Tammy 10 March 1979

Cover artist: John Richardson

• Nurse Grudge (artist Tony Coleman)
• A Girl Called Steve (artist Diane Gabbot)
• My Terrible Twin (artist Juliana Buch)
• The Moon Stallion (artist Mario Capaldi) – final episode
• Bessie Bunter
• Molly Mills and the Portrait Painter (artist Douglas Perry, writer Maureen Spurgeon) – first episode
• Unlucky for Some (artist John Armstrong) – Strange Story
• Wee Sue (artist Robert MacGillivray)
• Thursday’s Child (artist Juan Solé, writer Pat Mills)
• Just Jogging Along! (feature)

It’s Friday the 13^th (did you know there is a Friday 13^th in a month that begins on a Sunday?). So this issue of Tammy is being profiled to commemorate. It’s not just because the theme on the cover – Dracula vs Tammy – should make it a Halloween issue but isn’t. It’s also because the number 13 is the theme of this issue’s Strange Story, which appears below. Could the mysterious 13^th floor in the story have been one inspiration for “The Thirteenth Floor” in Scream!, perhaps? It is a bit like how Scream’s 13^th floor works in the way it teaches arrogant Annette a lesson. All that’s missing is Max the computer. Oh well, judge for yourself. It sure looks like Bella Barlow’s Aunt Gert was the inspiration for the workhouse matron anyway.

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There is no Bella yet. Instead, the first story is part two of “Nurse Grudge”. It was extremely rare for Tammy to have a nursing story (the same went for Jinty). It’s also a revenge story, where Greta Jones starts as a student nurse at her dad’s old hospital to get revenge on the staff who got him dismissed 20 years ago. His old notebook is full of the details of their turning against him – but no details at all on why they turned against him or just what he was dismissed for. Now why did he leave that part out of his journal? Greta has noticed the omission but not looked into it at all before starting her vendetta against the hospital – and perhaps she should have done…?

Tammy’s adaptation of “The Moon Stallion” TV series ends this week. Next week is “The Outcast of Oakbridge”.

Bessie sneaks into town after Miss Stackpole, who is going to a dance. Hijinks ensue with Miss Stackpole and Bessie ending up in the same farmer’s truck and then having to use an old raincoat and sacking against pouring rain while trudging into town. Miss Stackpole finds she has missed the dance because she got her dates muddled, but the raincoat wins her first prize at a tramps’ ball instead.

It’s a real turnabout for Molly Mills in her new story, but it’s one she could well do without. Lady Stanton turns against Molly when a painter prefers to paint Molly than her. Then Molly is very surprised to find her arch-enemy Pickering suddenly coming over to her side and being supportive against Lady Stanton’s jealousy. Now he couldn’t possibly be doing that unless there’s something in it for him – but what? Is he hoping for a group portrait with Molly or something?

From the moment Stephanie “Steve” Sutton has arrived at her father’s archaeological dig, it has been looking more and more like enemies are trying to scare her away. They certainly are doing a very good job of scaring her in this episode. Now she’s being dragged into a terrifying magician’s act.

“My Terrible Twin” is beginning to turn around – but just as she does, her remand home past begins to catch up. First, an unreformed girl from the remand home wants Lindy to help her shoplift, and then swears revenge when Lindy refuses. Then Lindy’s enemy Helen discovers her past and is going to tell the boss!

Sometimes Wee Sue had two-part or even three-part stories, and this is the final episode of one of them. So far her class’s skiing holiday abroad has been disappointing because the whole setup looks a cheat. It turns out to be a troubled business with the owner reduced to running it as a one-man-band (chef, ski instructor, DJ etc) while not having the slightest idea how to do all the roles. Does one of Sue’s famous brainstorms save the day? No, it’s more a lucky fluke (and extremely improbable one) that turns everything around.

Thursday’s legs are mysteriously paralysed after her fall. However, Thursday has no doubt that the evil Union Jack and Julie’s strange grudge against her, which caused the fall, are behind this. Then comes a turning point: Julie is now willing to explain just what her problem is with Thursday.

