Tammy 22 December 1979

Cover artist: John Richardson

Daughter of the Desert (artist Mario Capaldi)

Cindy of Swan Lake (artist Ana Rodriguez)

Make Headlines, Hannah! (artist Tony Coleman)

Bessie Bunter (artist Arthur Martin)

Edie the Ed’s Niece (artist Joe Collins)

Part 3 of Your Christmas Collection! – feature

Molly Mills and the Festive Season (artist Douglas Perry, writer Maureen Spurgeon)

My Terrible Twin (artist Juliana Buch)

The Trickling Sand (artist Peter Wilkes) – Strange Story

Boomtown Rats – feature 

Wee Sue (Hugh Thornton-Jones)

Tuck-In with Tammy – feature 

Christmas is coming and Tammy is gearing up for it in the weeks leading up to Christmas. This is part 3 of her Christmas collection feature, which is on making things for Christmas. This was one of the last Christmas-themed covers with the Cover Girls.

The Bessie Bunter story (below) looks like it was originally written to advertise the (very rare) June Comic Annual of Strange Stories where the Storyteller got his own book, judging by all these spooky references to the book in question and Strange Stories. In the reprint here, it’s been bodged to advertise the Tammy annual. The Tammy annual was a common gag on the Cover Girls covers around the Christmas period. Molly also has a Christmas-themed story to tie in with the festive season. It is now on its penultimate episode and will conclude in the Christmas issue. It was reprinted in the 1985 Tammy annual. 

The Wee Sue story this week isn’t tied to the Christmas theme. Instead, it’s a football theme. Meanwhile, the Storyteller takes us on a historical tale in the Highlands. Soldiers sent to seize a Scottish rebel against James II try to force his whereabouts from his daughter, but help comes from – spiders?! We’re told the Storyteller will bring us a Christmas story next week.

Around Christmas time, it was common for some serials to end to make room for new stories in the New Year period. The one about to make way for the New Year lineup is “My Terrible Twin”, now on its penultimate episode. Bella has finished for the year, and as she won’t appear again until the second quarter, there’s more room for serials. 

However, “Cindy of Swan Lake”, now on its second episode, will carry on into the New Year. Feedback in the letters page and Cindy’s appearance in Tammy’s 10th birthday issue indicate it was a very popular story. Cindy Grey has started ballet school, but her jealous rival, Zoe Martin, has come along as well, and now she’s seized her chance to play really dirty. She’s taking advantage of Cindy being constantly worried about her swan friends, who are being poisoned by pollution.

“Make Headlines, Hannah!” (an overshadowed girl is trying to prove herself, but her spiteful sisters keep sabotaging her) and “Daughter of the Desert” (a school is plagued by strange phenomena that are making it revert to a desert pattern) look like they still have some episodes to go yet.

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.

Tammy 25 December 1976

Cover artist: John Richardson

Babe at St. Woods (artist José Casanovas)

Towne in the Country (Mario Capaldi)

Gran’s Christmas Message – Strange Story (artist Audrey Fawley)

Edie the Ed’s Niece (artist Joe Collins)

Curtains for Cathy (artist Douglas Perry)

Bessie Bunter

Molly Mills and the Season of Goodwill (artist Tony Thewenetti, writer Maureen Spurgeon)

Nightmare at Grimm Fen (artist Diana Gabbot(t))

Wee Sue (artist John Richardson)

Olympia Jones (artist Eduardo Feito, writer Anne Digby)

Kevin Rowan of “Our Kid” – feature 

The issue is actually dated 25th December. Did Tammy/Jinty readers actually get their 25th December issue on Christmas Day itself? Was the issue postdated and distributed early, before the Christmas holidays? Or did readers have to wait until after the Christmas holidays for their 25th December Tammy/Jinty to arrive? Where I come from, the Christmas issue didn’t arrive until March (that’s how long it took for girls’ comics to ship), so I wouldn’t know.

Bessie, Molly, Wee Sue and Edie all have Christmas-themed stories. I like the Bessie Christmas story so much I’ve reproduced it below.

