Story Theme: Journey Story or Quest

The Journey Story or Quest was a popular story theme at certain points in Jinty and in other titles. Indeed, at some points in 1976, it would have been possible to be reading an issue of Jinty which included three or even arguably four journey stories in the same week’s comic (see 24 April 1976 for an example). It’s a story framework which allows the creators to vary the setting and characters as much as they like, and to experiment with a range of local touches if desired (Scottish kilts, Welsh mountains, or European stereotypes could be brought in depending on the story). Within a Quest theme the dramatic tension is kept up, too – the protagonist is always thinking of the thing that keeps them on the journey – the danger they are avoiding or the goal they are trying to reach.

The journey story is of course focused around a lengthy journey, but it is also something of a quest, as the protagonist has someone she needs to find or something she needs to do before she can stop journeying. She does not just head out for the fun of it or to see the sights; there is some motivating reason for her to keep moving. Apart from the journey element, the other themes of the story can be fairly varied: there are journey stories in Jinty which are rooted in science fiction, humour, love of aninals, and more.

Core examples

“Song of the Fir Tree” (1975-76). This story has siblings Solveig and Per traveling across Europe after they are released from the concentration camp they were held in during WWII. They travel from Germany to Norway under their own steam, constantly having to keep one step ahead of their enemy Grendelsen (though at the same time, unknown to them, their father is chasing after them also).

This was the first journey story printed in Jinty. Clear precursors outside of British girls comics are “I Am David” and “The Silver Sword”, both of which feature long journeys and have child protagonists dealing with the aftermath of WWII.

“Fran of the Floods” (1976). After her home town is overwhelmed in flooding, Fran Scott travels the length of an apocalyptic Britain to see if her sister is alive and well in Scotland. This popular and well-remembered journey story is one of survival against the odds and courage in the face of barbaric behaviour on the part of other survivors.

“Bound for Botany Bay” (1976). Betsy Tanner is transported to Australia; in addition to the lengthy sea journey, once she gets to Botany Bay she runs off and travels across dangerous countryside, eventually finding her father who was sentenced to transportation earlier on.

“For Peter’s Sake!” (1976). Set in the 1930s, Carrie Lomax has a brother who is seriously ill. Her grandmother’s pram has rocked many babies back to good health in a seemingly miraculous way and she hopes that it will do the same for little Peter. However, Carrie and the pram are in Scotland and the rest of her family is in London, and she needs to push the pram all the way back to him on foot.

“The Darkening Journey” (1977). Thumper has been separated from his owner Julie, who is moving house with her family, across Britain to the west country. To add to the pathos, both of them are going slowly blind: Julie because she needs an operation to cure her, and Thumper because of an accident at the time they were separated. Together with his friend Beaky, a clever talking rook, he travels towards the setting sun to see if he can be reunited with his beloved owner.

“Race For A Fortune” (1977-78). This is a humourous take on the journey story: Katie McNabb must race her snobby cousins in a journey to inherit her skinflint great-uncle Ebeneezer’s money. The one who reaches Ebeneezer’s home village of Yuckiemuckle first, starting out from the south of England with no money to help them, will win the race and the terms of the will. Katie and her cousins battle it out, each overtaking the other at various points on their travels.

“Somewhere Over The Rainbow” (1978-79). This is the longest, most epic of all the journey stories in Jinty (indeed so long is it, at 36 episodes, that to date I have quailed before the mighty task of writing a story post for it!). Dorothy and Max are an orphaned brother-sister pair who run away from the state care they are put into when their mother is killed. Inspired by the Wizard of Oz song, they travel from the south of England all the way to Scotland, hoping to find happiness at a care home called Rainbow’s End.

Updated to add: a post on this story has now been added.

Edge cases and uncertainties

The core stories listed above all feature epic, dangerous, and long journeys as a central aspect of the story. There are other stories in Jinty which feature travelling on the part of the protagonists, but without it being such a central part of the plot.

“Then There Were 3…” (1976). This is more of a mystery story: ten girls hire a narrowboat and travel on the water for some time, but the plot primarily focuses on the mystery of what is behind the occurrences that spook the girls. Is it something supernatural in origin, or is it down to a purely human villainy?

“The Big Cat” (1976-77) When her grandmother dies and she is evicted from the gypsy camp she lives in, Ruth travels with the big cat Ayesha that the story is named after. We do not currently have a story post about this to confirm if this is more of a journey story, or a fugitive story where the protagonist runs away and spends time in hiding rather than in travelling towards a clear goal.

Not to be confused with…

There are plenty of stories that include an element of journeying or travelling, such as those ones where the main character runs away: for instance Jinty‘s first issue includes the story “A Dream for Yvonne“, where Yvonne runs away from the circus to become a ballerina. She does not travel throughout the story unceasingly until she reaches her goal, though: she runs away multiple times, loses her memory, is threatened by jealous rivals, and is eventually accepted by both her family and the ballet school. The journeying is not the main point of the story, but rather her challenge lies in how to be accepted by family and friends.

Likewise in many stories there is a dramatic finale where the protagonist runs away either to elicit sympathy or to enact some specific deed: Gail in “Gail’s Indian Necklace” and Lee in “Daddy’s Darling” are two such examples from Jinty‘s early days. I am not counting these either, as the main focus of the story is again not on the journey itself, which is pretty limited in the span of story time that it takes up.

