June & Pixie 22 December 1973

 

(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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Sandie 28 July 1973

• Slaves of the Eye (artist Joan Boix)
• Cinderella – Superstar (artist Joan Boix?)
• Wyn and the Witch (artist A. E. Allen)
• Connie Courageous (artist “B. Jackson”) – last episode
• Sink or Swim, Sara! (artist Eduardo Feito)
• The Captives of Terror Island (artist Juan Escandell Torres, writer Terence Magee) – last episode
• Dancing to Danger (artist Tom Kerr)
• Bridie at the Fair (artist Leslie Otway)
• All Against Alice (artist Miguel Quesada?)
• Sisters in Sorrow (artist Desmond Walduck?)

“Slaves of the Eye” features another sinister teacher (Miss Krell) who exerts a strange, sinister influence over pupils, and it’s up to our protagonists (Kate Saunders and her friend Heather) to unravel how and why. Plus what lies under that veil Miss Krell always wears and what lurks in her laboratory. Kate has now discovered Miss Krell used a transmitter inside a netball to make the girls foul her during the match. Once she gets hold of the transmitter, it leads her and Heather to prison cells that were empty earlier but are now full of…whom?

 

“Cinderella Superstar” is an aspiring ballerina, Ellie Villiers whose road to her dreams is being blocked by uncooperative relatives who treat her like dirt. Now they’ve taken her gramophone to stop her dancing to her ballet music and given it away. But the blurb for next week says Ellie’s about to get some help.

 

Wyn is an ill-treated drudge at Pinchbeck Hall, but has a good friend in the form of the witch Grizelda “Grizzy” in the attic, whose magic helps Wyn get comeuppance on her horrible employers. This week Lord Pinchbeck is challenged to a duel but there’s a problem – Grizzy has turned him into a pig, so how the heck is he going to duel?

 

It’s the final episode of “Connie Courageous”. Connie Cartwright has jealous rivals in addition to learning to jump while being blind. And she needs the prize money to restore her sight, but her enemies have blocked the path to her getting to the event. Can she and her horse find a way to get there in time?

 

“The Captives of Terror Island” also ends this week. Madame Soong of Terror Island has kidnapped an entire hockey team in order to claim the National Hockey Championships for her country, and her training methods are “barbaric”. It looks like she has finally got what she wants and is a national heroine, until our heroine finally manages to expose her in front of the spectators. Madame Soong quite literally destroys herself – and Terror Island – with the very bomb she had set for her enemies.

 

In “Sink or Swim, Sara”, the two snobby headmistresses of St Agatha’s should have thought twice before making Sara Dale’s life so miserable. This caused her to change schools when they badly needed her to win an inter-school swimming gala. Now the same thing has resulted in two of Sara’s friends being expelled. Now they’ve transferred to Sara’s school and are happier – then Sara informs them that the expulsion is all part of some dirty trick the headmistresses are playing, which won’t be revealed until the final episode next week.

 

“Sisters in Sorrow” is also on its penultimate episode. Layla and her friend Pat have been forced to become thieves, but the story takes the unusual step of having an aristocrat, Lady Maggins, as the Fagin. They have been forced to impersonate two others in order to infiltrate a household so they can rob it. Layla manages to rescue the real McCoys, but they get cornered by Lady Maggins. Meanwhile, Pat has been exposed as an imposter, so they’re both in a corner now.

 

“Dancing to Danger” and “Bridie at the Fair” look like they have been reprinted from elsewhere, perhaps School Friend or June. In the former, Pat White uses ballet as her cover for undercover work against the Nazis in World War II. She manages to worm her way into Gestapo HQ to find information on a prisoner, Professor Duval, under pretext of her ballet troupe staging a performance there. However, her Nazi nemesis, Herr Staub, gets suspicious and is going to arrange a special watch on them. In the latter, Bridie Donovan has joined a fair in the hope of regaining her memory. But the fortune-teller Madame Rosa tells Bridie she can do anything she wants with her.

 

“All Against Alice” has been fostered out to a former Wimbledon champion who is coaching her in her beloved tennis, but shows her no affection. Then a Mr and Mrs Tyler claim to be Alice’s parents but lose the custody battle in the interim. Just as well, because they are clearly out to make money out of her, which they finally succeed in doing by destroying Alice’s amateur status through a dirty trick, and with it, her career.