The Strange Story is also a Christmas story. The Christmas spirit is lost on Cathy Summers, who is grieving too much for her grandmother. Then she has an accident while decorating the Christmas tree and her condition is very bad. In hospital there is a strange visitor – grandma – and Cathy makes a miraculous recovery.

No Christmas celebration for Babe of St. Woods, but she still has a ball sorting out some stuck-up boys from a boys’ school. The boys also like to play rotten pranks and eventually try pouring white paint on Babe and her friends, but Babe makes sure they hit the wrong targets – namely, the mounted police! 

The “Nightmare at Grimm Fen” began when Patty and Mark Stephens did a brass rubbing of an evil knight, Robert le Mal, which brought him back from beyond the grave. The ghost has powers over birds, animals, people, telephone wires and airwaves to spread his influence and make everyone do his bidding, and our heroes are being surrounded by it. He’d have influence over the Internet too if it had existed at the time. Wow, not many ghosts in girls’ comics are that powerful, and it didn’t take our medieval knight long to to discover how to use 20th century technology.

Bella spent a lot of 1976 stowing away, getting stranded in foreign countries and having all sorts of adventures in order to get to the Montreal Olympics. Now Val in “Towne in the Country” is doing the same while trying to join her father’s veterinarian expedition in Africa. Right now she’s stranded in Spain and is shocked at the cruelties of bullfighting. 

In “Curtains for Cathy”, Cathy Harley is the daughter of a famous actor but wants to make her own way as an actress, right down to working under another name. But she has an enemy trying to stop her. Whoever it is has left a dummy of her to frighten her. It doesn’t stop her from a brillant performance, which gets her four curtain calls.

Olympia Jones has just made it to the Olympics team, only to face her darkest hour (what a cruel irony in the Christmas issue). She’s under arrest for horse theft and (in effect) animal cruelty, she’s lost her horse Prince, and her hopes of getting to the Olympics look dashed. It’s all a frameup and conspiracy, hatched by her old enemies, the Rotts, to get their hands on the fortune Prince is now worth. Olympia hasn’t got one iota of evidence to prove she’s telling the truth and everything looks hopeless to her. However, the last panel of the episode should make things obvious to readers how that’s all going to change and they’ll all be hankering for the next issue to see exactly how it all pans out.

Tammy & Sally 25 December 1971 – first Christmas Tammy issue

Cover artist: John Armstrong

• Gina – Get Lost (artist Miguel Quesada)
• Beattie Beats ‘Em All! (artist John Armstrong)
• Halves in a Horse (artist Eduardo Feito)
• Lulu (cartoon)
• Skimpy Must Ski! – first episode (artist Tom Hurst)
• Bernice and the Blue Pool (artist Douglas Perry)
• Talk It Over with Trudy (problem page)
• The Secret Ballerina (artist Roy Newby)
• The Four Friends at Spartan School (artist “B. Jackson”, writer Terence Magee)
• Maisie’s Magic Eye (artist Robert MacGillivray)
• Cinderella Spiteful (artist Jose Casanovas)
• Alison All Alone
• No Tears for Molly (artist Tony Thewenetti, writer Maureen Spurgeon)
• A Tammy Outfit Idea for Christmas (feature)

 

This is Tammy’s first Christmas issue. Beattie Beats ‘Em All! (John Armstrong’s first Tammy story) does the honours on the cover. The back cover has a Christmas how-to-make. In Molly Mills, Lord Stanton wants to bring Christmas cheer to orphanage children, but he has reckoned without the cruel butler Pickering. The issue also advertises Tammy’s first-ever annual. Lulu is trying to find Christmas presents for Dad but keeps getting foiled.

You’d think this week’s episode of Maisie’s Magic Eye would be Christmassy too, but no. It’s a regular episode, where Maisie and her friend Lorna try to break bounds and sneak off to the circus. Hijinks with the brooch ensue, with a lot of monkey business when Maisie unwittingly turns the circus strong man into a gorilla and the brooch stops glowing before she can change him back.

