celia died before she got the chance to reconcile with her. Fortunately, Celia’s ghost is on hand to help. 

Maggie’s first TV rehearsal is ruined because Mum lumbered her with babysitting. Miss Keyes, her TV mother, is the only bright spot in her life now. Why is it that the make-believe mother she has on the set is far more desirable than the real one who married an unsuitable stepfather?

Mother Heggerty forces Jody to search for the Saxton family she wants revenge on. The search leads Jody to the remains of their old home, and the next step is a spell cast there to find out what happened to them.

Janey goes time travelling to the time of the ancient Celts, where she becomes the chosen one of Epona the horse goddess. In this time period the villagers face a threat, just like the 20th century ones, though the threats are of very different sorts. Is this why Janey keeps seeing this white horse? Is she some sort of chosen one or a reincarnation?

Alley Cat makes a new home in a pipe after Spotty blows up his bin. Spotty sends it rolling downhill, and right where it foils a bank robbery. Alley Cat spends his reward money on a new home that Spotty can’t blow up. Foiled again, Spotty!

Tammy & June 27 September 1975

Cover artist: John Richardson

Bella at the Bar – artist John Armstrong

Glenda’s Glossy Pages – artist Mario Capaldi, writer Pat Mills

Wee Sue – artist John Richardson

Backhand Billie – artist unknown

Bessie Bunter

Molly Mills: A Cure for Claire – artist Tony Thewenetti, writer Maureen Spurgeon

Wheeler Delia – artist unknown

Have a Heart! – Competition

The Greatest Gift (Strange Story) – artist Douglas Perry

Serfs of the Swamps – artist Douglas Perry

Although this is a September issue, I am bringing it out for Christmas because the Strange Story has a dash of Christmas in it. The story sure is a warning not to take generosity – something to show more of at Christmas – to extremes or come before things that should take priority, like paying the bills. Some of you may wonder if the grandfather deserved the Strange Story rescue, even if he did seem to learn his lesson, and if something up there is going, “All right, this once, but if it happens again…” After all, Dickens frequently commented on the consequences and misery of debt in his stories, and “A Christmas Carol” itself was written to pay off debt. Well, judge for yourselves.

Douglas Perry is drawing this Strange Story while also drawing a serial, “Serfs of the Swamps”. The locals of a hamlet seem to be making Lynn Wake and her marooned classmates work like serfs – and now they are forced to dress like serfs too, in dreadful sack cloth garments. One rather gets the impression these people are out to use the girls as slave labour. 

Talking of serfs, Bella is, is usual, being underfed while forced to work like a serf for Aunt Gert and Uncle Jed, who show no mercy for the back injury Bella is trying to recover from. The lack of food makes Bella black out while she’s doing swimming therapy, and because she’s in the water, that’s now put her in terrible danger. 

Assistant manager Mrs Mallis isn’t making “Wheeler Delia” work like a serf at the rollerdrome where she works although she dislikes her. Instead, she’s gotten Delia sacked, and when Delia is reinstated she reports Delia to the orphanage for breaking bounds. This prompts Delia to run away from the orphanage and take refuge at the pier, but someone has caught her. And it looks like…guess.

Bessie is always coming up with screwy schemes to get out of schoolwork and exams because she hopeless at schoolwork. This week she pretends her eyesight is ailing. Predictably, food being the sight to behold for Bessie is her undoing and soon everyone “sees” through her. 

An Indian doctor claims to have the power to make Mistress Claire walk again – but the moment Claire starts walking, Molly suddenly loses the power of her own legs. Now she’s the one in the wheelchair and Mistress Claire is wheeling her around. What a turnabout! What’s going on? A legal rep believes this weird doctor is behind it and offers to help Molly sue for damages. Lord Stanton’s response is to sack Molly. At least there’s a bright side to this episode: Pickering gets a bite on the nose from a parrot!

Backhand Billie wants to become a top tennis player under her own steam and not because she’s the daughter of a tennis star. Okay, but she has been going about it the wrong way: John McEnroe tactics, nasty tricks, and not being a good loser. She’s now having second thoughts about this, but the damage she’s done is not easy to reverse and she still doesn’t like losing. Miss Ball the academy head now offers to help, with CCTV post mortems of Billie’s playing, but how ready is Billie to take things on board?

Wee Sue goes to a mini-market for cheap sports gear, only to discover the reason it’s so cheap is that the man is a crook who cheats customers with rubbish goods. Ever heard of caveat emptor, Sue? Or if it is too good to be true, it usually is? And get a load of the name of the crook’s mini-market: “Honest Pat Mills’ Mini-Market”! Wonder what Pat Mills thought of the in-joke.

Glenda is now convinced the glossy pages really can work magic after she gets a flash bicycle out of them and her snooty arch-enemy Hillary is seething. But then Mum starts a fire in the fireplace where Glenda has hidden the glossy pages – and all of a sudden the bicycle catches fire. Yikes, what other magic is at work here? Is it that old adage, if it is too good to be true it usually is again?