Fugitive stories may overlap considerably with the journey story, but again the key question in my mind is whether the fugitive keeps running, or mostly hides away somewhere. “Always Together…” (1974-75) has an orphaned family (well, almost – read the story summary for more detail) who run away from the welfare state mechanisms which are threatening to split them up. They do not keep running continuously, but instead camp out in a few locations and fend for themselves throughout the bulk of the story.

There are a few stories with castaways (“Desert Island Daisy“, “Girl The World Forgot“): if you are going to be cast away on a desert island you can hardly avoid having travelled, somewhere along the lines! But the focus is then on the predicament of the main character, not on a prolonged journey. The same goes for “Alice In A Strange Land” which has a transatlantic plane journey at beginning and end of the story, and a dramatic crash landing in an early episode, but which does not focus on those elements in the core plot.

Elsewhere…

Journey-themed stories were of course not confined to the pages of Jinty, though the April 1976 spike in popularity of these stories is perhaps only seen in this title. The following stories are not meant to be a complete list of journey stories, but just to give a flavour of the prevalence and the variety of them across both IPC and DC Thomson. (Many thanks to Mistyfan for providing scans of the below and other stories, and also to Lorrbot and the Girls Comics of Yesterday site, which I checked for mention of journey stories.)

• Glen, A Dog on a Lonely Quest (Tammy, 1971)
• Janet and her Travellin’ Javelin (Debbie, 1974)
• Towne in the Country (Tammy, 1976-77)
• The Ride-Away Randalls (Debbie, 1978)
• The Wandering Starrs (Bunty, 1978-79)
• One Girl and Her Dog (Tammy, 1978-79)
• Jumbo and Jet (Tracy, 1981)
• Jet’s Incredible Journey (Suzy, 1986)

Other thoughts

This post is already rather long, but I have more thoughts about the theme. Another post will follow, discussing aspects of how journey stories actually worked in more detail, looking at some of the stories mentioned above.

Jinty 31 May 1975

• The Jinx from St Jonah’s (artist Mario Capaldi)
• Tricia’s Tragedy – final episode (artist Ana Rodriguez)
• The Ghostly Guardian (text story)
• Merry at Misery House (writer Terence Magee, unknown artist – Merry)
• Trim it Prettily! (craft feature)
• Dora Dogsbody (artist José Casanovas)
• Cinderella Smith (artist Trini Tinturé)
• The Valley of Shining Mist – first episode (artist Carlos Freixas, writer Alan Davidson)
• Bet Gets the Bird! final episode (artist Phil Gascoine)
• Daddy’s Darling (artist Phil Townsend, writer Alison Christie)
• Face the Music, Flo! (artist Jim Baikie)
• Do-It-Yourself Dot (artist Alf Saporito)

Both Comixminx and I have been trying to find this issue for some time. Coincidentally, we both succeeded at virtually the same time.

As the cover states, the first episode of “The Valley of Shining Mist” begins this issue. This story was one of Jinty’s most enduring and beloved stories. Everyone compares Debbie Lane to a wild animal, yet that is because everyone, especially her cruel guardians, treats her like an abused animal. But something strange begins to happen when Debbie enters a valley that everyone avoids when it gets full of mist, and she sees something “fantastic!” From the sound of it, this is just the beginning of “strange and wonderful discoveries” that Debbie will see in the valley next week.

Two stories end this week, and their respective artists will move on to “Blind Ballerina” and “The Green People” next week. In the first, “Tricia’s Tragedy”, Tricia finally discovers that her guilt trip over cousin Diana’s blindness has all been over nothing – Diana’s ‘blindness’ was just the first in a long line of dirty tricks her unpleasant relatives have been pulling to put her out of the Lloyd Trophy. The eventual reveal that it was all to get their hands on Grandfather Lloyd’s inheritance is no great surprise. So the final lap to win the trophy turns into a race of revenge with Diana that ensures Tricia and her parents inherit what is rightfully theirs at long last. So they finally climb out of the poverty they descended into because of their horrible relatives – who soon clear out of town and their lives, thank goodness. The second, “Bet Gets the Bird!”, ends pretty much on a regular episode. The only indication of finality is Beth saying she’s glad to have Rosy Posy, even if the parrot does get her into trouble sometimes.

Merry and her friends now have a secret friend to help them against the cruelty they are suffering at the hands of the farmer the reformatory has illegally hired them out to. But now Merry fears they have lost him.

A sponsored walk for charity is going hilariously wrong because of Katie’s jinxing. It has progressively put all her fellow walkers out of the walk and eventually she’s the only one left. Then she discovers an old penny-farthing in a rubbish heap and tries to finish the walk that way. Katie the Jinx on a penny-farthing? That sounds like a recipe for disaster, and it certainly is at the finish line. Fortunately the penny-farthing turns out to be so valuable that it makes far more money for the charity than all of Katie and her walkers combined.

Dora’s challenge this week is a mother dog that is grieving because her litter died. Nothing seems to cheer the dog up until another mother dog at the hotel rejects her puppies. The grieving mother takes them over, and all is well with her again.

In “Daddy’s Darling”, Dad accuses Maggie of stealing Lee’s clothes, and right in front of everyone in the class! The teacher soon puts him straight: Lee has given the clothes to the clothing exchange. But of course difficult Dad doesn’t apologise to Maggie, and the incident forces Lee to resign as club president. What’s more, Dad’s pulling her out of school to educate her at home again, which will condemn Lee to loneliness and a stifling home life again.

