Jinty and Lindy 21 February 1976

Miss No-Name (artist Jim Baikie)

The Jinx from St. Jonah’s (artist Mario Capaldi)

Friends of the Forest (artist “B. Jackson”)

Fran of the Floods (artist Phil Gascoine, writer Alan Davidson)

Dora Dogsbody (artist José Casanovas)

Too Old to Cry! (artist Trini Tinturé)

Wanda Whiter Than White (artist Ana Rodriguez)

Bound for Botany Bay (artist Roy Newby)

Save Old Smokey! (artist Phil Townsend, writer Alison Christie)

Do-It-Yourself Dot (artist Alf Saporito)

Lori, “Miss No-Name”, makes her first attempt to run from the horrible Crabbs. But instead of dragging Lori back, Ma Crabb resorts to more crafty means. She sends a shadow, Fingers, on Lori’s tail. His job is to pull some sneakiness on Lori to make her come crawling back. Will he succeed? She’s found a good refuge, but he’s watching outside. 

Katie wants to see a big football match, but she’s been jinxed by bad chilblains. Poor Katie. Will she miss out on the match or find a way around things? 

Sally and Maya are hiding a deer, Star, from the circus. But nasty types are after Maya and are on their tail. 

Talk about a farewell concert! Fran is tearfully singing “We’ll Meet Again” at the school concert, to say goodbye to her parents the only way she can. The floods are now claiming her hometown as the reservoir bursts. The concert hall is quietly evacuating while the headmistress orders the concert to bravely carry on to avoid panic. 

Ma Siddons turns her hand at painting this week when she agrees to look after a famous artist’s dog in exchange for free art lessons. The results are a dog’s dinner, and Mrs Siddons is even more annoyed when Dora ends up reaping the benefits.  

A disastrous trail of mess-ups and misunderstandings have made Sara distrustful of Nell. But this week, when Sara sees the horrible orphanage Nell was raised in after her horse was sold to its cruel matron, they come together again. Trouble is, how to get the horse back?

Susie suspects there’s more to Wanda than being the biggest tattle-tale and most self-righteous prig you ever saw, but her conduct is just impossible. Then, Susie discovers the truth when she stumbles across an old newspaper, and from the sound of it, she’s astounded. 

Betsy Tanner begins her transportation to Botany Bay. She’s been warned, “You’ll be lucky if you get to Botany Bay alive!” And for her, it’s not just the usual convict ship conditions. Everyone, from her arch-enemy Lady De Mortimer to a fellow convict named Judy, is out to make her life a living hell. At least Judy turns around when Betsy shows her a kindness, and Betsy still has her farewell present, some art supplies, to help her survive.  

Grandpa and Billie Stephenson are fighting to hold onto their railway home against the greedy Councillor Gresby. Grandpa isn’t impressed with the new flat they’ll be moved to, for all its conveniences. Then, he turns up trumps by buying a railway coach for them to live in, so they can stay where they are. But will Gresby give up that easily?

Dot’s invited her friends around for ping pong, but practice gets her into trouble with her Dad. In the end, the ping pong balls are used for bingo games. Even Dad is impressed after being annoyed with Dot.

Jinty & Lindy 17 January 1976

 

Slaves of the Candle (filler artist)

The Jinx from St. Jonah’s (artist Mario Capaldi)

Friends of the Forest (artist “B. Jackson”)

Win Your Very Own Hairdryer! (competition)

Fran of the Floods – first episode (artist Phil Gascoine, writer Alan Davidson)

Ping-Pong Paula – final episode (artist Jim Baikie, writer Alison Christie)

Too Old to Cry! (artist Trini Tinturé)

Wanda Whiter Than White (artist Ana Rodriguez)

The Haunting of Hazel (artist Santiago Hernandez)

Song of the Fir Tree (artist Phil Townsend)

Do-It-Yourself Dot (artist Alf Saporito)

Make it Easy…A Nightdress Case – feature 

This issue marks the start of the Jinty classic, “Fran of the Floods”, a tale that has more relevance in today’s climate change environment and rising sea levels than when it was first published in 1976. Rising temperatures and melting ice caps are causing non-stop rain worldwide, and flooding problems are everywhere. Fran Scott is treating it as a joke, but Dad senses it’s something more like the Apocalypse. 