Sandie 13 May 1972

• Lorna’s Lonely Days
• Slaves of the Sorcerer (artist Desmond Walduck?)
• Wee Sue (artist Vicente Torregrosa Manrique)
• Brenda’s Brownies (artist and writer Mike Brown)
• Odd Mann Out – final episode (artist A E Allen)
• Silver Is a Star (artist Eduardo Feito)
• Not So Lady-like Lucy
• Friends and Neighbours
• The Captives of Madam Karma (artist Jaume Rumeu, writer Pat Mills)
• Wendy the Witch (artist Mike Brown)
• Sandra Must Dance – final episode (artist Douglas Perry)
• Bonnie’s Butler (artist Julio Bosch?)
• Anna’s Forbidden Friend (artist Miguel Quesada)
• A Sandie Pop Portrait – Ryan O’Neil (artist Bob Gifford)

“Lorna’s Lonely Days” are due to her longing to find the mother who disappeared when she was two. The mystery of the mother really deepens when Lorna thinks she has finally found her mother at last, but the woman in the photo just turns out to be a former employee who expresses no surprise at nobody letting Lorna see a picture of her mother. Meanwhile, Dad is worried Lorna is becoming more and more like her mother. Now why can these people be thinking this way?

Mike Brown is drawing a new strip in Sandie, “Wendy the Witch”, in addition to Brenda’s Brownies.

Beth Williams has once again failed to escape the sorcerer, and she’s back in his clutches. Now this is getting really tedious.

Wee Sue is becoming unpopular with her classmates and she seems to be taking deliberate measures to make it so. Now what is she playing at?

It’s the last episode of “Odd Mann Out”. The tyrannical headmistress is brought down when Susie Mann exposes her as an embezzler and falsifying exam marks for girls she favours.

Trudy Parker’s efforts to save Silver have landed her in court. Only the action of the Colonel saves Trudy from an unjust sentence of corrective training school. But then another injustice looms, in the form of Trudy being falsely accused of stealing a necklace.

The neighbour problem finally seems to be sorted in “Friends and Neighbours”. But fresh problems start when Dad begins renovating the house.

“The Captives of Madam Karma” (spelled Madame Karma on the cover) are a slave labour force of abducted girls who slave all day making transistor radios in a sweatshop – which is 200 miles within the Arctic circle. But if you think that’s weird, it’s nothing on the mysterious helper who shows up to help our protagonist – a glowing woman floating on air!

In the final episode of “Sandra Must Dance”, the twins have fallen out because Joan has wrongly assumed Sandra pulled the dirty trick a jealous girl was responsible for. To put things right, Sandra compels Joan to dance again, and in doing so the twins discover they no longer need the psychic bond and both are brilliant dancers.

In “Bonnie’s Butler” there is a disagreement over home decorating and Dad taking exception to Bonnie’s pop posters adorning the walls. But of course the butler’s got a scheme to help Bonnie there.

Anna gets a clue to help her find her forbidden friend Julia, who has been kidnapped as part of her father’s machinations to drive everyone out of Madeley Buildings. The dirty rotten schemer has even put the blame for the kidnapping on Anna!

Sandie 8 April 1972

Stories in this issue:

• No-one Cheers for Norah (artist John Armstrong)
• Slaves of the Sorcerer (artist Desmond Walduck) – first episode
• Wee Sue (artist Vicente Torregrosa Manrique)
• Brenda’s Brownies (artist and writer Mike Brown)
• Odd Mann Out (artist A E Allen)
• Silver Is a Star (artist Eduardo Feito)
• Not So Lady-like Lucy
• Our Big BIG Secret (artist Jim Baikie)
• The School of No Escape (artist unknown artist ‘Merry’)
• Wendy the Witch (artist and writer Mike Brown)
• Sandra Must Dance (artist Douglas Perry)
• Bonnie’s Butler (artist Julio Bosch)
• Anna’s Forbidden Friend (artist Miguel Quesada)
• A Sandie Pop Portrait – Sacha Distel (artist Bob Gifford)

The contents have moved around quite a lot in this issue compared to the previous eight – for instance “Silver Is A Star” has been moved much nearer the middle of the paper than it was, and “Anna’s Forbidden Friend” has moved to the last spot (which I think was probably one of the best spots, as providing the denouement of the issue).