Still, it’s better than the home life poor “Cinderella Smith” has with her cruel cousins. This week, they’re putting her in leg shackles that she has to wear around the house. They also beat her up when she confronts them about their hating her mother. But why do they hate her mother?

Greg is going on tour. Flo is sneaking along after discovering his manager Vince is trying to cheat him. Vince discovers the stowaway in his van and has Flo dumped on the roadside – in pouring rain.

Dot’s mother tells her to go fly a kite when she asks for extra money. That turns out to be an unwise thing to say, because that is precisely what Dot does. It ends up with her causing big trouble and the kite forms the basis of her punishment.

The text ghost story, “The Ghostly Guardian”, is about a ghost abbot who swore with his dying breath to protect the holy treasures of his church. He haunts “Abbot’s Dyke”, along with his pet owl, where the treasure from his church ended up. A truck driver disregards warnings not to dump rubbish in that dyke but soon discovers otherwise – too late.

 

 

 

Daddy’s Darling (1975)

Sample images

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Published: 8 March 1975 – 16 August 1975

Episodes: 24

Artist: Phil Townsend

Writer: Alison Christie

Translations/reprints: None known

Plot

Lee Simons is the daughter of a wealthy businessman, though not all is smooth sailing in their lives: her elder brother Peter was knocked over and killed while riding his bike and a year later, Lee’s mother dies of an illness that presumably she was not strong enough to fight off due to sadness. Lee and her father only have each other now – well, actually, Mr Simons has got the munitions factory and the large house too, not that Lee is all that bothered about those things. She would rather make her own life and choose her own friends – at least, this is the case by the time she is thirteen and has had five years of stifling over-protectiveness to cope with.

At the beginning of the story, though, the war gives her unexpected hope. First her governess resigns in order to join the land army, meaning that Lee has to go to the local village school; and then she pulls a fast one by volunteering to host an evacuee (something that her father was very against). She gets more than she bargained for – evacuee Maggie Hope is billeted on them but so is Maggie’s little brother, Joe – the family he had been going to were unable to take him after all. Lee is over the moon to have friends staying, but her father keeps them apart at every opportunity. He sends Lee to school in a chauffeur-driven car and makes Maggie and Joe walk behind even when it is raining; the other school kids taunt and despise Lee for that, even though Maggie sticks up for her. Mr Simons is susceptible to public opinion though, and when he eventually realizes it will look bad for him to keep doing that, he sends Maggie and Joe to school by car as well – but a different one, so that Lee is still kept away from the two ‘guttersnipes’ as he thinks of them.

And so the tussle goes – Lee intervenes with her father to protect and help the two Hope kids, Mr Simons protects and coddles his daughter but in a narrow, stifling way that keeps her isolated from other experiences and emotions, and Maggie and Joe bring more and more excitement into Lee’s life, willy-nilly. Even sending a food parcel to Maggie’s mum in London is a struggle, and it only happens because Mr Simons doesn’t want to look bad in front of others when a newspaper reporter sees Lee trying to post it.

Some fights are won by the kids and some by the father, at least initially. Allsorts, Maggie and Joe’s dog, is sent from London and the kids hide it in the air-raid shelter but of course it is not long before it is found – luckily before he is sent back, he saves Lee from a falling brick wall and so Mr Simons agrees to let the dog stay. Maggie and Lee both write an essay in class about their mothers – Maggie’s is chosen for a class prize because it is so emotionally written. The prize is a tour of a local factory – specifically, Mr Simons’ factory – and he ignores Maggie and only talks to Lee, as if she had won the prize herself. But the factory workers chat to Maggie and take to her, even choosing her as their social club queen.

They have a whip-round too, and Maggie wants to spend the resulting windfall on getting Joe a train set – but with the war on, there is none to be had in the shops for any money. Finally, a moment for Mr Simons to show a different side – out of the blue, he gives Joe the train set that Lee’s dead brother never got to use. Not that he’s softening towards them, mind you!

One incident causes her father to harden further rather than the reverse. Lee is tasked with opening an event – a sale of work – but on the way there , an RAF plane is downed and her clothes are all ruined, either by using them to aid the RAF pilot directly or because she is running across rough land and they are scratched and torn. Despite her heroism the result is that Lee is taken out from the village school and made to have lessons at home again – taken by a snobby maid who has been working at their house but who is a qualified teacher. Miss Johnson (former maid Daisy) is a nasty piece of work, but Lee is not left alone with her for long, because air raid damage conveniently closes the local school and so Maggie and Joe need to join the lessons, much to the disgruntlement of Miss Johnson and of Mr Simons. Young Joe proves to be quite a terror, teasing Miss Johnson with their dog, with a mouse, and with scurrilous caricatures, so quite soon Daisy heads off in a temper. Lee is delighted and although Mr Simons is cross, he is more upset by it being the anniversary of his wife’s death, leading him to snap even more nastily at the two evacuees.

It’s the anniversary of Joe’s father’s death too though, and they find him crying in the village graveyard. Maybe Mr Simons is softening after all – he puts his arm around Joe and even gives some money for the kids to go to the cinema – but it is only temporary and he very quickly turns up at the cinema and separates the two groups so that he has Lee all to himself. Nor will he invite Ma Hope over to visit the two kids, despite Lee’s pleas – but new maid ‘Mrs Watkins’ turns out to be Mrs Hope under an assumed name, come to be with her children. Lee takes to her instantly but they have to make sure that Mr Simons doesn’t find out and send her packing. Of course it is not long before the inevitable happens (a comic set-piece has Ma Hope soaking her feet in a warm bowl in front of the fire when she thinks the master is out for the evening, only to be interrupted by Mr Simons and posh guest).