Ping-Pong Paula ends this week. Paula is in hospital in a coma after a road accident, but not even this brings her quarrelling parents together. It takes a telling-to from a nurse that they have to put everything aside and go in together if they want Paula to recover for things to come right at last. 

Poor Nell can’t do anything right. This week she tries to protect Sara’s horse Mister Flicker because she mistakenly thinks he will be destroyed. But her ignorance in horse care has resulted in him becoming seriously ill. More tears for the girl who’s “Too Old to Cry!”.

Lyndy Lagtree, who has finally escaped from the “Slaves of the Candle” racket, realises the villainous Mrs Tallow is out to steal the Crown Jewels and is hot on her trail. Unfortunately, she fails to stop Mrs Tallow from putting her plan in motion at the Tower of London.

In “Friends of the Forest”, Sally and Maya are trying to keep a tame deer, Star, from the circus. Sally is discovering how Maya lives in the forest – in a tree house. But it looks like the welfare busybodies don’t approve of this. They grab Sally, thinking she’s Maya.

In “Song of the Fir Tree”, our fugitives catch up with their old friend Rachel from the concentration camp, who’s now a bit of a fugitive herself. But their enemy Grendelsen catches up too, and now he’s got all three at gunpoint.

Hazel finds out why Black Crag Mountain is angry – greedy developers are out to disturb the dead as they dynamite the old mine workings for silver, and they’ve been scaring the villagers off their land to do it. No wonder the mountain’s a bit pissed! Wouldn’t we be?

That self-righteous prig Wanda White is too much this time. She’s kept Susie awake all night by reading “Pilgrim’s Progress” aloud – her nightly habit of reading a self-improvement book – through those thin walls between them. It’s the last straw in Susie working herself into exhaustion, and the exhaustion gets Susie into trouble in gym class next day.

Dot’s putting on a bit of weight and is making do-it-yourself gadgets to lose it. She eventually turns to a do-it-yourself Turkish bath, which solves the weight problem. Trouble is, Dot forgot to undress first!

Katie is getting a cup of tea for her friend Sue, who is in hospital. Should be straightforward? Not when you’re the Jinx from St. Jonah’s. And that’s just the start of the jinxing that gets Katie banned from the hospital. The ban isn’t stopping Katie from getting some sweets to Sue – but with a fishing pole? Oh dear, watch out for jinxing hijinks at the hospital next week!

Jinty & Lindy 22 November 1975

Slaves of the Candle – artist Roy Newby

Golden Dolly, Death Dust! – Phil Gascoine

Finleg the Fox – artist Jim Eldridge

The Jinx from St. Jonah’s – artist Mario Capaldi

Ping-Pong Paula – artist Jim Baikie, writer Alison Christie

Tell Us – problem page

Poparound! – pop gossip

Barracuda Bay (final episode) – artist Santiago Hernandez

Do-It-Yourself Dot – artist Alf Saporito

Too Old to Cry! – artist Trini Tinturé

Hettie High and Mighty – artist “B. Jackson”, concept and partial writer Terence Magee

The Haunting of Hazel – artist Santiago Hernandez

Song of the Fir Tree – artist Phil Townsend

Barracuda Bay ends this week. The villainous Kane gets caught in his own explosion, and our heroes barely manage to escape the tidal wave caused by it. Susan, who had started her story all thirsting for adventure and getting out of the office, now decides she’s had more than enough adventure.

In Slaves of the Candle, Lyndy manages to stop Mrs Tallow spotting the evidence of an escape, but the cost is Mrs Tallow’s revenge for getting dye all over her clothes. This takes the form of forcing Lyndy to go into hives for beeswax and risking stings. What’s more, the bees are in a very nasty mood. Talk about killer bees!

Just when Janie thought she’d got rid of that horror Hettie High and Mighty – their parents take it into their heads to get married. Now Janie’s got Hettie for a stepsister. Arghh!

Talk about double disaster. Solveig and Per, freshly liberated from a Nazi concentration camp, are forced to take shelter in an abandoned one. Trouble is, their old enemy Sergeant Strang from their own camp has the same idea, and then Grendelsen catches up again. So now the children are up against both Grendelsen and Sergeant Strang! 

Ping-Pong Paula gets revenge on Myra Glegg, the spiteful girl who’s been playing tricks on her. She beats Myra in a table tennis tournament, and then Myra gets kicked out of the boarding house when the landlady catches her ripping up Paula’s photos. So that’s one problem less for Paula, but there is still the matter of how to sort out her quarrelling parents. So far that looks like achieving world peace – hopeless.