Norah hurries to her father’s hospital bed, as he is in a bad way. She hears his side of the story of his disgrace (he says he didn’t do it) and her visit gives him a new will to live.

Catawiki credits both the new story, “Slaves of the Sorcerer”, and last week’s “Little Lady Nobody”, as both being by artist Desmond Walduck. I disagree and have credited “Little Lady Nobody” as being by Roy Newby. Soon I will post about the story, which was the first Sandie story to finish, and you can decide for yourselves. In this first episode, Beth Williams is accused and then acquitted of stealing, but she soon finds herself entangled in a trap that is much harder to escape from. The story is set in 1930, but the historical elements are not very strongly outlined, at least not yet.

Wee Sue rescues a dog from the roadside – she has recognized that its yellow collar means it belongs to a nearby scientific establishment. Researcher Miss Brog claims only to be kind to the animals she is experimenting on – but if so, why did the dog run away?

Susie Man’s elder sister carries out her threat to expel Susie’s classmate Sarah in revenge for Susie’s trouble-making, but the class rally round Sarah and (at Susie’s  further instigation, of course) hide her in the storeroom while they run round trying to find evidence to condemn the Head as a crook and a liar.

Trudy wins a steeplechase event that brings with it a first prize of one hundred pounds – so she is able to buy back Mr MacReady’s pawned saddle. We are told that next she will have to find money to save the stables…

Eva, one of Miss Voor’s mysterious sidekicks, is remorseful and tries to help Dale – but Miss Voor overpowers her mentally and Dale is soon being pushed over the side of a cliff rather than being helped to rescue her classmates.

Sandra has been accepted to the Southern Ballet Company for a trial period, but rival Robinia Drew has also been invited along. One way or another, the twins’ secret seems likely to be out fairly soon – especially as Joan has to sign the contract herself, with her own signature.

Anna is tied up by the roughs from her estate, with a placard reading “I am a traitor”. Julia unties her and then runs away, saying “I don’t want to have anything to do with you or Madeley Buildings any more!” – to the reader, a transparent ploy, but will it fool the onlookers?

Sandie 1 April 1972

Stories in this issue:

• No-one Cheers for Norah (artist John Armstrong)
• Odd Mann Out (artist A E Allen)
• Brenda’s Brownies (artist and writer Mike Brown)
• Anna’s Forbidden Friend (artist Miguel Quesada)
• The School of No Escape (artist unknown artist ‘Merry’)
• Our Big BIG Secret (artist Jim Baikie)
• Not So Lady-like Lucy
• Wee Sue (artist Vicente Torregrosa Manrique)
• Little Lady Nobody (artist Desmond Walduck?) – last episode
• Wendy the Witch (artist and writer Mike Brown)
• Sandra Must Dance (artist Douglas Perry)
• Bonnie’s Butler (artist Julio Bosch)
• Silver Is a Star (artist Eduardo Feito)
• A Sandie Pop Portrait – Steve McQueen (artist Bob Gifford)

It’s nice to see the some of the elements in colour on the front. Norah’s swimming suit looks great and the colour work really enhances the image taken from the story inside. Last week’s cover showed us Sandra the ballet dancer with brown hair, which looked rather nice. Imagine if this had been published by Marvel in colour inside and out – somehow it seems to make a difference to how you see a character if you imagine them with a different hair colour.

Norah’s cousin tells her that her father is a crook who stole money from the swimming club – and Mrs Maddox believes the story, because she knew him when he was the secretary of the club. She will carry on being Norah’s supporter and mentor though, as she can see that the girl is not also a crook.

Susie Mann thinks the head of the school is living luxuriously at the school’s expense – and the glimpses we catch of the head’s sinister sideways glances have the reader thinking that it must indeed be so.

Anna and her friend Julia have managed to get Mr Crossley to come and talk to the estate dwellers in person – but Ramage has manged to poison the well against the estate owner and he is not well received.

Dale is made to drink a mysterious beverage when she is spying on Miss Voor – but she is helped by Eva, who seems to be at least a bit on Dale’s side against Miss Voor.

