Tammy 5 February 1977

Cover artist: John Richardson

Babe at St Wood’s – artist José Casanovas

Towne in the Country – Mario Capaldi

Curtains for Cathy (final episode) – artist Douglas Perry

Call of the Sea (The Strange Story) – artist unknown

Bessie Bunter

Molly Mills and the Economy Drive (first episode) – artist Tony Thewenetti, writer Maureen Spurgeon

Nightmare at Grimm Fen (final episode) – artist Diane Gabbot(t)

Edie the Ed’s Niece – artist Joe Collins

Wee Sue – artist John Richardson

Katie on Thin Ice – artist John Armstrong

The cover features a common running gag in the Cover Girl run: being the first to read the issue and be able to finish it, and sneaky attempts from the other to grab the issue or sneak a peek. 

Two stories finish this week, opening up space for the next stories in the New Year’s lineup. The curtains come down on the person who’s been trying to drive Cathy off the stage, who turns out to be her own mother. It seems she was one of those misguided parents who doesn’t want their offspring pursuing the course of their dreams because it was disastrous for themselves. Dad quietly deals with Mum, telling her that all she’s done is prove Cathy’s determination to pursue the theatre. In “Nightmare at Grimm Fen”, the evil Robert le Mal is destroyed by the very thing that brought him back in the first place – the church brass of him. 

This week’s Wee Sue story is a lesson in not leaving things too long, as this can leave things too late. Sue meets an old lady who left it too late to approach an old friend over a squabble, and now there’s no way to know if things are forgiven. Sue decides on a little white lie to put the old lady’s mind at rest, but she is confident it is the message her old friend would have given if she had been able to.

Babe and friends go to a restaurant, but a pickpocket swipes their purse, leaving them to wash up to pay for their meal. But of course the pickpocket has made a big mistake in crossing a gangster’s daughter and gets his just desserts – literally.

In “Towne in the Country”, Val has a new companion, Clarissa Keene, in her quest to find her father. But Clarissa is the dead opposite of Val in many ways: arrogant, spoiled, hard on animals, and the original trophy hunter. Talk about the odd couple. This is going to be some fellowship!

In the Strange Story, two Victorian children help a wheelchair-bound girl who is on the run from a cruel institution. Okay, but what’s so strange about that? The children find out when they bring the girl to the coast where she was originally picked up. 

Bessie is hearing odd remarks about the Fish and Chips, the White Mice, the Gorillas and the Strawberry Jam. After a series of misunderstandings and hijinks she finds out they’re all the names of pop groups Court House is taking care of after they got flooded out, but everything ends happily. 

In the new Molly Mills story, Pickering is afraid for his job because Lord Stanton is facing money problems, so he is going to start an economy drive at Stanton Hall. Knowing bully butler Pickering, this does not bold well for Molly and the other servants. 

Mrs Winter forces Katie to help raid a treasure ship. But it goes badly wrong and Katie’s friend Susie has been caught. How can Katie get Susie out of this one?

Jinty Annual 1983

Jinty annual 1983

• Little Sisters (artist Mario Capaldi)
• Do You Doodle? Feature
• Carnival of Flowers – Gypsy Rose story (artist Guy Peeters)
• Where Do You Fit In? Quiz (artist John Johnston)
• Snoopa (artist Joe Collins)
• The Mystery of Martine (artist Trini Tinturé)
• Growing Pains – text story
• For the Love of Horses – feature
• Make Music – feature
• Desert Island Bookshelf – feature (artist Veronica Weir)
• Picture of the Past (artist and writer Keith Robson)
• Make Your Own Cards – feature
• Pond Hill Bazaar – feature (artist Bob Harvey)
• The Thirteenth Hour – Gypsy Rose story (artist Douglas Perry)
• Box of Tricks – feature
• Chance to Say Sorry – text story (artist Tony Coleman)
• Call of the Sea – Gypsy Rose story
• Perils of Babysitting – feature
• It’s the Custom! Feature
• Alley Cat
• How to Make a Fortune Teller – feature
• At the Top of the Tree – feature
• No Place Like Home – Gypsy Rose story (artist Carlos Freixas)
• Nothing to Wear – feature
• Strawberry Handkerchief – Gypsy Rose story (artist Trini Tinturé)
• Snoopa
• Percy’s Christmas – text story
• A Puzzle to Make – feature
• All Around the World – feature
• The Jigsaw Puzzle – text story (artist Phil Townsend)
• Snowbound! Gypsy Rose story (artist Keith Robson)
• Christmas with Dickens – feature (artist Mario Capaldi)
• Netball Quiz – feature

This could well be the annual where Jinty comes into her own, because she is no longer printing serials from older comics for the long story sections. Instead she is reprinting one of her own serials, “The Mystery of Martine“, in which an actress who plays a dangerous, obsessive woman who eventually burns down a house starts behaving exactly like the psycho. The story is reprinted in yellow colouring, which makes a nice change from the usual red to set off some black-and-white pages, or the blue that Jinty used for a while.