So Mrs Hope is back in London when further air raids hit the East End, and of course her children are distraught with fear for her. Mr Simons bows to public pressure and has his chauffeur drive them back to their old area to check, but doesn’t allow Lee to go along with them and is not particularly upset when the two run away from the chauffeur to go on looking for their Ma. Lee of course is the next to run away, to find her dear friends – and although it looks like their mother is dead, she vows to stay and look after them so that they are not alone. Fat chance that Daddy will let her alone though: he drags her out and gives the Hopes the ultimatum that they can come to the hotel that the Simons will be at for the subsequent 24 hours, or they can stay and be left to their own devices.

It wouldn’t be a girls’ picture-story without a dramatic ending, of course – so as soon as that ultimatum delivered, Lee finds herself looking with horror at the house that the Hopes are in, as it burns down! Lee runs into the burning building and of course is immediately struck down – while she struggles for her life, Mr Simons has time to realize what a caring and unselfish child he has raised despite himself. And when she comes round, a week later, her new room mate turns out to be Mrs Hope, who is not dead – a wall fell on her and she was injured but not killed by the air raid that Maggie and Joe heard about. In turn, Mrs Hope hears about Maggie and Joe’s deaths in the penultimate episode. The final episode, however, has all being well – Lee and Mrs Hope are both discharged from hospital, Mr Simons continues with his change of heart and invites Mrs Hope to stay with them in the country, and although she says no (most vehemently) once Maggie and Joe are found, safe and sound after all, the grand house is turned in to a Convalescent Home with Mrs Hope as the House Mother. It is no longer only Lee who is Daddy’s Darling, but a wider group including Joe and Maggie and the other kids who will come to escape the war.

Thoughts

This is a long-running serial – not quite one of Jinty‘s longest (see more discussion on this post about story length) but nearly half a year’s worth of story. I don’t remember reading it when it first came out as I was a bit too young, but it must have been a successful product of the Alison Christie – Phil Townsend creative team to have run to that length. Some elements are a little repetitive, as is the danger with something of this length – Daddy’s single-minded attention to only his daughter’s comfort changes only towards the end of the serial and there are perhaps a little too many cases where Lee mourns his lack of caring towards others in similar wording to the earlier examples. But of course this is something that is more obvious on a re-read after the fact than at the time of original publication.

There were only relatively few stories in Jinty that feature the Second World War: “Daddy’s Darling”, “Somewhere Over The Rainbow”, and “Song of the Fir Tree“. (The first two are known to be written by Alison Christie and drawn by Phil Townsend, so of course it raises questions whether “Song of the Fir Tree” might also be, but it was not listed as such by Alison Christie in her earlier interview.) It feels to me as if in the case of this story it is more of a backdrop than a theme – the other two stories are about war, or about things that wouldn’t have happened without the war, whereas this story is really about a stifling over-protective parent. So this makes it more similar to another Christie story, “The Four-Footed Friends“.

In “The Four-Footed Friends”, the protagonist struggles with her stifling mother, who lost a child to illness and wraps her daughter in cotton-wool as a result; in “Daddy’s Darling” it is the father who is the antagonist that the daughter has to struggle against. This feels unusual: I know of a similar story, Tammy’s “My Father – My Enemy!”, where the socially-conscious daughter saves the workers at the mine owed by her Victorian father (thanks to Mistyfan, in the comments, for supplying further details) but not many others where the father is the blocker. “Dracula’s Daughter” is the obvious exception to that, but it is generally mothers or other women / girls who are the villains and antagonists in girls’ stories. There are a couple of examples of mystery stories where the villain is eventually revealed to be the father (photo-story “Slaves of the Nightmare Factory” is one such) or where a husband and wife team are equally to blame, but other than that, the antagonists are more typically headmistresses, female teachers, bully girls, mothers / step-mothers, grandmothers, aunts.

Mr Simons is not particularly evil but he is spectacularly clueless throughout. He does soften towards the two evacuees before the end, but his change of heart is depicted as somewhat out of the blue as it only really comes to pass in the last couple of episodes. In other ways the story develops quite nicely over its length: Maggie Hope is drawn as scrawny and plain to start with, and she becomes much more well-favoured by the end. Is that supposed to be as a result of better feeding than she’d get in the East End of London, or because Phil Townsend forgets to draw her quite as plain as at the start? Either way it works pretty well and matches the growing friendship of the two girls.

Jinty 12 April 1975

• The Jinx from St Jonah’s (artist Mario Capaldi)
• Tricia’s Tragedy (artist Ana Rodriguez)
• Jinty’s Favourite Spooky Stories: Her Lost Love (text story)
• Merry at Misery House (writer Terence Magee; unknown artist – Merry)
• Ten Polaroid Cameras Must be Won! – Competition
• Dora Dogsbody (artist José Casanovas)
• Monday’s Child is Fair of Face – first in seven-part series on the old rhyme (artist Phil Gascoine)
• Cinderella Smith (artist Trini Tinturé)
• Bet Gets the Bird! (artist Phil Gascoine)
• Daddy’s Darling (artist Phil Townsend, writer Alison Christie)
• Slave of the Mirror – final episode (artist Carlos Freixas)

Yee-ikes! Katie is experimenting in the school lab, and we can just imagine what trouble our jinx can get into in the name of science. Sure enough, that’s just what happens. Katie’s trying to make a perfume, but her efforts are more like stink bombs!