In “Wee Sue”, she has to deal with machinations by Miss Chivers who wants her niece to be sports captain instead of Sue – and who is threatening to evict Sue’s mum from her home if Sue doesn’t go quietly.

It’s the last episode of “Little Lady Nobody”. Lady Elaine has been found guilty of being an impostor and is sentenced to be transported for life – but in the nick of time, Sir William Moresby is found alive and on his way home. All comes well at the last moment. An advert tells the reader that next week’s new story will be called “Slaves of the Sorcerer”.

Sandra is dancing superbly well most of the time but her rival does manage to get the wheel-chair bound twin sister out of the way for long enough to nearly put the kibosh on the dancing twin’s chances in front of the great Dame Valerie in the audience.

Trudy finds out that her sporting rivals have gone to the lengths of trying to poison Silver by slipping yew tree leaves in his feed bag – they really are sinking low.

Sandie 25 March 1972

See also Mistyfan’s previous post on this issue.

Stories in this issue:

• No-one Cheers for Norah (artist John Armstrong)
• Odd Mann Out (artist A E Allen)
• Brenda’s Brownies (artist and writer Mike Brown)
• Anna’s Forbidden Friend (artist Miguel Quesada)
• The School of No Escape (artist unknown artist ‘Merry’)
• Our Big BIG Secret (artist Jim Baikie)
• Not So Lady-like Lucy
• Wee Sue (artist Vicente Torregrosa Manrique)
• Little Lady Nobody (artist Desmond Walduck?)
• Wendy the Witch (artist and writer Mike Brown)
• Sandra Must Dance (artist Douglas Perry)
• Bonnie’s Butler (artist Richard Neillands)
• Silver Is a Star (artist Eduardo Feito)
• A Sandie Pop Portrait – Gary Warren (artist Bob Gifford)

Norah’s horrible Uncle Philip tells Mrs Maddox an awful secret that makes her turn away from Norah – but what is it?

Susie gets her school class to set up a fete to collect money to help out the school – knowing that doing so will make the school look shamefully badly run. Which it is.

Anna tells Julia that Ramage the estate manager is behind much of the trouble between Julia’s father and the tenants. Julia will try to help, but in the meantime Anna is in danger.

Dale makes herself a robe so that she can pretend to be one of a group of masked schoolgirls who seem literally entranced by the evil Miss Voor – but her costume may put her in danger.

Wee Sue finds a way to save her school from being shut down in order for a motorway to be built through their land – all she needs to do is to ‘scale the wall of Swithers Castle without the aid of mechanical means’ (in this case by climbing up a pyramid of girl athletes).

Elaine and Mary resort to blowing the lock off the door in order to escape the gruesome death planned for them by one of their many enemies – and in their escape they even find some friends, finally.

Sandra and Joan have made up their quarrel and the psychic bond between them is operating at full force – so Sandra is set to give a super performance in front of Dame Valerie, patron of the Southern Ballet Company.

This week’s episode of “Bonnie’s Butler” is drawn by a fill-in artist – namely Richard Neillands, who drew “Darling Clementine” in Jinty some years later. Here it is:

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Trudy ends up running the rag and bone cart in order to save Mr MacReady from worrying – but then her beloved horse Silver seems to fall sick.

Sandie 18 March 1972

I am going to try limiting myself to a maximum of one sentence for each story (particularly focusing on serials) otherwise I fear that I will never get through the pile of Sandies, even though it was a relatively short-lived title. I aim to revisit the serials later in the format of story posts (as we do for stories printed in Jinty and elsewhere): a sample episode, story summary, and discussion of relevant themes and points. So even if the stories are not described in much detail right now, you will get much more in later posts.

Stories in this issue:

• No-one Cheers for Norah (artist John Armstrong)
• Odd Mann Out (artist A E Allen)
• Brenda’s Brownies (artist and writer Mike Brown)
• Anna’s Forbidden Friend (artist Miguel Quesada)
• The School of No Escape (artist unknown artist ‘Merry’)
• Our Big BIG Secret (artist Jim Baikie)
• Not So Lady-like Lucy
• Wee Sue (artist Vicente Torregrosa Manrique)
• Little Lady Nobody (artist Desmond Walduck?)
• Wendy the Witch (artist and writer Mike Brown)
• Sandra Must Dance (artist Douglas Perry)
• Bonnie’s Butler (artist Julio Bosch)
• Silver Is a Star (artist Eduardo Feito)
• A Sandie Pop Portrait – Barry Gibb (artist Bob Gifford)

Mrs Maddox finds out some of the abuse that Norah is going through at the hands of her family: Norah is accepted into the swimming club as a non-paying member after all.