The next ingredient required for the antidote to Miss Marvell’s death dust is damask roses. As usual, Miss Marvell throws obstacles in the way of Yvette and Lucy, and she isn’t through when they finally reach the roses. There’s an angry bull bearing down on them!

In Finleg the Fox, the evidence is mounting up that the unpleasant Mr Dray was involved in a train robbery and the money Una found is the stash. Meanwhile, Dora hatches a nasty plan to poison Finleg!

Hazel’s mountaincraft course is in a real mess. She was so distracted by whatever’s haunting her that she left her mountain climbing party on the mountain. Ooops!

Katie the Jinx is the hobby horse in a Morris dancing charity event. She would find herself being chased by a showjumping horse who wants her toffee apple and end up straight in the lake. At least the hijinks are so hilarious they make a lot of money for the event. 

Nell’s search for the woman who might be her mother leads her to a beauty academy, but she is stuck on how to introduce herself. What’s more, she isn’t exactly a beauty. At least the horrible Mrs Arbuthnot doesn’t know she’s escaped from the orphanage and the police aren’t searching for her yet, but it can only a matter of time…

Dot’s back and trying her hand at juggling. She ends up as the one being juggled, by dolphins.

Jinty & Lindy 3 January 1976

• Slaves of the Candle (artist Roy Newby)
• The Jinx from St Jonah’s (artist Mario Capaldi)
• Friends of the Forest (unknown artist – Merry – “B Jackson”)
• Golden Dolly, Death Dust! (artist Phil Gascoine)
• Ping-Pong Paula (artist Jim Baikie)
• Too Old to Cry! (artist Trini Tinturé unknown)
• Wanda Whiter than White (artist Ana Rodriguez)
• The Haunting of Hazel (artist Santiago Hernandez unknown)
• Song of the Fir Tree (artist Phil Townsend)
• Do-It-Yourself Dot

This post is inspired by a number of creator attribution discussions from recent months, not all of which have made it onto the blog yet (and some of which are hot off the press!). Yesterday I had a lovely, fun meetup with the daughter of Trini Tinturé, who is very delightfully based in the same city as me for at least some of her working time. I dug out some old issues to show Maris Tinturé some of her mother’s Jinty stories in situ, and this was the first one where I spotted a story attributed to Trini.

Maris leafed through it once, twice, and couldn’t find any art of her mother’s. Was it just too much of a skim-read to spot it after all this time? No – I pointed out the specific story I had in mind, “Too Old to Cry!”, and the immediate reaction was, ‘but that’s not hers!’ – and a quick cameraphone piccy and email confirmed it. This story looks enough like Trini’s art for me to never have questioned the attribution that came handed down to me, probably from David Roach originally, but to the most familiar of eyes it is as unlike her art as one face is like another. Below is the episode of the story from this issue – compare it to a piece of definite Trini artwork like the sample pages of Creepy Crawley. (But I think that you will be likely to have to look very closely to be sure, unless you are very familiar with her artwork.) [Edited to add – Trini now says that this story is hers after all! This is upon reflection and, especially, her review of the second and third pages of the story. Here are her own words about it (translated by her daughter Maris): “I would much rather say that this bad work is not mine, and it would be easier for me to do so. But, unfortunately, I have to admit it is. Shame, shame! It looks like the main character had to have a ‘special’ feel, and special indeed I made her! She looks horribly tuberculose. I don’t remember the story or the characters at all. (And at the bottom of the last page the texts points to the continuation in the following week, meaning it’s a serial: no clue at all.) But there are traits in the other characters that give me away mercilessly. Nobody can copy certain kinds of folding and line… The way of drawing stones, the backgrounds… the older people… (Or maybe it was a cooperation between me and Dracula, who knows!)

But the date 1976 certainly does not fit. It is quite possible that they originally put aside the story and only published it years later, who knows why. There was a lot of entanglement [with] publishers. These bad pages smack of my earliest works for Scotland’s schoolgirl series, for example. Fortunately my style changed very soon.

There’s nothing more I can add. It is bad work, but it is mine.”]