“Slave of the Mirror” concludes this week. Isabella, the spirit of the mirror, is having Mia trying to burn down the place. But then Isabella repents and shows herself to everyone to prove it’s not Mia’s fault before departing in peace and disappearing from the mirror. Thereafter, the mirror reflects normally like any other mirror. The replacement story next week is “Face the Music, Flo!”

Cindy’s cousins sell all her clothes to make money (as if they don’t have plenty of it already). Worst of all, they also sell Cindy’s beloved pendant, especially as it contains a photo of her mother, whom they really hate for some reason. Cindy is determined to get her pendant back but strikes a problem – no money!

We have double helpings of parrot humour this week, in the Dora Dogsbody story as well as “Bet Gets the Bird!” We also get a double helping of Phil Gascoine, who is not only illustrating Bet but also the first episode of a seven-part serial based on the rhyme of “Monday’s Child”, “Tuesday’s Child” etc. Monday’s Child Christine Carter is very fair of face and because of this, she has always gotten her own way with everyone and overshadowed Mary Jennings. It looks like Christine will do the same with Mary again when they both audition for a drama school. But there is a twist in store that enables Mary to finally get her break and Christine’s charms to fail for once!

Tricia and her father have to creep around their unpleasant relatives to get her back in training in her old training ground of the quarry pool. Then all of a sudden cousin Diana appears at the pool, calling out for Tricia. Now how could she have gotten all the way there? She’s supposed to be blind! All those who suspect there is something fishy about this please raise their hands.

Daddy’s having real fits this week when he hardly needs to. First it’s over Lee being accidentally showered in food scraps and then trying to help the families of the two evacuees. But he really hits the roof when he finds Lee and Maggie sharing the same bed!

Merry’s getaway from Misery House has been stymied by amnesia. At last, she regains her memory when she sees her “wanted” posters. Unfortunately, doing a runner could be awkward because of the kindly family she fell in with while she had amnesia. And what of the nasty butler who hates Merry?

 

 

Jinty #42, 15 March 1975

Stories in this issue:

• The Jinx from St Jonah’s (artist Mario Capaldi)
• Tricia’s Tragedy (artist Ana Rodriguez)
• My Perfect Day – themed reader letters
• Merry at Misery House (writer Terry Magee)
• The Kat and Mouse Game (artist Jim Baikie)
• Prisoners of Paradise Island (artist Trini Tinturé) – last episode
• The Ghostly Wedding – spooky story
• Dora Dogsbody (artist José Casanovas)
• Bird-Girl Brenda (artist Phil Gascoine) – last episode
• Daddy’s Darling (artist Phil Townsend)
• Slave of the Mirror (artist Carlos Freixas)

Katie is dog-sitting for Lady Lampwick – but the huge dog ‘Cuddles’ looks like rather a handful! She earns enough money to be able to afford a dog of her own, but by the end of the story she is somehow not quite as keen on the idea…

Tricia is forced to slave for her cousin Diana, whose family say was blinded by an accident caused by Tricia. At least, unlike in some slave stories, Tricia is not emotionally fooled by her abusive cousin: they are ‘two people who hate each other… tied to each other by a terrible debt!’

There is a page of reader-produced content: the winning selections in a request made by the Jinty editors for letters on the theme ‘My perfect day’. I reproduce it here particularly because of one letter, ‘Just peace would be perfect’, about living in Northern Ireland – the reader wishes for peace and safety in Belfast. In the intervening years this has indeed come to pass, though there are many fears at present of possible impacts that could affect the Good Friday agreement as and when the UK exits from the EU – and/or the EU Human Rights Convention, the legal framework of which underlies the Good Friday agreement.

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Merry is planning an escape from Misery House, so as to try to warn the outside world of the cruelties that go on inside its walls. The convicts make a dummy look-a-like of Merry, to hide the fact that she is not returning with the rest from an outdoors stint of fence-mending. Will it work?

Kat is still fooling everyone, this time by pretending to sleep-walk to make it look like some missing money was stolen by the innocent Mouse.

It’s the last episode of “Prisoners of Paradise Island” – school sports mistress Miss Granley was Sally Tuff’s hope for outside rescue, but she seems to be in league with the evil Miss Lush. When it is revealed that the teacher is really on their side, Miss Lush pops up and takes Miss Granley hostage – but it all goes wrong for her as reinforcements help the girls to finally fight back against their captors. At the end of the story, we see the hockey team winning the international championship, and we are promised that new dramatic story “Cinderella Smith” (also drawn by Trini Tinturé) starts next week.

It’s also the last episode of “Bird-Girl Brenda” – a very sudden ending, as Brenda discovers that going for a walk with her friends – and someone’s dishy cousin Rob – is just as much fun as flying. Just as well, because her flying powers have abruptly deserted her. Next week we will get new story “Bet Gets The Bird”, likewise drawn by Phil Gascoine – another lightweight humour strip with no overall story arc. Bet was rather more short-lived than Brenda – perhaps it wasn’t as successful – but for whatever reason that left Gascoine drawing more memorable stories such as “The Green People”, “Golden Dolly, Death Dust!”, and of course the long-running “Fran of the Floods”.

It’s early days in “Daddy’s Darling” – protagonist Lee is being looked after so closely by her father that she has no life of her own. Even though she now has to go to the local school, her father is still managing to separate her from others her own age.

Mia Blake is still strongly possessed by the spirit in the mirror – not surprisingly it is feeding off the resentment that Mia feels when her sister prevents her from going into a modelling competition.