Susie Mann discovers that all the school textbooks and other material are decades out of date, and decides to do organize a fete to do something about it.

The episode of “Brenda’s Brownies” this week is particularly good: the last panel is my favourite, I think it really makes it.

Julia helps Anna escape from trouble-makers at her housing estate, but the estate itself is banding together against Anna’s father who is planning to kick them all out, so tempers are rising.

Dale finds a hidden room with CC TV and and witnesses Miss Voor doing mysterious things to their school mate Agnes.

Wee Sue says she’s not that good at gym but with the help of a book she seems to master it very quickly. She seems a bit too much of a wonder girl, I must say.

Little Lady Nobody is not far from an exciting close – Elaine Moresby’s life keeps on being threatened by the associates of her evil uncle. Will she get blown up in the latest attempt?

Sandra and her sister Joan discover they have been tricked by an enemy who has been trying to separate them – they make amends and re-join forces to allow Sandra to keep dancing until Joan’s back is better.

Trudy skips detention at school in order to ride in a race, which she would have won if not for the sneaky trick of her rival, swiftly followed by the medical collapse of her mentor Mr Macready.

Sandie 11 March 1972

Stories in this issue:

• No-one Cheers for Norah (artist John Armstrong)
• Odd Mann Out (artist A E Allen)
• Brenda’s Brownies (artist and writer Mike Brown)
• Anna’s Forbidden Friend (artist Miguel Quesada)
• The School of No Escape (artist unknown artist ‘Merry’)
• Our Big BIG Secret (artist Jim Baikie)
• Not So Lady-like Lucy
• Wee Sue (artist Vicente Torregrosa Manrique)
• Little Lady Nobody (artist Desmond Walduck?)
• Wendy the Witch (artist and writer Mike Brown)
• Sandra Must Dance (artist Douglas Perry)
• Bonnie’s Butler (artist Julio Bosch)
• Silver Is a Star (artist Eduardo Feito)
• A Sandie Pop Portrait – Dave Cassidy (artist Bob Gifford)

I am behindhand in getting back to these issues of Sandie – partly for personal / work reasons, and partly I suspect that I am making the description of each issue a bit too long to easily complete. Let’s see if there is mileage in cutting down the entries a little.

Norah is being nobbled by her cousin and family – Mrs Maddox is defending and supporting her but the cousin’s nasty trick in putting the clock forward by an hour may prevent Norah from succeeding in her swimming trial.

Susie Mann is still championing the underdogs at her school, even against her own family. It is a real kangaroo court that her friend is facing! Very corrupt goings-on in this school.

Estate Manager Ramage has made it look like protagonist Anna has pinched some fruit that she never did. Her family don’t really believe her, but the fact she says she’s friends with Julia, the landlord’s daughter, is the real clincher in their disbelief. Lots of sobs accompany this Quesada artwork, and worse is to come as the tenants of the estate are all given their eviction order.

Dale has discovered something interesting with the stony-faced enforcers of Miss Voor’s – one of them is smiley and joyful as she sees a swallow flying. What’s that all about?

In “Little Lady Nobody”, Elaine Moresby is still trying to get to the bottom of why her uncle wants to see her dead. She has a chance to testify against him in court (with it all rigged against her, of course) – but her uncle argues that it would be unfair to her friend Mary’s mother. What will Elaine do next?

There is a voting box in this week’s issue, filled out by the owner. At this time, her favourite story was “The School of No Escape”, followed by “Wee Sue” and “Anna’s Forbidden Friend”.

“Sandra Must Dance” – Sandra’s sister Joan hates seeing her twin dancing under her namme, even though Sandra is only doing it to support their gran. The psychic bond between the two girls falters, but Sandra is able to continue dancing because she has had more practice now than before. A secret enemy tries to separate them further via a forged letter – will it work?

In “Silver Is A Star”, Mr MAcReady is out of hospital – though who knows if he is really as well as he claims to be – and Trudy is bidding fair to win her race – until the two snob rivals try to get her disqualified.