Normally new stories are reserved for New Year, but one does begin in the Christmas issue,  “Skimpy Must Ski!” Skimpy Shaw, a convalescent girl, is sent to live with her grandfather who looks a real sourpuss. Time will tell if he has a heart under there. Meanwhile, Skimpy is inspired to ski, and she thinks she has a natural talent for it.

Gina – Get Lost has been left to look after herself when her parents emigrate, which is not going down well with the welfare authorities. And it sounds like there is worse to come. She has already fallen foul of blackmailers and it looks like she will fall foul of potential guardians out to exploit her.

Before Bella Barlow, John Armstrong drew “Beattie Beats ‘Em All!” for Tammy. Beattie Brown is a promising athlete. Unfortunately she has no fixed abode either, so she and her stray cats live in a boiler room at a girls’ college.

In “Halves in a Horse”, two cousins are left with half shares in a horse, Topper. The cousin who wins the most prizes with him will acquire full ownership. As might be expected, one cousin (Pauline) is not playing fair and making the other cousin (Kay) suffer. Now the cousins have almost equal shares, Pauline is using blackmail against Kay.

Bernice and the Blue Pool was Tammy’s first swimming story and also the first story Douglas Perry drew for Tammy. It was the start of a regular Tammy run for Perry that lasted into 1981. The Blue Pool has a supernatural theme, which ranges from beneficial (curing our protagonist of her fear of water) to ominous – wearing Victorian swimming costumes that were worn by a pioneering Victorian swimming team that drowned.

The Secret Ballerina, Karen Jones, has to practise in secret because her aunt is against ballet for some reason. This is, of course, the mystery that needs to be unravelled. Compounding the mystery is a locked room in auntie’s house. But now Katie has discovered the room has been unlocked and someone is inside. She is heading to the attic to investigate. Will she find the key to the mystery next week?

Surprise, surprise – Miss Bramble’s henchman, er girl, Siddons helps the four friends at Spartan School to escape from the school where sadism is the rule. But of course they should have known it would be a setup. Mind you, they didn’t expect Siddons to actually attempt to kill them! When they survive that, they discover Miss Bramble and Siddons have concocted a plan to get them arrested instead.

Cinderella Spiteful – now that’s a very unusual title for a Cinderella story, you think. Actually, the story has nothing to do with Cinderella. Emma is jealous of her cousin Angela because Angela is good at everything while Emma is not. Next week it sounds like it will be more spiteful than Cinderella, because Emma reaches her limit in this episode.

Alison All Alone is on the run after being imprisoned by her guardians for many years. The question is: why did they keep her locked up like that? The three runaway boys who helped her escape are helping her to find out. This week they uncover a clue about her past – a crook who says he will be finished if Alison finds out who her true parents are!

 

 

 

 

Crazyzee Christmas (1982)

Christmas is coming. So for some Christmas fun I am putting up “Crazyee Christmas” from Tammy 25 1982 to show how Miss T, Edie and Snoopa shared the Christmas spirit just over a year after they all came together in the Tammy and Jinty merger as “The Crayzees”.

Christmas with The Crayzees. From Tammy 25 December 1982.

Jinty 18 January 1975

Stories in this issue:

• Bird-Girl Brenda (artist Phil Gascoine)
• Jackie’s Two Lives (artist Ana Rodriguez, writer Alan Davidson)
• Do-It-Yourself Dot (artist Alf Saporito)
• Merry at Misery House (writer Terence Magee)
• The Kat and Mouse Game (artist Jim Baikie)
• Prisoners of Paradise Island (artist Trini Tinturé)
• Dora Dogsbody (artist José Casanovas)
• The Jinx from St Jonah’s (artist Mike White)
• Always Together… (artist Phil Townsend, writer Alison Christie)
• Slave of the Mirror (artist Carlos Freixas)

This is the second of the two Christmas issues I got out. This one is very festive and seasonal, with a competition to find the robin printed on a number of story-pages, and Christmas story-lines in “Dora Dogsbody”, “The Jinx From St Jonah’s”, and “Always Together” (yes, the kids get their Christmas after all, once Jilly manages to sell some of her sketches and Johnny gets given food by his gypsy friends).