Jinty 26 April 1975

Stories in this issue

• The Jinx from St Jonah’s (artist Mario Capaldi)
• Tricia’s Tragedy (artist Ana Rodriguez)
• Jinty Makes It: Table mats – Feature
• Merry at Misery House (unknown artist – Merry; writer Terence Magee)
• Dora Dogsbody (artist José Casanovas)
• Do-It-Yourself Dot (artist Alf Saporito)
• Wednesday’s Child is Full of Woe… – complete story (unknown artist – Merry)
• Cinderella Smith (artist Trini Tinturé)
• Bet Gets the Bird! (artist Phil Gascoine)
• Face the Music, Flo! (artist Jim Baikie)
• Daddy’s Darling (artist Philip Townsend, writer Alison Christie)
• Jinty’s Favourite Spooky Stories – The Fair Rosaleen (text story)

Katie helps the local greengrocer out with deliveries, and finds out what goes on behind the doors of a health farm. Eating a huge serving of lovely greasy fish and chips in front of a bunch of people trying to lose weight isn’t a great idea though! Shame about the stereotypical fat people all running after her trying to nab the food off her – amusing though it will have been at the time.

Tricia is being followed in town by her cousin Diana. But how can Diana find her way round so effectively, if she’s blind? Her horrible cousin and family are tricking her – nowadays we call that emotional abuse and gaslighting. Trisha has made her mind up to stand her ground, even though she hasn’t yet realised what lies they’re telling her.

On a craft page, Jinty shows you how to make a set of table mats out of stout card and string. They look like the sort of thing that might well come out looking rather effective.

Merry has recovered her memory, but evil butler Haig is trying to blackmail her as he also knows her secret. Merry has no choice but to run away so that the blackmail doesn’t work. The same unknown artist who drew Merry is also drawing “Wednesday’s Child” in this issue – a complete story based around the rhyme. Moira is always grumbling, but she doesn’t realise that her mother really has something to worry about – the father of the family is on a fishing boat that is well overdue on its return. Moira snaps out of her grumbling and is able to be some help for once.

The cousins are after Cindy Smith, who is trying to post a plea for help to her father. They stop her from sending it, beat her, tie her up, and deprive her of food and water until she signs away her money to them.

In “Face the Music, Flo!”, the twins are at loggerheads. Greg is trying out his act on stage and doing well, but Flo thinks it is bound to all end unhappily and wants to prevent him from breaking his heart seeking the unobtainable. Greg’s manager is happy to keep them apart, too. Greg is still trying to please his sister, but somehow I don’t think that’s going to last for long.

“Daddy’s Darling” Lee is still trying to defend her friends Joe and Maggie from her uncaring father. Maggie has won a school prize for writing a great essay; will this change the heartless father’s mind about the two evacuees?

There is a spooky prose story this issue: I suspect it is an Irish folk or traditional tale, retold. The Fair Rosaleen has a hard-hearted father; as she lay dying she asked him to make sure he looked after the poor people nearby, so that she can rest peacefully. Of course he breaks his vow and the ghost returns to remind him of his promise – which he then keeps faithfully thereafter.

Jinty 5 April 1975

Stories in this issue:

• The Jinx from St Jonah’s (artist Mario Capaldi)
• Tricia’s Tragedy (artist Ana Rodriguez)
• Merry at Misery House (unknown artist – Merry, writer Terence Magee)
• The Kat and Mouse Game (artist Jim Baikie) – last episode
• Dora Dogsbody (artist José Casanovas)
• Cinderella Smith (artist Trini Tinturé)
• Bet Gets the Bird! (artist Phil Gascoine)
• Daddy’s Darling (artist Philip Townsend, writer Alison Christie)
• Slave of the Mirror (artist Carlos Freixas)

Katie Jinks gets her hands on a gorilla costume, in a way that is very similar to some hi-jinks that Fran gets up to some years later – as Mistyfan has wondered recently, I also now wonder if the two stories shared a writer. In this case, pal Liz is the one togged up in a gorilla suit, and the gorilla is rather friendlier than one might have guessed.

Tricia is being made to look after her cousin Diana, through the emotional blackmail of being told it’s her fault for blinding her cousin. She is made to use all her time to teach Diana to swim well enough to be able to win the Lloyd Trophy, and is forbidden to use her cousin’s pool to do her own training in. What will happen when she goes home to see her parents – will she withdraw from the Lloyd trophy, as her uncle expects?

Merry has lost her memory – she escaped from the reformatory in order to bring help to the others, but had an accident in the street. A kindly – and posh – family have taken her in, but cruel butler Haig hates her because she battles injustice  such as when he tries to beat a local kid for taking some vegetables. Haig catches Merry unawares and locks her in the dark shed. Maybe the similarity between this predicament and her reformatory experiences will bring her memory back? After all, she’s still not managed to bring help to the other girls in Misery House…

It’s the last episode of “The Kat and Mouse Game”. Mistyfan has got a story post coming up soon, so I won’t describe the ending in detail. Suffice it to say that Kat gets her comeuppance – after trying to land Mouse in it one last time, of course – and Mouse gets the career of her dreams. Satisfyingly, Kat even confesses at the end, once she realises it’s all gone wrong for her (and it’s all her own fault too).

There’s a story post coming up on “Cinderella Smith” too, I understand. Cindy is sent to school without the correct uniform and has to use old clothes left behind by others – she finds it embarrassing and humiliating but comes across as snobbish rather than apologetic for her change of circumstance. But wearing old clothes will be the least of it, very soon: Cindy’s cousins are some of the meanest abusers in these stories.