 

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This issue also includes an episode of “The Haunting of Hazel” which we have likewise previously attributed to Santiago Hernandez. However, on looking at the 2017 post on “Santiago Hernandez or José Ariza” Trini has this to say: “Barracuda Bay” is definitely Hernandez. “Golden Shark” possibly, but much earlier work perhaps. “The Haunting of Hazel” is unlikely to be Hernandez.” So I have likewise changed the attribution of that story on this post, in order not to confidently show it as being by Santiago Hernandez.

Finally, one other story in this issue is from an artist that we have long referred to as unknown – the unknown artist who drew “Merry at Misery House”. A sighting by “Goof” on the UK Comics Forum gave us a valuable reference to the name “B Jackson” as the artist credit accompanying the illustration for a text story in the ‘Daily Mirror Book for Girls” 1971. Further detective work by David Slinn (a contact of David Roach’s) and by David Roach has given a long list of stories and titles that “B Jackson” seems to have worked on. This will follow as a blog post on this site, with apologies for the delay in getting to this denouement.

But will the attribution of B Jackson prove long lasting, or could it be falsified or proved inaccurate in some way? All that I’ve seen on the blog so far goes to show that there is no 100% guarantee of anything – the word of an expert is very valuable but there’s nothing to compare with a direct line from the creator themselves, if at all possible.

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.

 

 

 

Jinty 8 March 1975

Stories in this issue:

• The Jinx from St Jonah’s (artist Mike White)
• Tricia’s Tragedy (artist Ana Rodriguez)
• Merry at Misery House (writer Terry Magee)
• Do-It-Yourself Dot (artist Alf Saporito)
• The Kat and Mouse Game (artist Jim Baikie)
• Prisoners of Paradise Island (artist Trini Tinturé)
• Dora Dogsbody (artist José Casanovas)
• Bird-Girl Brenda (artist Phil Gascoine)
• Daddy’s Darling (artist Phil Townsend, writer Alison Christie) – first episode
• Jinty made it herself… (craft feature on how to make a dressing table tidy)
• Slave of the Mirror (artist Carlos Freixas)

Katie jinxes herself at the launderette this week – she spilt the water from her goldfish bowl over her eiderdown and it all comes apart when she tries drying it. The understandably tetchy manageress kicks her out unceremoniously and so she needs to hang things up at home. Her Heath Robinsonesque drying lines only succeed in giving the vicar a hot bum and a cold neck, but Katie’s mother is just as glad that the vicar was chased away by this odd combination as it saved her from having to say yes to the favour he was about to ask for. The grateful mum hauls out a ‘do it yourself continental quilt kit’ that Katie can make up and use that night – with the goldfish bowl set far away from the bedside this time! (DIY continental quilt sets – did they ever really exist I wonder?!)

In “Tricia’s Tragedy”, Tricia is blaming herself for her cousin Diana’s accident and subsequent blindness. She’s feeling so guilty that she is even going to withdraw from the important swimming trophy that they are both entered for. Her father is adamant that she shouldn’t do that, and even locks her in until the morning so that she can’t do something rash. That doesn’t stop her and she runs away to Diana’s house – though her father does get her to promise that at least she won’t actually withdraw from the Lloyd Trophy competition herself.

Merry realises what the mysterious joker has been up to over the past few weeks – trying to get Miss Ball sacked. Wardress Stropp (aptly named) turns out to be the mysterious figure behind it all, and soon she is sacked and Ball reinstated. Not that Ball is any more of a fan of Merry than she was before the reinstatement! But Merry doesn’t mind too much because she is inspired by something Miss Ball said – it has given her an idea for a potential escape plan!

Kat opens this episode by hesitating when asked to leap up onto a platform – because she has weakened it herself deliberately, so as to get Mouse to injure herself! Mouse guesses what is behind the hesitation, and it is the end of their friendship. For good? Probably – but Kat is very sneaky and can at least think of ways to turn everyone else against Mouse, even if she can’t get her willing wee slavey back again.

Sally Tuff thinks everything is going her way at last – her school sports mistress Miss Granley has come to find and save them from Paradise Island, so she thinks. But an overheard conversation between Miss Granley and Miss Lush makes Sally question who is on her side.

New story “Daddy’s Darling” starts in this week’s issue. Not many Jinty stories were set during WWII (one exception being “Somewhere Over The Rainbow” by the same creative team, and another being “Song of the Fir Tree“, also drawn by Phil Townsend but with no credited writer at present). Lee Simons is a poor little rich girl – her father is over-protective of her because of the tragic deaths of her older brother who was killed when riding his bike, and her mother who got ill and died rapidly thereafter. Five years later Lee is chauffered around and tutored at home; but the war is about to change things as Mr Simons can no longer arrange everything just as he wishes.