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The number of recycled Strange Stories as Gypsy Roses has been reduced (a couple of them were omitted from the Table of Contents for some reason); the rest are reprints of Gypsy Rose’s own stories this time. One Gypsy Rose story, “Picture of the Past” is unusual in that it is both written and drawn by the same person, Keith Robson. This is the second instance we have come across of stories being written and drawn by the same person in Jinty. Or girls’ comics for that matter.

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The cover is one of the most gorgeous covers I have ever seen in girls’ annuals. The artwork from Mario Capaldi is mouth-watering, but what really sets it off and makes it memorable is the use of the colouring. And don’t you just love exquisite pictures of Victorian times – oh, wait, is that a car and garage we see in the background, in subtle grey tones? Ah, we have very enterprising carol singers here who must have made a few extra quid by using Victorian costume.

Capaldi’s artwork continues on the first page with “Little Sisters”. This story appeared in the Tammy & Jinty merger, but the fact that it has an appearance in a Jinty annual suggests it was originally conceived for Jinty. “Little Sisters”, a popular story about a teenage girl, Carol, who finds her little sister Samantha “Sam” exasperating at times (yes, a lot of girls can relate to that) also continues the Christmas theme on the cover. Sam wants to know what is meant by “goodwill” at Christmas. She misunderstands when the family explain (not very well), but ends up sending a whole new message to them about the meaning of Christmas.

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The presence of “Little Sisters” may be the reason “Pam of Pond Hill” was reduced to a feature instead of its own story. But we get a whole new side to Pond Hill when we are shown what Pam & Co did for the school bazaar, complete with instructions on the items and games. Yes, it’s a different take on the obligatory craft-and-make features in any girls’ annual.

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In “Growing Pains” a quilting party is not Betsy’s idea of growing up. But quilting takes on a whole new meaning when her boyfriend Nathan leaves and his parting gift is a patch to sew into her quilt. This text story should have you thinking about quilting in a different light as well. And “A Chance to Say Sorry” reminds us that you are given a chance to make amends, take it. Ruth Oldham the youth drama group secretary is due to retire, but nobody likes her except Keith because she is a “bossy-boots, thinks she’s the greatest, and never lets anyone else get a word in edgeways”. Sounds like Verna from “Tale of the Panto Cat”. But unlike Verna, she turns out to be a sympathetic character with a problem. And “Percy’s Christmas” brings us the story of a know-it-all seagull who is havng trouble grasping the ways of humans and Christmas.

Some of the text features are really strong, informative, and you will read them over and over. “For the Love of Horses” tells us about Dorothy Brooke, a woman who went to track down the former World War I Army horses and mules and started rescuing them from animal abuse in Egypt. The end result was the Brooke Hospital for Animals in Cairo. I just had to show the feature to my World War I lecturer at university and she took a copy. I still wonder if the annual became a source in somebody’s essay or thesis because of this.

“I’ve Got Nothing to Wear” reminds us how lucky we are in being able to acquire clothes in comparison to clothes manufacturing in the past. Clothes had to be handmade, often from scratch, no patterns until Victorian times, and made to last because many people were lucky to have a second set of clothes.

Finally, “Christmas with Charles Dickens” rounds off the Christmas theme by telling us how Dickens celebrated Christmas. Not to mention how fit he must have been with the long walks he took all over London, sometimes covering as much as 15 miles. And he would return home ready for more while his friends were ready to collapse. The feature might have been even better if it had told us that A Christmas Carol revived Christmas at a time when it had fallen on such evil days many people didn’t bother with it. But I guess you can only put in so much into a two-page spread, plus spot illustration.

This annual definitely ranks as one of Jinty’s top annuals, one of her very best. It is well worth collecting. It is sad that the quality did not last – the next annual, though still good, reduced the Jinty content (no Gypsy Rose or Pam of Pond Hill), and the last two Jinty annuals contained just reprints of older material from other comics.