The kids at school are making Lee’s life a misery because her father is himself being so ungenerous to evacuees Joe and Maggie. Bowing to public pressure, he sends the evacuee kids to school in a posh car – but a different one from the one his daughter travels in.

It is nearing the ending of “Slave of the Mirror”. The Spanish au pair girl Inez tells Mia the story of the girl in the mirror, who is an ancestor of Inez’. Isabella lived as a servant in the house, some two hundred years previously; she was treated so cruelly by her master that she died unhappily and vowed her revenge. Now, through Mia, she is trying one last act of revenge – burning down the house!

Jinty 16 August 1975

Stories in this issue:

• The Jinx from St Jonah’s (artist Mario Capaldi)
• Blind Ballerina (artist Ana Rodriguez)
• Merry at Misery House (unknown artist – Merry; writer Terry Magee)
• Dora Dogsbody (artist José Casanovas)
• A Journey Through Time! Jinty’s Favourite Spooky Stories – text story
• The Valley of Shining Mist – (artist Carlos Freixas, writer Alan Davidson)
• Cinderella Smith (artist Trini Tinturé)
• “The Green People” (artist Phil Gascoine)
• Daddy’s Darling – final episode (artist Philip Townsend, writer Alison Christie)
• Face the Music, Flo! (artist Jim Baikie)
• Jinty Makes…Easy Cool Drinks!

After a break of several weeks, Jinty’s favourite spooky tales are back. This one teaches a girl a creepy lesson about not dithering so long in bed that she runs late for school.

Katie the jinx is on holiday, but Clarence, the boy her cousin Janice is expected to pair up with because they are neighbours, is really spoiling things. He’s such a snob and a prig who always makes put-down remarks about everything Katie does, and he never loosens up. Dora’s not having much fun on holiday either. Even then, Ma Siddons makes her the dogsbody – especially when she wants Dora’s help in winning a talent contest.

It’s the final episode of “Daddy’s Darling”. Daddy, having finally seen the light in the previous episode, makes up for things in a big way to deliver a happy ending. Next week we see the start of “Barracuda Bay”, which promises us adventure, mystery, the Bahamas, a sunken ship and disappearing scientists. Sounds like an exciting mixture already!

Debbie finds the courage to stand up to bully Tracey and finally gets the brooch off her. But then Debbie realises that she stole the brooch when she promised Mrs Maynard she would not steal again. So the Valley of Shining Mist may not take her back unless she can sort out this tangle.

Hilda agrees to come back to Misery House to keep the peace with the Warden and release Merry from punishment. The gypsy’s herbs have made her so fighting fit that she’s strong enough to stand up to Adolfa the bullying toady. Something may catch on from this because the blurb for next week says: “‘Up with the barricades! Down with Misery House!’”.

Woozums the dog is suddenly standing up bullies too. In this week’s episode of “Cinderella Smith” he’s taking a growl at the nasty cousins on Cindy’s behalf.

In “Blind Ballerina” a tipster provides the lead to Daisy’s whereabouts. But now it’s Barbie who’s disappeared!

Flo gets the worst birthday ever. Greg is so busy that all he can do is send her a bunch of flowers. And then Flo is so shocked when she finds out Greg’s off on an American tour that she blunders into the road and gets hit by a truck!

Julie and Mary finally deliver the message to Moura that her Aunt Zella is a traitor and in league with Mr Blackburn. Moura believes it, but Zella is making sure she can’t convince her father and stop the soldiers who are on the verge of planting explosives that will destroy their world.

 

Jinty 9 August 1975

Stories in this issue:

• The Jinx from St Jonah’s (artist Mario Capaldi)
• Blind Ballerina (artist Ana Rodriguez)
• Merry at Misery House (unknown artist – Merry; writer Terry Magee)
• Jinty’s Holiday Competition (guitar competition)
• Dora Dogsbody (artist José Casanovas)
• The Valley of Shining Mist – (artist Carlos Freixas, writer Alan Davidson)
• Cinderella Smith (artist Trini Tinturé)
• “The Green People” (artist Phil Gascoine)
• Daddy’s Darling (artist Philip Townsend, writer Alison Christie)
• Face the Music, Flo! (artist Jim Baikie)
• Do-It-Yourself Dot (artist Alf Saporito)

 

Katie the Jinx is pushed off the cover this week in favour of this delightful Phil Gascoine piece that advertises Jinty’s latest competition for winning a guitar. The dancer looks like she’s got one leg, though. Presumably the other is under her skirt somewhere.

When Katie is pushed off the cover her strip is usually reduced to a two-page episode, and this is the case here. Katie is minding her little horror of a cousin. Things turn to horror all right when he loses his ball and Katie gets herself into all sorts of scrapes and in a real state trying to retrieve it. And after all that, the little brat says he’s gone off his ball and wants to play on the swings. He doesn’t even thank Katie for getting his ball back. No wonder poor Katie faints in the last panel.

The hostage crisis at Misery House continues. The Warden allows Merry to go to the gypsies to deliver her ultimatum: return Hilda, who has not recovered from her illness, in exchange for Jessie, who is going mad from her illegal confinement at Misery House. As it turns out (in the next episode) the gypsies should have responded with a gypsy’s curse on the Warden and Miss Ball. As it is, Merry and the gypsies resort to a bluff to trick the Warden into returning Jessie.