In “Slave of the Mirror” Mia Blake is dead set on getting enough money to pay for modelling classes. At first she tries it the straight way, by doing extra tasks at the boarding house and hoping her sister will give her more pocket money; but soon the sinister girl in the mirror has her going about things in a rather less straightforward way, by sneaking off to a bathing beauty contest that her sister is bound to be up in arms about. She is doing well in the contest too, but Janet is outraged and swears she will soon put a stop to that!

Jinty 15 February 1975

Stories in this issue:

• The Jinx from St Jonah’s (artist Mario Capaldi and Mike White)
• Tricia’s Tragedy – first episode (artist Ana Rodriguez)
• Merry at Misery House (unknown artist – Merry; writer Terence Magee)
• The Kat and Mouse Game (artist Jim Baikie)
• Prisoners of Paradise Island (artist Trini Tinturé)
• Dora Dogsbody (artist José Casanovas)
• Bird-Girl Brenda (artist Phil Gascoine)
• Always Together… (artist Phil Townsend, writer Alison Christie)
• Do-It-Yourself Dot (artist Alf Saporito)
• Slave of the Mirror (artist Carlos Freixas)
• Jinty Made It Yourself – So Can You! (feature)

This issue is very close to Valentine’s Day, and so it features Katie Jinks receiving an appropriate heart-shaped card. What she doesn’t know is that her friends Liz and Sue are playing a trick on her – but as they soon find out, putting Katie into a romantic daze “means she’s a danger to life and limb! Our lives and our limbs!” How true – Katie jinxes her friends’ attempts to get a date for the Valentine Dance that night, while she herself gets an invite from the dishy lifeguard. Heh heh.

This issue has the first episode of “Tricia’s Tragedy“, following hard on the heels of the previous week’s final episode of the Alan Davidson-written “Jackie’s Two Lives“. It is seems pretty typical that a story by one artist / writer combination is often followed by another story from the same team, so while we do not have any definite indication that this story was also written by Alan Davidson, it seems a good likely hint. Tricia starts off the story by training in the local quarry pool because her family is too poor to use the public baths very often. We are told that if she can manage to win the Lloyd Trophy, then everything could change for her family.  But in the same few pages, her chance to continue using the quarry pool is dashed, by a complaint from the rich side of the family.

Merry is puzzled because someone else is playing practical tricks on the wardens in the reformatory – but they are tricks that go too far and will rebound on the joker. Of course everyone thinks it’s Merry who’s doing it while she knows it’s someone else – but who would have the nerve to do it, and why? Whatever the reasons, it spells trouble for Merry.

Kat is playing horrible tricks on Mouse but she is a careful and thorough worker, so all the ‘accidentally on purpose’ slips that Kat makes are undone by Mouse. The task that Mouse is trying to accomplish is to wash some expensive theatrical costumes, and it all goes off so well that Kat is driven to a desperate step to blacken Mouse’s name. She tries to chuck the hamper in a rubbish truck – but instead puts herself in the path of a passing motorbike, and hurts her leg badly!

Sally Tuff’s hockey team try to leave Paradise Island – they are not exactly prisoners, but they are tricked into staying as Miss Lush fools them into thinking that it doesn’t matter how little they train and how much they eat or drink – they are unbeatable no matter what! Sally knows different, but will she be able to do something about it?

It’s Beth’s birthday in “Always Together…” – as a small girl who doesn’t understand death, she is expecting her mother to come and give her a present, or at least to send her a card. Her brother and sister are working hard to make it a lovely birthday for her, as much as they can… but an unexpected visitor drops the bombshell that makes little Beth believe that her mother truly is dead. It is enough of a shock for her to fall down in a faint. Will the truth kill her, as her sister believes it might?

The girl in the mirror has Mia forging a number of letters, but this time in a good cause – she ends up clearing the Major’s name. Mia has also been noticed as someone who is pretty enough to make a living as a model – we are told this will lead to amazing developments later.