Tammy 17 February 1979

Cover artist: Giorgio Giorgetti

Contents

• Mouse (artist Maria Dembilio)
• A Girl Called Steve (artist Diane Gabbot)
• My Terrible Twin (artist Juliana Buch)
• Shadow on the Stage (artist Tony Coleman)
• The Moon Stallion (artist Mario Capaldi) – adapted from TV series
• Bessie Bunter
• Molly Mills and the Haunted Hall (artist Douglas Perry, writer Maureen Spurgeon)
• The Holden Hunt – Strange Story (artist Bob Harvey)
• Make a Valentine Card…and Cookies – feature
• Wee Sue (artist Mike White)
• Thursday’s Child (artist Juan Solé, writer Pat Mills)
• Have a Hearty Party! – feature

 

In honour of Valentine’s Day we profile Tammy’s Valentine issue for 1979, which I have just acquired.

The cover leads off the Valentine theme. Unusually, it is drawn by Giorgio Giorgetti instead of the regular cover artist, John Richardson. Tammy is the great lover on the cover instead of boys for the Cover Girls.

Inside, there are two Valentine features: one gives instructions for making Valentine cards and cookies, and the other gives tips on throwing a Valentine’s Day party. Inside, Wee Sue honours the event – in spite of Miss Bigger, who lumbers the whole class with a monstrous homework paper on Valentine’s Day because she’s upset at not getting a Valentine. Sue comes up with a solution once she acquires a box of reject Valentine cards – send them to Miss Bigger. Eventually this teaches a tight-fisted manager a lesson into the bargain when Miss Bigger takes him for the lover who sent her the Valentines. When you think about it, he and Miss Bigger would make a perfect match.

Tammy could have used Bessie Bunter and the Storyteller to enhance the Valentine theme as well. There are plenty of Bessie Valentine episodes they could have recycled and the Storyteller could have given a Strange Story with some romance in it. Instead, the Cliff House heating is busted and the caretaker is ill. Bessie ‘helps’ Miss Stackpole to fix it while trying to take advantage to swipe food from the kitchen, but it rebounds in the end. The Strange Story has an anti-fox hunting message. Lee Parsons is wearing a fox fur while running through a wood during an emergency. All of a sudden it feels and sounds like there is a fox hunt after her, and it’s terrifying. It mysteriously stops when Lee drops the fur, and later she finds out the date is the anniversary of the old annual Holden fox hunt.

You may have noticed from the lineup above that there is no Bella Barlow. Yes, she’s on hiatus. In a few weeks we learn she has been sailing home to Britain after two years of adventures and misadventures in various countries abroad, including Canada (Montreal Olympics) and Australia. Of course trouble isn’t far away once she docks, which sets the stage for her 1979 stories…but we’re getting a bit far ahead.

Tammy did many adaptations from books and TV series. This time she’s running an adaptation of “The Moon Stallion”. It is in the picture story format but uses story text in each panel instead of dialogue balloons.

“Mouse” is really ahead of its time for portraying child abduction, international custody disputes and girls being sold into forced marriages years before “Not Without My Daughter” and “Sold”. Mary “Mouse” Malloway is kidnapped by her father and brought to Sicily, where her tyrannical grandmother intends to sell her into a forced marriage in exchange for a vineyard. But in this episode, after Mouse makes it clear to her father how unhappy she is about that, he seems to be discreetly teaching her a few things that could be useful for an escape. Could he be actually helping her to do so?

“My Terrible Twin” was reprinted by popular demand in 1984. Lindy is on parole from a remand home. She has stopped the shoplifting that got her convicted, but she is having lapses of thoughtlessness and irresponsibility, and her sister Moira suffers for it. By the end of this episode Moira has had enough and she’s in tears, but she is failing to see that what Lindy is doing now could be considerate this time.

Jan Gregg is being harassed by a shadowy figure at Olivia Oldborne Memorial Stage School. It’s even made several attempts on her life. Now the Shadow has come right on stage and cornered Jan, saying “Little fool, to think you could ever rival the great Olivia Oldborne!” Hmmm, now that sounds like a clue!

Stephanie “Steve” Sutton is also being harassed while accompanying her father’s archaeological dig at Clambourne Bay. The villagers round on Steve, saying the dig has brought a curse on the whole village because it disturbed a monster called “the Acum”. But it isn’t long before we see clues that the Acum is a hoax and enemies are responsible for whatever’s going on.

Despite the title for the latest Molly story, the hall is not haunted. The ghost is a cover story for Molly’s high-spirited kid brother Billy, whom she’s trying to hide in Stanton Hall while her family visits a sick relative. But Molly will be fired if she is found out, and Pickering, who suspects what she is doing, will be very happy to see that. And this time it looks like Pickering really is going to catch Billy.