In “Blind Ballerina”, Barbie and her friend Pauline go in search of Daisy, but don’t have any luck. And once they return, Sylvia pulls another trick to get them into trouble for staying out.

It’s gambling on the greyhound racing in Dora Dogsbody this week. Mr Siddons finds some backbone too when he thinks he’s lost because of Ma Siddons and stands up to her by arguing with her.

Debbie’s family manage to force the story of “the Valley of Shining Mist” out of her. They don’t believe a word of it of course, which should keep the secret safe. Then Elaine has second thoughts, which puts it in danger again. Meanwhile, Debbie still hasn’t got the brooch off bully Tracey Stocks, and now Tracey’s teasing her even more when she discovers Debbie’s secret violin practice.

Cinderella Smith has to put a brave face on losing her first earnings to her cousins. Still, her next job is coming up, and in the last panel she’s on a high when she slips off for it.

Julie finds out Zella the evil Green Woman is in league with Mr Blackburn. But they run into difficulties trying to tell Moura because Zella is starting a war of nerves in both the kingdom below and the military above.

It is the penultimate episode of “Daddy’s Darling”. Daddy finally realises how cold and selfish he has been after seeing how selfless and brave his darling was in trying to rescue the evacuees in a fire. However, there’s no sign of them and it looks like they’ve perished. Moreover, Lee is now in intensive care and sharing her ward with the evacuees’ grieving mother.

Flo and Pip resort to unusual measures to make sure Greg has a good rest because his nasty manager Vince Telfer is driving him too hard – they smuggle Greg out in a drum under Telfer’s nose and take him off for a holiday! However, it has unfortunate consequences Flo did not anticipate – it caused Greg to miss his chance for a tour in Las Vegas.

 

Jinty 2 August 1975

Stories in this issue:

• The Jinx from St Jonah’s (artist Mario Capaldi)
• Blind Ballerina (artist Ana Rodriguez)
• Merry at Misery House (unknown artist – Merry; writer Terry Magee)
• Dora Dogsbody (artist José Casanovas)
• The Valley of Shining Mist – (artist Carlos Freixas, writer Alan Davidson)
• Cinderella Smith (artist Trini Tinturé)
• “The Green People” (artist Phil Gascoine)
• Daddy’s Darling (artist Philip Townsend, writer Alison Christie)
• Face the Music, Flo! (artist Jim Baikie)

 

The issue is a bit unusual in that there is no Dot, quiz, competition or special feature. Only the ads intermingle with the flow of the stories.

This week’s Jinx story is curiously similar to a “Fran’ll Fix It!” story that appeared in 1978. Our protagonist and her friends stick on false beards and other facial hair – only to find they won’t come off because of our protagonist’s special homemade glue (made with glue from the makeup kit, flour, nail varnish and stuff for mending bathtub cracks!). After several failed attempts to get rid of their “hairy appendages”, they finally succeed after they work up sweat during one of Katie’s scrapes. This is not unlike how Fran must have worked herself up in a sweat getting away from Sheikh Abbis and then jumping into the duck pond. Could it be the same writer?

Barbie gets the role of the blind ballerina in the production. Talk about irony. Unfortunately other dancers turn against Barbie in this episode, which will make things easier for jealous Sylvia. And now Pauline has discovered Barbie’s secret. Someone in the company had to at some point. Fortunately it is not Sylvia – but how long before that happens?

Despite Merry’s efforts to stop Miss Ball capturing Jessie, she succeeds and is now holding Jessie hostage to force the gypsies to return Hilda to Misery House. Jessie’s going mad from her confinement in a Misery House cell, which is precisely what Miss Ball anticipated because gypsies are outdoor people. It’s all part of her plan to turn the screw even more on Merry to make a choice between Hilda and Jessie – or think of something fast!

This week Dora Dogsbody is trying to help a dog overcome his fear of water. She succeeds – unwittingly – when she develops cramp in the pool and the dog dives in to fish her out. But that sneaky Ma Siddons steals the credit and charges the owner extra for it! Another episode where Dora does not score a total victory over Ma Siddons, but she takes solace in the fact that the dog is cured.

Elaine finds herself in a bog when she tries the entrance to the Valley of Shining Mist. Must be more of its magic. But then again, Mrs Maynard says something odd to Debbie: “Perhaps I don’t exist here at all when you’re not here, Debbie. Perhaps I only exist in your imagination – because you want me to.” Meanwhile, Debbie has to pass another test – get a brooch off Tracey Stocks. And Tracey is Debbie’s worst enemy! (Funny – we thought Elaine was.)

Cinderella Smith hides her first cash payment from her cousins by burying it in the garden until she is ready to bank it. But she had not counted on Woozums’s doggy trait of digging things up in the garden. Now the cousins have found the money.

Julie finally decides she has no choice but to take her sister Mary into her confidence about the Green People. Unfortunately her enemies have guessed she would try something like that, so now they are watching Mary too. As a result, they meet the evil Green Woman, Zella, and now they join forces. Oh, crumbs!

Lee finds the evacuees, but they can’t find the mother and Daddy won’t let his darling help with the search. And now it looks like the evacuees are trapped in a fire!

Greg’s manager exhibits more of his selfish, greedy, uncaring attitudes to his own discoveries. He’s driving Greg so hard that his health is suffering. He sacks Pip the drummer – and punches him in the face – for helping Flo when she tries to step in. Undaunted, Pip and Flo hatch a plan to help Greg.