Jinty 21 September 1974

Stories in this issue:

• The Jinx From St Jonah’s (artist Mario Capaldi)
• Jackie’s Two Lives (artist Ana Rodriguez, writer Alan Davidson)
• Wenna the Witch (artist Carlos Freixas)
• Always Together… (artist Phil Townsend)
• Jinty Made It Herself… so can you! (craft feature)
• Do-It-Yourself Dot (artist Alf Saporito)
• Dora Dogsbody (artist José Casanovas)
• Bird-Girl Brenda (artist Phil Gascoine)
• The Hostess with the Mostest (artist Stanley Houghton)
• Left-Out Linda (artist Jim Baikie)
• Merry at Misery House (writer Terence Magee)
• Wild Horse Summer
• Angela’s Angels (artist Leo Davy)

I have been on a bit of a hiatus recently due to a very busy patch at work and some achy wrists from too much typing. Things have now settled down on both fronts so hopefully I will be able to ease myself back into blogging – and of course Mistyfan has been keeping things going on the blog with a recent focus on stories published in other titles and issues of other titles too.

This is issue 20 of Jinty and it feels quite thick and substantial – on counting the pages, it seems this was still running at a 40 page length at this point. There’s certainly quite a lot in it – the Katie Jinx story is a four-pager which continues a short story arc about Katie learning how to do hypnotism. She’s not quite as successful as she thinks she is being, because her school chums are fooling her by pretending to be hypnotized! But can she hypnotize a charging prize porker before it flattens her? I suspect not!

In “Jackie’s Two Lives“, Jackie meets Mrs Mandell for the first time. Of course she has to lie to her family in order to do that. That is only the tip of the iceberg, as Mrs Mandell starts to manipulate her further. It sounds so innocuous but it will all end badly, as we know.

Wenna is being persecuted as a witch – her local friends are being prevented from seeing her by their prejudiced parents. In fact the whole class of her year have been kept away from school – very cruel! Not surprisingly, Wenna takes this as a cue to run away.

The family in “Always Together…‘ are already runaways – elder sister Jilly is shocked to read in the paper that the water they have been using in cooking is polluted and likely to make them ill. Indeed, they all end up coming down with something. Jilly bravely keeps things going but once they are better there are the continuing challenges of before. How will they get enough money to eat and sustain themselves? Jilly’s talent for sketching will hopefully help but that might not be enough, because the little family are still not very strong and healthy.

In “Jinty Made It Herself” the reader is advised on how to adapt an old jumper into a different piece of clothing such as a tank top.

Linda is feeling very left-out in the story of the same name. Her mother has remarried and she has a step-sister, which rather spikes Linda’s plan of being expelled from school so that she can hang out with her mother and be as close as they were before everything changed. Step-sister Lorette seems rather nice and is certainly trying hard to be friends but Linda is having none of it. What’s more, when she does try to make amends by cooking tea, it all seems to go wrong and she is unhappier than ever.

Merry at Misery House is unhappy because her parents are suffering money troubles due to her father being taken ill. The other reformatory girls come up with a plan to earn a bit of cash that Merry can send off home. Unfortunately the way they earn it involves exposing themselves to illness, and soon the whole of Misery House starts to come down with virulent influenza. Yikes, that’s a real killer.

Daphne of “Wild Horse Summer” is made to go out picking sloes with the other orphanage children – everyone’s being very kind but all Daphne wants to do is to see the splendid white horse that she is secretly making friends with. On her ride, though, she spots that the farmhouse is on fire, with no-one left there to put it out! Her secret will be out but she has to alert everyone.

Finally, “Angela’s Angels” features a daring rescue from a crashed light plane – nurse Sharon rescues her hero, Neil Crosby, a tennis star. Fat lot of thanks she gets from him when he realises that he is paralysed and may never be able to walk again! There are lots of anguished faces in the beautiful art by Leo Davy.

Jinty #5, 8 June 1974

• The Jinx from St Jonah’s (artist Mario Capaldi)
• Calling All Cassidy Fans! – competition
• The Haunting of Form 2B (artist Rodrigo Comos)
• Gwen’s Stolen Glory
• Make-Believe Mandy (artist Ana Rodriguez)
• Merry at Misery House (writer Terence Magee, unknown artist – Merry)
• Do-It-Yourself Dot (artist Alf Saporito)
• Dora Dogsbody (writer Terence Magee, artist José Casanovas)
• Pony Parade 5: Trust Spotty
• The Snobs and the Scruffs
• A Dream for Yvonne (artist Miguel Quesada)
• Gail’s Indian Necklace (artist Phil Gascoine)
• Desert Island Daisy (artist Robert MacGillivray)
• Angela’s Angels (artist Leo Davy)
• Jinty Made It Herself…So Can You! – feature

Katie’s jinxing has a water theme this week, from jinxing water skiers to having the swimming team walk miles in the rain.