The only catch with all this Christmassy-ness? It came out in January, due to a few weeks “production troubles” (often a euphemism for industrial action).

I thought I would include some art from “The Kat and Mouse Game” to show that despite having felt that the earliest pages drawn by Jim Baikie on this strip were a little shaky, there was also lots of good art – and a totally unrepentant and black-hearted bully protagonist.

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Jinty & Penny 6 December 1980

Cover artist: Mario Capaldi

• Pam of Pond Hill (writer Jay Over, artist Bob Harvey)
• Her Guardian Angel – first episode (Peter Wilkes)
• Girl the World Forgot (artist and writer Veronica Weir)
• Tansy of Jubilee Street (artist Ken Houghton)
• Behind the Screen: Crossroads (feature)
• Angela Angel-Face (artist Rodrigo Comos)
• Gaye’s Gloomy Ghost (artist Hugh Thornton-Jones)
• Sue’s Daily Dozen (artist José Casanovas)
• Life’s a Ball for Nadine (artist Mario Capaldi)
• Winning Ways 36: Netball – Two more dodges

The buildup to the Christmas issue is well underway. In this issue, Jinty starts her 1980 Christmas story, to act as a filler and add to the Christmas theme over the holiday season. The story, “Her Guardian Angel”, was Jinty’s last Christmas story; by next Christmas she had merged with Tammy.

Pam of Pond Hill is trying to instil some Christmas spirit too, but it seems to be lost on everyone else. Pam gets permission to hold a Christmas party at school, which turns into one for the kids from the orphanage. But far from instilling the Christmas spirit Pam wanted, it has everyone quarrelling, and the blurb for next week warns us that more problems are ahead.

The Girl the World Forgot knows Christmas is coming, and the only present she wants is a ship to get her off the island she is marooned on. In the final panel, it looks like she is going to get one at last – but it is a Viking boat! What gives?

Thieves strike in “The Daily Dozen” and one of them even knocks Sue out. But as it is the cauldron they are stealing, we know the next episode can only “spell” trouble for them. Nadine does a whole new take on “roller disco”, with the aid of netball – again. Scheming Angela Angel-Face has wangled a trip to Meringaria, but she has not bargained on the company that comes with her – the very girls who know what she is really like. Tansy’s Dad tries pigeon-racing, and of course this causes mayhem for Tansy. Sir Roger loses his head – literally – because it is too windy. Next time he goes out, he wears full armour although there is hardly a breeze.

 

 

Jinty 24 December 1977

• The Spirits of the Trees – Gypsy Rose tale
• Sue’s Fantastic Fun-Bag! (artist Hugh Thornton-Jones)
• Two Mothers for Maggie (artist Jim Baikie)
• Rinty ‘n’ Jinty
• Guardian of White Horse Hill (artist Julian Vivas)
• Darling Clementine – first episode (artist Richard Neillands, writer Alison Christie)
• Come into My Parlour (artist Douglas Perry)
• Land of No Tears (artist Guy Peeters, writer Pat Mills)
• Alley Cat
• Race for a Fortune

The cover for the Christmas issue of 1977 features the star of ‘Race for a Fortune’, Katie McNab. Yes, the hairstyle clearly denotes the girl as Katie, not Jinty. In Katie’s story she is trying to outrace her dirty cousins to Yuckiemuckle (yes) to claim the fortune left by their Uncle Ebenezer. Katie must be taking time out from her race to decorate the Christmas cake on the cover. But why did they colour the icing that is dripping out of the back of Katie’s piping bag brown when the icing is clearly blue? It also makes that gob of icing on Katie’s nose look like she’s got a great big zit.

The Gypsy Rose story, while not a Christmas story, has a Christmas feel in its heavy features of fir trees in snowy landscapes. The story could also be said to have a Christmas message, where an aggrieved dryad swears revenge on a forester’s children when the forester cuts down her sister’s tree. But in the end the dryad is persuaded to show mercy and forgiveness when her sister’s spirit says she will reincarnate in a new tree.