Sandie 4 March 1972

Stories in this issue:

• No-one Cheers for Norah (artist John Armstrong)
• Odd Mann Out (artist A E Allen)
• Brenda’s Brownies (artist and writer Mike Brown)
• Anna’s Forbidden Friend (artist Miguel Quesada)
• The School of No Escape (artist unknown artist ‘Merry’)
• Our Big BIG Secret (artist Jim Baikie)
• Not So Lady-like Lucy
• Wee Sue (artist Vicente Torregrosa Manrique)
• Little Lady Nobody (artist Desmond Walduck?)
• Wendy the Witch (artist and writer Mike Brown)
• Sandra Must Dance (artist Douglas Perry)
• Bonnie’s Butler (artist Julio Bosch)
• Silver Is a Star (artist Eduardo Feito)
• A Sandie Pop Portrait – Neil Diamond (artist Bob Gifford)

Norah has to fight hard to win the swimming trial that Mrs Maddox has arranged for her to enter. The committee isn’t very impressed with her at first but as Mrs Maddox points out, she hasn’t had any training and still can battle the odds and win. She is allowed in on trial only, but that is more than enough for starters. Cousin Lorna is mad as fire, of course. And at the end of the episode, Mrs Maddox muses that Norah reminds her of someone… who could it be?

Susie Mann proves to the rest of her form that she was ‘voted’ into position of Form Captain purely due to lies and deception on the part of the authorities. Nevertheless, she takes on the task of Captain, purely because she wants to lead her class into outright rebellion! By the end of the episode, her Head Girl sister is fuming.

Anna sneaks out to see her friend Julia, who has had to listen to her father spout a lot of nonsense about how the kids from Madeley Buildings are a lot of hooligans. But it’s not the father that the two girls need to worry about – it’s estate manager Ramage who is putting every barrier in their way. Anna manages to get over the wall to meet up with Julia and give her a birthday present, and  Mr Crossley even lets them have their birthday picnic, but Ramage makes up a story about Anna having stolen some pears and gets her thrown out in disgrace.

Dale gets back late to her dorm room and finds that her friend Emily has disappeared in the way that other people have been doing – she has been replaced by a cold-eyed girl who says she is ‘the new girl’. A likely story! Miss Voor is still setting tests for all the girls and this time they have to solve a difficult riddle. Dale solves it, but only to hide the prize so that no one else can find it, because she is worried about the whole set-up. Soon there is another challenge when Dale and her other friend Daphne sneak into Miss Voor’s office – they find a box with a big initial V on it. Does it hold the answer to the mystery?

The two girls in “Our Big BIG Secret” continue to hide the fact they have become owners of a very large dog, and hillbilly Lucy continues to astound polite society – this time with her pet skunk. But the skunk did save Locksley Hall from burglars at  least!

Wee Sue saves the hockey game, and even fixes the engine on the bus on the way back from the game. Too clever for her own good, as her friend Kay says? Not half!

Elaine is saved from being run down by Miss Pettifor, the headmistress at the school she was at before her father’s ship went down. The worse discovery that Elaine makes, though, is that it is her Uncle Ned who is behind the attempts to kill her! Along with her friend Mary, Elaine tries to enlist the help of her old acquaintance Patricia Millard, but to no avail – and indeed her old friend tells her to her face that Elaine “has been dead these past three weeks!”.

We have two Mike Brown strips in Sandie at this time! “Wendy the Witch” is also on the go. To defeat a bully, she zaps a baby with a spell: “Oh, baby with the lolly – be big, but not jolly!” and Big Bully Bab gets her just desserts at the hands of said enlarged tot!

Sandra and her sister are increasingly on the outs. Joan wants to get her strength back to do her own dancing again, but they both want to keep their grandmother happy and she thinks that it is Joan doing the super dancing. Joan is indeed dancing, or at least trying to recover her strength – but as the nurse warns, if she tries to rush things she may lose all chance of ever being able to dance again.

Trudy finds out that Mr Macready isn’t dead or dying after all, but is worrying so much about her that she was called urgently to his bedside. When she gets back to the scrapyard she finds two of her rivals poking around the rickety ruins – so rickety that it promptly collapses on them. They need to be rescued – partly due to Silver pawing at the rubble and attracting the attention of helpers. Now Trudy needs to find a place to stable Silver overnight, to no avail – and when she returns to the hospital she finds that Mr Macready has disappeared!