Judy tries to get help from the police about the haunting, but of course they’re not going to believe a thing like that. And Judy is even more terrified to realise that whatever is causing the haunting and making her friends dress like Victorian girls is going to target her next!

Gwen is riding high on the glory she has stolen. Of course that means a fall sooner or later, and it is already starting. Julie Waring is getting suspicious and has also overheard Gwen’s troubled conscience speaking out loud. Is Gwen about to be caught out?

The girls try to bust out of Misery House, but they not only fail but are also duped into playing a cruel trick on Carla, who was caught during the escape. One up to Misery House, but we know there will be a next time.

Angela’s Angels are accused of stealing, but it turns out the patient was foisting the blame onto them. We see acid-drop Angela has a heart: she sticks up for the Angels when they are accused and covers up for one somewhat errant Angel later on.

The scheming girls did not mean Yvonne to take a fall down the stairs when they soap the soles of her shoes, and only her acrobatic skills save her. It doesn’t cut much ice with jealous Lisa though, who is furious when Yvonne is chosen over her for the Dance of the Four Cygnets.

Miss Madden’s test for Mandy this week is very odd, even for her. She has Mandy dress up like a princess and then puts her in a posh room, where a two-way mirror enables Miss Madden and her colleagues to watch Mandy. Then Mandy panics for some reason when she hears the tune from a music box. Now what could have brought that on?

The influence of the Indian necklace has Gail’s friends turning away from her while she gets very sneaky and deceptive in getting what she wants. Daisy’s Victorian employers turn up their noses at coconuts and are not impressed with her fishing. It all ends up with their going hungry and Daisy slipping away, full of fish, so they don’t lumber her again. Dora helps out a dog that is being mistreated, but makes sure the dog doesn’t go to the dogs’ hotel either.

Jinty #40, 1 March 1975

Stories in this issue:

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

Katie fools a pony-napping gang in the cover story – there are some crooks who are stealing away the foals of some wild ponies and selling them to a nearby pony riding school. You’d think the school would soon spot that the ponies are wild, but the crooks tell them that ‘they’ll soon settle down’! Well, luckily Katie has hitched a couple of rides – first on one of the mother ponies trekking after her stolen baby, and then in the truck taking the ponies away. So she soon foils the plans, and is a hero to the neighbourhood.

Tricia’s tragedy takes place in this issue – cousin Diana dives too close to Tricia when she is in the pool, and the next thing Tricia knows, Diana seems stunned… unconscious! and when she wakes up, suddenly the cousin has been struck blind.

In Merry at Misery House, she is trying to get to the bottom of the mystery of the sinister figure – the joker who is turning the place upside down, but only at times when Merry is blamed for the pranks! But at last the prankster gets Miss Ball dismissed as deputy warden – and Merry finally gets a clue as to what is happening. We are promised that she will be unmasking the joker – next week.

“The Kat and Mouse Game” is nearing its climax. Mouse is still dancing Kat’s part and letting her take the credit, but is hurt because Kat doesn’t seem to be acting like a real friend and taking any interest in Mouse’s small dance solo. The scheming Kat plots to sabotage even this small triumph – but we can tell that it will rebound on her, one way or another. The sample page on the story post shows you what happens in the following week’s episode…

The Prisoners of Paradise Island aren’t yet seeing through the luxury trap that Miss Lush has set for the hockey team. Sally Tuff has managed to get out a radio message to Miss Granley, their sports mistress – will she be the saving grace?

It is the last episode of Always Together…. Little sister Beth is desperately ill but all is sorted out in the final few pages – even to the extent of restoring the lost mother and the family home!

Finally, in “Slave of the Mirror“, Mia is still being manipulated by the mirror at the times when she feels most resentful for her sister’s bossy ways. But nice old Major Rose has build Mia a beach hut that she can escape to when she feels stressed out. She does so, and prepares to go for a dip – unaware that she is being watched by two men. Are they sinister stalkers such as we would expect them to be nowadays, or far more benign?