Christmas also features in Sue’s Fantastic Fun-Bag, where Sue gives Henrietta some saddle soap. But this prompt causes trouble when it sets Henrietta to dreaming. We have a Christmas quiz while the letterbox has a Christmas theme, and there are instructions for making a Christmas pixie on the back cover. Several of the logos in the stories have been given Christmas themes (snow, holly), but not all. Land of No Tears, Guardian of White Horse Hill and Come into My Parlour don’t. Maybe it’s because they have darker themes. And poor Alley Cat wakes up starving on Christmas Day and not a bite to eat! He goes in search of some food, and eventually he buys a Christmas feast with reward money after he foils a robbery.

And for a Christmas present we have a new story, Darling Clementine. Ella Peters has been having a rough time because she is a shy person and just lost her mother. Things look up when Uncle Dave and cousin Clementine (Clem) find her. But Uncle Dave develops a lung disease from the smoky mining town and Clem is determined to win a water-skiing contest to raise the money for a cottage in a healthy environment. This can only be the beginning of the troubles that Clem and Ella are going to face in this story. And we also suspect that shy Ella is going to learn about courage and confidence – but the hard way!

 

Tale of the Panto Cat (1979)

Sample Images

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Publication: 8 December 1979 – 29 December 1979

Episodes: 4

Artist: “B Jackson”

Writer: Unknown

Summary

In Daisy Green Youth Club, Verna is known as “the original panto cat”. She is conceited, bossy, domineering and self-centred. She walks over everyone to have everything her way.

The club members are discussing what to do for their Christmas special when Verna barrels in, tears up their suggestions and pushes ahead with her own – a pantomime for the kids who will be confined to Farley Hospital over the Christmas season. But Verna doesn’t stop there. She allows no discussion of what the pantomime will be – it must be Cinderella. Before the meeting is over, she casts everyone in the roles as she sees fit. And of course she casts herself as Cinderella. Gwen is feeling very indignant at the way Verna carries on.

But there is worse to come when Gwen finds Verna is writing the panto as well. She is astonished to find the script Verna gave her is only two pages long and the lines are awful. The same goes for everyone else, and they find out why at the next meeting – Verna’s part is three times as big as theirs! They reach their limit at this and shelve Verna’s script in favour of one in the club library. But they still give Verna a chance to be Cinderella if she is good. But of course the panto cat is anything but good, and in the end she finds herself without any role (not even as wicked stepmother, the only role that really suits her personality).

Gwen says they still have to let Verna be director, but that proves to be a bad mistake. Now the panto cat has lost the limelight, she turns vicious. She gets her claws out and sets out to wreck the panto now she cannot be in it. As director, she tries to stir everything up, make everyone’s life a misery, and even smash the pumpkin. All this does is get her removed from the panto altogether.

Another club member, Minna, suggests they have Verna’s father make Cinderella’s coach. Gwen says they should keep Verna out, but Minna feels it is rotten to do so because it is Christmas. This is another bad mistake. Verna sabotages the coach so it will fall apart on the night. Instead, it falls apart at a rehearsal, leaving Cinderella with a sprained ankle, Prince Charming with a black eye and the Fairy Godmother with an injured leg. It looks like the show is off and the panto cat has got the cream.

But then Gwen has a brainwave – convert a piece of the coach into a puppet theatre and have a puppet Cinderella show instead. Unfortunately, Minna tells Verna about how they have salvaged the disaster, thinking she is acting in the spirit of Christmas. So the cat gets ready to pounce again. On the night of the show, Verna tries to sabotage them at the club as they make preparations to set off. She fails, and her tricks put Gwen on her guard.

At the hospital, Gwen sends Verna on an errand to get her out of the way. Verna spots a jug of water in a ward and goes in for it, planning to spill it on the puppets and make them too wet to use. But she failed to spot a warning notice on the door saying there is a child with scarlet fever quarantined in the ward. Verna has got too close to the child, and the nurse tells Verna she now has to be quarantined as well. The cat’s last minute pounce to wreck things has backfired. Verna has to spend Christmas in quarantine (later the editor informs us in the letter page that she did not contract scarlet fever) and watch the show she tried to sabotage through the observation window.