Sandie 26 February 1972

Stories in this issue:

• No-one Cheers for Norah (artist John Armstrong)
• Odd Mann Out (artist A E Allen)
• Anna’s Forbidden Friend (artist Miguel Quesada)
• The School of No Escape (artist unknown artist ‘Merry’)
• Our Big BIG Secret (artist Jim Baikie)
• Not So Lady-like Lucy
• Wee Sue (artist Vicente Torregrosa Manrique)
• Little Lady Nobody (artist Desmond Walduck?)
• Brenda’s Brownies (artist and writer Mike Brown)
• Sandra Must Dance (artist Douglas Perry)
• Bonnie’s Butler (artist Julio Bosch)
• Silver Is a Star (artist Eduardo Feito)
• A Sandie Pop Portrait – Cat Stevens (artist Bob Gifford)

Norah has a go at swimming in the local lake, which she’s not supposed to do – she attracts attention from various people, but luckily also from Mrs Maddox, who is not angry but rather offers her a visit to her house so that she can clean up and even have a try at her swimming pool instead… The quality of Norah’s swimming interests Mrs Maddox greatly and she asks Norah to the local swimming club for a trial. Cousin Lorna is far from pleased!

Susie Mann is wreaking havoc of all sorts. The other schoolgirls in her class are not totally sure what to make of her. She gets one of her classmates released from the cooler where she was unjustly locked up, but the headmistress conspires to get Susie elected as new Form Captain despite all her protestations. The Head is trying to make sure that power will go to Susie’s head – she doesn’t know who she’s dealing with, I think.

Anna finds the forbidden friend – it is Julia, the daughter of her horrible landlord, Mr Crossley. Mind you, the landlord is not half as mean as the estate manager, who stalks the grounds of Crossley House with a big Alsatian. Julia invites Anna to a birthday tea the next day, but Ramage wants to keep out anyone who has any connection with the Madeley Buildings where Anna lives.He’s going to make sure no one can get over the wall…

The creepy Miss Voor has got a bunch of cold-eyed clones to staff the school alongside her. They are working as teacher’s aids in each class, but they very much have their own agenda. For some reason they want to find the ‘best’ at everything – the tallest girl in class, the best at knitting, and so on. But there is more going on – at night, Dale finds that her room-mate Emily has been replaced by one of Miss Voor’s creepy clones!

Poppy and Daisy Mason find a nearby old lady who will happily look after their huge dog for them, but he is too clever for the old lady and soon escapes. If Poppy and Daisy’s parents find out about Pedro, he’ll be for it!

Hillbilly Lucy is sent to a snobbish school, but no one there is kind and sympathetic. Guardian Lady Primrose takes the snobs down a peg or two.

Wee Sue is worried about her French – she has learned a lot with Kay teaching her (even though they were playing hockey at the time!) but there are still big gaps in her knowledge. Sue is caught out of bounds while trying to study at night, and the hockey captain stops her from playing in the big hockey game the next day – she substitutes pal Kay instead. Sue knows this is not a good idea, as Kay isn’t a great player and the captain is just trying to show her up, but Kay takes Sue’s comments the wrong way and thinks that Sue has turned against her.

Little Lady Nobody is pushed down the well, but she clings onto the rope and avoids falling all the way into the well. Fellow servant Mary saves her but Elaine immediately betrays her. Mary falls ill as a result but Elaine makes up for her betrayal by being staunchly by MAry’s side during her illness. The other servants are won over, too – at least somewhat.

Sandra continues to dance on her sister’s behalf, but now her sister is jealous of the fact that all the kudos is going to her sister, and not to her. But they are both doing this just for their grandmother – it’s not a comfortable deception for either of the twins.

Bonnie’s Butler wins out again – Bonnie’s mother goes out for a posh evening do, courtesy of Gregston, rather than the trip to see a horror film that Bonnie’s father had planned.

Trudy rescues Silver from the burning stables but her friend and mentor is struck down with a heart attack. Now she doesn’t know where she can keep the horse; but her immediate concern is overwhelmingly about her friend, Mr MacReady.