“Thursday’s Child” was one of Pat Mills’ most popular Tammy stories and one of her very best. Life has been good to Thursday Brown until she decides to use a Union Jack flag for a bedspread, despite her mother’s warnings that there is something about that flag. Soon after, a girl named Julie appears in Thursday’s bed, who claims to be Thursday’s daughter from the future. But for some reason Julie has nothing but hate for her future mother and makes her life a misery. The reason for Julie’s hatred seems to be linked to being paraplegic – and at the end of this episode, Thursday suddenly finds she has lost the use of her legs for no apparent reason, and Julie is gloating over her.

Tammy Annual 1985

• The Button Box (artist Mario Capaldi)
• Bessie Bunter
• Animal Magic
• The Town Crier – Strange Story (artist John Johnston)
• Fun Time
• Animal Magic
• Molly Mills and the Festive Season (artist Douglas Perry)
• Are You Really Nice to Know? (quiz)
• Animal Magic
• Bella (artist John Armstrong)
• The Indian Blanket – Strange Story (artist Maria Dembilio)
• The Price of Fame – text story (artist Tony Coleman)
• The Crazyees (artist Joe Collins)
• Wee Sue (artist Robert MacGillivray)
• Stick with Us! (feature)
• Fun Time
• A Girl Called Steve (artist Diane Gabbot)
• Be a “Wise Owl” and Decorate a Plant Pot (feature)
• Christmas Exchange – text story (artist Douglas Perry)
• Bessie Bunter
• Lend a Helping Hand (feature)
• Choose Chocolate (feature)
• Who’s a Pretty Boy, Then? (feature)
• Odds and Ends (feature)
• Polar Bears and Arctic Hares – feature (artist John Johnston)
• Fun Time
• Animal Magic
• Bessie Bunter
• Be a Cover Girl! (feature)
• Hidden Melody – Strange Story (artist Tony Coleman)
• Wee Sue (artist Robert MacGillivray)
• Pam of Pond Hill (artist Bob Harvey, writer Jay Over)

Continuing the theme of Pam’s appearances in the Tammy annual, this Pam story takes a break from the Christmas theme where everything’s gearing up for a Christmas celebration but fate threatens to throw a Grinch into the works. Instead, the story focuses on exam nerves. It’s the history exam that’s the biggest worry of all for Pam, and considering that she has never been strong academically, what will the results be?

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This annual is the last Tammy annual to have Bessie Bunter. One story has a guest appearance from Billy Bunter (below), so at least Bessie ends on a high. Meanwhile, this is the first annual to have The Button Box, and the button Bev selects tells an anti-fox hunting story and a harsh squire who is shocked into changing his ways after his fox traps nearly kill his own niece.

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The serial reprinted for the 1985 annual is the 1979 story, “A Girl Called Steve” (short for Stephanie). It’s a mystery story, but is unusual in that Steve gets two mysteries to solve, one after the other. The first comes when Steve joins her father’s archaeological dig in the caves at Clambourne Bay. Even on the journey up there, it becomes blatantly obvious that there are some very sinister types out to scare her away. Things get even worse when the superstitious locals tell Steve that the Acum (a monster said to haunt the cave) has cursed the village in retaliation for the archaeological dig, and they join the campaign to get rid of Steve and her father. But is there really a monster behind it all, or is whatever in the caves more to do with human greed? Once the Clambourne mystery is solved and Steve returns home, she soon embarks on mystery number two when the council wants to bulldoze the old tram lines and weird things start happening there.

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In the Bella story, Jed and Gert embark on one of their most idiotic dodges to make money – Gert running aerobics classes, despite the fact that she is overweight, out of condition, has no training or qualifications, and is no spring chicken. But it’s poor Bella who ends up carrying the can and fleeing the angry aerobics class once they realise they’ve been conned. However, this is Christmas, so the Bella story has to resolve that way.

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The text stories are new, but the reprints increase. The Christmas-themed Molly story is a repeat. It looks like nowhere for the Stantons to have Christmas because Pickering wrecked the hall by lighting a match in a kitchen full of gas. Claire suggests London’s East End where Molly’s family are, but are the Stantons too posh for a Cockney party? The Wee Sue stories and Strange Stories are more repeats. And it could be the cover is a reprint as well, possibly taken from Princess Tina, as the Katy covers were. Still, the annual and its content are solid and can be read again and again.