The show is a huge success, and everyone except Verna enjoys it. Afterwards, the girls have a Christmas party back at the club and Verna’s fate gives them all the more reason to celebrate. Minna says she enjoyed the panto despite all the problems, and they must do it again.

Thoughts

“Tale of the Panto Cat” was one of the Christmas-themed filler stories that Jinty ran over her build up to Christmas. But what Christmas message does this tale of spite, sabotage and deliberate attempts to wreck a Christmas production have for readers? Well, every Christmas has a Grinch somewhere. If Jinty ever had a Grinch story, this has to be it. But unlike her Seuss counterpart, the heart of Verna does not swell to the right size when faced with the spirit of Christmas. Rather, she destroys herself in her efforts to wreck the show. It backfires on her and she ends up spending Christmas in quarantine.

Instead of a sentimental story about the true spirit of Christmas, we get a more typical story of an unpleasant type who causes trouble and getting her eventual comeuppance. Christmas is used more as the theme and setting for the story. This makes the story a nice, refreshing, atypical break from the more standard Christmas fare in girls’ comics. And Verna does not change into a nicer person in the light of Christmas, which makes it even more realistic.

Minna is the only one who strives for real Christmas spirit in the way she insists on keeping Verna in the loop over the panto. But in so doing she unwittingly helps Verna to cause more trouble. Perhaps the story is making a statement that the spirit of Christmas is lost on some people. In fact, although it was Verna’s idea to put on the show for the children in hospital, Verna clearly did not do it for the sake of the kids. All she cared about was being the star of the show and the centre of attention. When she could not have that, she turned just plain vindictive and set out to wreck things in any which way she could with no thought for the kids or anyone else. That is hardly the way to behave, much less at Christmas time. One can only hope Verna left the club for good after she came out of quarantine and was not around to interfere with the next Christmas special.

Jinty 29 December 1979

• Pam of Pond Hill (artist Bob Harvey, writer Jay Over)
• Gaye’s Gloomy Ghost (artist Hugh Thornton-Jones)
• Spirit of the Lake (artist Phil Townsend)
• Tale of the Panto Cat – last episode (unknown artist Merry)
• Toni on Trial (artist Terry Aspin)
• Rinty ‘n’ Jinty
• White Water (artist Jim Baikie)
• Forget-me-not at Christmas – complete story (artist Guy Peeters)
• When Statues Walk… (artist Phil Gascoine)

It is Jinty‘s Christmas issue for 1979 and Jinty makes it a big celebration. Even the stories that do not feature Christmas still celebrate it with snow-covered logos and/or holly. There is a nice touch of humour on the cover with the cat playing with the tinsel garland. That is just the sort of thing a cat might play with.

The Christmas issue starts off with a quiz “Make it your wishbone Christmas”. In fact, the quiz is the first thing you see when you open the cover. The break from a picture story starting things off sure makes it clear how serious Jinty is about celebrating Christmas. Her 1979 Christmas story, “Tale of the Panto Cat” concludes with this issue, of course. Everything ends happily of course – except for our would-be-grinch Verna, who spends her Christmas in quarantine when her last trick to spoil the Christmas panto backfires.

Despite the happy ending and the efforts of one girl in “Panto Cat” to remember the Christmas spirit, even with Verna, there is not much Christmas message in the story. That is reserved for “Forget-me-not at Christmas”, a very poignant story of a Victorian waif who was invited to a rich girl’s party but was turned away because they forgot she was invited. She sat outside in the snow waiting to be remembered. But by the time they did, poor Forget-me-not had frozen to death! In the 20th century, Sandie Hurst encounters the ghost of Forget-me-not and invites her to their Christmas party. Will Forget-me-not be remembered this time?

Alley Cat tries to raise money for Christmas from carol singing, but thrown boots and smashed windows tell you how good he is at carol singing. But in the end he does get a happy Christmas because he unwittingly did the Muchloots a favour.